Thoughts?
Thoughts?
The Minority Marksman.
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
-a Ch'an Buddhist axiom.
I watched about the first minute. 1:08, actually.
Pass. I don't need to watch movies to know what its like to be a cop, and if you do then you have no idea.
There are a ton of places to be a cop. There are some universal truths to police work and there are some that will be region and agency specific. In the end, this is the best sucky job on the planet. The lows are terrible. The highs are fantastic. You need some self awareness and some support systems to survive it, but it can be done and many do it quite successfully.
I will tell you from my own experiences there are things that still suck to remember. A child shot in the neck. Begging my car to go faster and you idiots to get out of my way so I can get to a kid floating face down in a pool. Burying a friend. Burying a beat partner. The times you were too late. The person who hung themselves anyway. They suck.
It's awesome, too, though. I just had a guy plead to 30 years today. That's a guy who won't be robbing fast food joints for awhile. I was instrumental in making that happen, and what I do daily matters. I got a thank you card from a woman shot in the chest on Mother's Day years ago to thank us for catching the shooter. I've had a random patron pay for my table's meal at BW3s when I was in uniform. It's not thankless. It's only thankless in the media.
More later, I got a run, but I don't give two sideways farts what this guy thinks being a cop is like.
I am not a Yeager fan...at all. However, he states some truth in this particular video. I have been investigated through IA and criminally (in-custody death & OIS) politically maligned, written tickets/arrested the wrong folks (including LEO's)...and been ostracized for it, been a political pawn because I wrote the Chiefs buddy a ticket. I could go on and on. I survived thus far...23 years in retirement at this point. There are going to be landmines. You just have to be smart enough to avoid them. Not saying you have to kiss an ass to do it either. I have paid the price for not being a management tool and I can go home and sleep fairly well knowing that. A few years ago nyeti posted what I have in my sig line over on LF. It rings truer everyday I get closer to retirement. I have seen guys be up an admin persons ass so far they could taste their lunch. I have seen those same dudes fall out of favor and out of law enforcement to go work security at Target. I will never hold an upper level management position. I'm good with that. My guys know where I stand and they appreciate it. That's good enough for me.
As far as warriors not getting jobs, he's wrong. Dead nuts wrong. And there are 'warriors' on the street that have never seen a combat zone. Firearms instructors here don't just rubber stamp anyone...maybe in TN(?). The physical standards we are mandated to pass in BLET are the same for male/female. The last 2 true rookies we hired were both terminated within a year. We just hired 3 more so we will see if they shake out but if they don't their ass will be gone too.
There is a lot more to it than what this guy postulates. When I was in BLET one of our instructors stated that law enforcement is on a pendulum. It swings back and forth over time and if we stayed in it long enough we would see it both ways. His statement rings true now because when I started it was fun...now, not so much.
Law enforcement is a thankless job. It can be tough. It can also be great. Depends on what you are willing to put in to it.
I'm not in love with some of the ways he says things, but if you can get past that, he's really just saying the same things that nyeti always does on that subject. "You're just a hanger for that uniform," etc. (I'm not a cop, and every time I even *think* about the idea, nyeti's posts remind me that it's a bad idea, for me, at least. Thanks, nyeti!)
Perhaps my question misses the point (my motivations for an LE position have no connection to Yeager) , but how does someone like him get hired 4 times without political connections of his own?I was under the impression one termination from LE was a career ender, and in non-uniformed careers being sacked three times would be a red flag.
I also dont buy the claim he has no adverse paperwork. Ive seen guys get canned from the military pretty fast, but even in those cases there was a pattern of bad behavior before The Last Straw.
The Minority Marksman.
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
-a Ch'an Buddhist axiom.
I think Yeager was elected a couple of times.
"For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --
Problem cops often get bounced around from dept. to dept., at least in smaller jurisdictions.
Originally Posted by GardoneVT
This. There are a multitude of tiny departments that rely on Reserve (unpaid) officers and who aren't real picky about who they hire. If you are already certified and will save them some cash, they are the "second chance" department for many people who stepped on their crank at their paid job.
I try not to think about Yeager.
The difference is that nyeti was actually a cop for almost 20 years in an environment that Yeager is basing on movies (and wanted to do 30, but I got hurt and was forced out kicking and screaming...not fired). Personally, I don't think Yeager would have made probation at a large squared away agency for him to even comment. He was a "Chief" of a one man department in a town of less than 600 people. We often worked party calls with more people. The hard part is figuring out how to function as a cop. It is not about shooting, what holster you are using, or anything most folks on these forums relate to. It is not having a good cry when a crack whore puts her baby in a microwave. It is trying to figure out how child protective services can give a baby back to heroin addicted parents living in a car with needles everywhere and the baby is drinking milk from a bottle so rotten it looks like cottage cheese. Watching mans inhumanity towards man daily. Dealing with some of the sickest people you could imagine regularly. You need to learn to deal,with the internal backstabbing that goes on, not watching movies about it. The back stabbing goes on because unlike any other business there are no stratus's that are present elsewhere. Cops are pretty much the same educationally, morally, backgrounds, etc. The only way to climb is over the backs of folks just like you. Some are cut out for being climbers,some the back, and some (like me) who just dropped out of the process and found happiness on the street and not in the station. A lot of this is simply about being a professional. That is the problem, many in LE are not. There is a massive shortage of leadership and only supervision and micro-management. There is a massive lack of people driven by working to be a nobel profession and treating it like a profession rather than a job.
Here is the truth. A ton of people in cop work shouldn't be. A ton of people running police departments shouldn't be. A vast majority of the politicians who are the communities elected leaders who are tasked with providing police services have no business in that endeavor. Being a cop is an awesome thing. This is especially true if you can figure out how to do it right. As Pat Rogers says "you may love the job, but the job does not love you". That is simply an understanding that takes time to work through. I was lucky that Pete Ambriz (RIP stud), my second FTO got that through my skull early so it wasn't a surprise and I was aware of it.
Nothing wrong with being a cop. The key is to be a cop in a place that wants the policing you want to do. I was very picky. Some don't have the background to be picky and match the agency to your goals. That is a lot of the issue.
Oh yea.....I only made it to 1.28, so I may not have the whole grasp of what his "expert opinion" is.
Last edited by Dagga Boy; 05-27-2015 at 08:11 PM.
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard. Snarky and easily butt hurt. Favorite animal is the Cape Buffalo....likely indicative of a personality disorder.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
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