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12/08/2011 8:53 am
"Looks like my former co-worker might be out of law enforcement for a little while. Turns out he's doing consecutive life sentences for murder."
He could say he's still in law enforcement. He's just experiencing it from an alternate perspective.
12/08/2011 8:40 am
artie_fufkin wrote:
"a cop who got fired after he went to jail for rape"
"On the other hand, we probably would have hired this guy. Particularly if he was a minority."
Minorities?!? This department's idea of diversity is partnering a guy with an Irish surname with a guy with an Italian surname on dispatch. No blacks. No Asians. There's one female detective and one bilingual officer, unless you count the guy who learned to speak Spanish during his hitch with the Navy Seals in Nicaragua. Which leads to unintentionally-hilarious passages in reports that read: "As the involved party speaks only Spanish, this officer had to await for the arrival of Officer Shaughnessy to translate ..."
Still, Officer Shaughnessy is fluent and a step up from one of his precedessors. A few years ago, I was invited along on a raid of a rooming house. There were about 37 Guatemalans living in a decrepit 2-family. I ended up doing most of the translation because the "Spanish-speaking officer" was unable to translate the word "cockroaches."
They can speak. They just choose not to. Say stupid shit and see how the react.
12/07/2011 4:35 pm
Our department was on a huge diversity push when I got higher. There was probably a 4-5 year period where I was the last white male hired. During that time, we hired one black guy who had been convicted of attempted rape as a juvenile (the record is sealed, but it happened in our town and several of the older cops were involved in the investigation) and another black guy who had been fired from his previous job after several incidents of domestic violence.
The rapist was married when he was hired and he and his wife moved into a house in the west part of the city. About 6 months after he started, we were told that he wasn't permitted to be assigned or respond to the west end of town because his wife had obtained an order of protection that prohibited him from being armed within 1,000 feet of the residence, regardless of whether or not he was on duty. Later, when I was working a midnight shift, I was the senior officer (with all of about 6 years seniority) and I had to field a call from a citizen who wanted to make a complaint that after she had made a report to him, she had seen him parked in front of her house in his marked police car each of the last three nights and she felt he was stalking her. When I left the department about a year later, he was still employed, but I found out he was later fired after a female complained that he insisted she agree to a date with him during a traffic stop.
The other guy was one of the dumbest humans I ever met. Coupled with the fact that he had to weigh about 350 pounds when we hired him, he was just a treat to work with. He got fired around the time I left. I came back to the department during law school and worked as a dispatcher part time. One morning when I was working, we received a request to send officers to his house to make an arrest attempt because he had kidnapped and raped his ex-girlfriend the night before.
Have I mentioned lately how little I miss working for the police department?
ETA- Holy crap. I was looking at Missouri's court website because I was curious what ever happened with that case (he was convicted) and found this. Looks like my former co-worker might be out of law enforcement for a little while. Turns out he's doing consecutive life sentences for murder. We only hired the best.
12/07/2011 3:31 pm
"a cop who got fired after he went to jail for rape"
"On the other hand, we probably would have hired this guy. Particularly if he was a minority."
Minorities?!? This department's idea of diversity is partnering a guy with an Irish surname with a guy with an Italian surname on dispatch. No blacks. No Asians. There's one female detective and one bilingual officer, unless you count the guy who learned to speak Spanish during his hitch with the Navy Seals in Nicaragua. Which leads to unintentionally-hilarious passages in reports that read: "As the involved party speaks only Spanish, this officer had to await for the arrival of Officer Shaughnessy to translate ..."
Still, Officer Shaughnessy is fluent and a step up from one of his precedessors. A few years ago, I was invited along on a raid of a rooming house. There were about 37 Guatemalans living in a decrepit 2-family. I ended up doing most of the translation because the "Spanish-speaking officer" was unable to translate the word "cockroaches."
12/07/2011 3:28 pm
Fors, I got called into the office and told I have to be nice to people because I called a lady stupid. I didnt even really call her stupid, I asked her, "are you stupid"? So now I am an angel of political correctness. The more rude people are to me the friendlier I am. I only hope they pick up on he sarcasm.
12/07/2011 3:00 pm
"and another cop who got a suspension for punching a prisoner."
That would never have raised an eyebrow in our department. I remember one afternoon I got into a scuffle with a prisoner in our booking room. That room shared a common wall with the chief's office. The same chief who suspended me for using the computer walks in and asks what the commotion was. The prisoner immediately blurts out "he punched me." The chief's resopnse was, "you probably deserved it. Keep up the good work" and turned and walked back out of the room.
"a cop who got fired after he went to jail for rape"
On the other hand, we probably would have hired this guy. Particularly if he was a minority.
12/07/2011 2:35 pm
I guess if I screw up I will either have to find away around my gag reflex or take my lumps. I think the latter is more appealing.
Last time on the road I saw an interesting Australian documentary on Daniel Ellsberg, the guy who outed the Pentagon Papers and proved the government's story about the Vietnam war was a bunch of BS. When it came time to go to trial, the defense hired the usual panel of psychologists etc. to help them select a sympathetic jury. The panel's recommendation was, "don't have any middle-aged men, those guys have mostly all made major compromises with their values to gain success at work, at they'll be deeply resentful of Ellsberg's idealism and self-sacrifice."
I think lots and lots of guys somehow find themselves choosing the former, and spend the rest of their lives in denial, consumed by bitter regret.
12/07/2011 1:11 pm
Insults dont bug me. I dont know how people do this job and maintain thin skin.
What would frustrate me more than anything else is the lying. I don't know how many reports I've read of drivers pulled over for a license or registration violation who tell the cop that even though their license has been inactive for the past six years in an ironic coincidence this happens to be the day they were on their way to the DMV to get everything straightened out. The cop knows the driver is lying, and the driver knows the cop knows he's lying. So why bother lying about it?
I am suprised when people tell me the truth. It does make you cynical and that is likely why the job is so dog eat dog. Quickly you come to a point that you dont trust anyone. Then that turns you into being anti-social. It is a complicated web of dillusion that can take your own personality into a bitter place.
12/07/2011 1:04 pm
Insults dont bug me. I dont know how people do this job and maintain thin skin.
What would frustrate me more than anything else is the lying. I don't know how many reports I've read of drivers pulled over for a license or registration violation who tell the cop that even though their license has been inactive for the past six years in an ironic coincidence this happens to be the moment in time they were on their way to the DMV to get everything straightened out. The cop knows the driver is lying, and the driver knows the cop knows he's lying. So why bother lying about it?
12/07/2011 12:56 pm
Insults dont bug me. I dont know how people do this job and maintain thin skin.
12/07/2011 12:54 pm
"I got suspended once for unauthorized use of the REGIS computer system that provides criminal history information."
In the two decades I've been intermittently working here, I've known about two serious disciplinary actions - a cop who got fired after he went to jail for rape, and another cop who got a suspension for punching a prisoner.
The latter episode went something like this:
Prisoner: "Why don't you go home and fuck your mother?"
Cop: "My mother is dead."
Prisoner: "What did she die from? AIDS?"
*SMACK*
12/07/2011 11:51 am
There is some questionable stuff that goes on at any job. Like most jobs if you are not against inserting a mans penis into your throat you can get away with about anything. For me I just keep my personal life clean, do what I am supposed to at work and when I dont agree with something let my feelings me known. I guess if I screw up I will either have to find away around my gag reflex or take my lumps. I think the latter is more applealing. Police work is dod eat dog for sure. Turn your back and its buddy fuck time.
12/07/2011 11:17 am
Wow. I got suspended once for unauthorized use of the REGIS computer system that provides criminal history information. I was working a second job for a friend who had a PI business, and I was serving summonses to notify fathers that their baby's mama was putting the child up for adoption. Before going to serve the papers, I used the computer to do a background check just to make sure I knew who I was dealing with. Technically, since this was police-related activity, you aren't supposed to access their records. My bigger mistake was that the friend, Pat, had a long-standing issue with our then-chief and when the chief found out I was working for Pat and had used the computer for that purpose, he suspended me to deter others from working for Pat.
The kicker of it was, this was back when I still bowled quite a bit and was still decent at it. When they suspended me, I ended up bowling a tournament and made about $300 more than I would have made had I been at work. I probably didn't endear myself to the command staff when I thanked them upon my return.
12/07/2011 9:02 am
"Id add school resource officer to that to. Basicly a cop in the school. From what I have seen of that they are just a dumping ground for admin to pass their problems to."
The city I work in has an SRO program. The kids think the two SROs are a joke, but that's because of their personalities. One of the SROs is wimp who couldn't handle a beat, and the other got transferred from the drug unit after some malfeasance with some evidence. The drug unit busted a coke dealer, but the amount he was holding fell short of where a trafficking charge kicked in, so the detective added a couple of grams that was seized from another bust.
The whole case got chucked and the detective should have been canned, but it's almost impossible to fire anyone under civil service protection , so the chief stuck the detective behind a desk at the high school.Please explain the bolded?
We had a pretty goo SRO when we had one. He sucks as a cop in a really bad way but he tookth school thing serious. I couldnt deal with that petty shit and act like I cared. Plus like I said he was just the admin bitch for when tey didnt want to be the bad guys. Budget cts cause hat position to go away and now we get to put up with him on he road again.
I can't speak about Illinois, but Civil Service in Massachusetts is the equivalent of a lifetime contract. A few years ago, an off-duty cop - in his own personal vehicle with his wife in the passenger seat - initiated a pursuit of a drunk driving suspect. He called the station, and a cruiser responded. The cruiser eventually ended up against a tree. One of the cops in the cruiser nearly died, and the other one broke his leg in about six places. State Police investigated and found the off-duty cop was chiefly responsible for the crash - the drunk driving suspect was in fact not drunk but had just won a couple hundred bucks from the off-duty cop in an illegal poker game - and the chief of the local department reprimanded him. He wasn't fired. He wasn't suspended. A 1-page letter was placed in his file. The cop appealed to Civil Service, which overturned the chief's decision and forced him to remove the letter of reprimand from the cop's folder.
That's Civil Service in Massachusetts.
12/06/2011 6:12 pm
but he tookth school thing serious.
Shakespeare would be proud, but I recommend "but he tooketh school things seriously."