Freeze, Police!

philosophicalcop — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 17:10:19 +0000

It never ceases to amaze me. From time to time I stand at a critical or dangerous incident and think, “what on earth are you thinking?” I started this as a young patrol officer when suspects would continue to fight with 3, 4, or 5 police officers who were subduing them. Sometimes I would say out-loud, “Dude, do you think you can actually win this…knock it off!” Of course that was generally ineffective.

Anyhow, last shift the officers who work for me had to arrest a guy for beating up his wife. Nothing too serious on the injuries, but he was going to jail for certain. Who is there to arrest him? Count with me here, folks: three armed police officers (guns drawn), one police sergeant, one police canine (sounding quite hungry) and the Philosophical Cop.

The officers order him to “Freeze” and put his hands up. His response? A highly intellectual debate on whether we have the constitutional right to be interrupting his evening.

Huh?

Say for a minute we did not. Then he is staring down 5 rogue copsand a hungry German Sheperd. That almost seems like a better motivation to follow our directions!

Fortunately for this particular genius (not so much for the pooch, who didn’t get to “play”) he finally gave up. The whole thing just reminded me that police work can be summed up in a few little sound bites. The most prominent one:

“What the hell were you thinking, man?”

Domestic Violence 101

philosophicalcop — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:45:00 +0000

I received an email from a college student doing research on police response to domestic violence calls. They were interested in knowing (1) why domestic calls were so dangerous for police officers, and (2) how we handled these incidents. I thought they were both good questions. And since more than half of my calls in the past decade have been domestics, it is fair to say that cops deal with more of these than any other single problem.

Love Hurts: Why Domestics Are So Dangerous

Domestics can be plain deadly for cops. Even small towns like this are not immune. The parties are upset and emotional. Often they are under the influence. More times than I can count, both parties turn on the police when we get there. Countless victims have assaulted officers when they realized that we planned to take their spouse to jail. “I just wanted you to stop him. I can’t live without him. I love him.” And the fight is on with both halves of the problem. These are people whose most sacred and safe relationships have fallen apart. Add a tablespoon of authority and stand back! For good background on policing domestic violence, check out this link.

Domestic Violence 101: What Cops Do When They Arrive

In a sentence, we attempt to calm the parties, separate them, and interview to determine if a crime has occurred. If there has been a crime, we arrest a person the lawyers call the, “Primary Aggressor.” This can range from the person who started the fight to the person who has the worst injuries. Sometimes we can’t tell, and both people are off to the big house.

I have always noted the increasingly difficult and complicated job that cops are expected to perform. Remember that a cop can be a 22-year-old former student with a GED certificate. God bless that guy, and some of the best cops I know come from blue collar backgrounds. Just remember that at the crime scene at 2:00 AM we expect him or her to make complex legal and ethical decisions. All while being assaulted, cussed out, spit on, and generally treated like trash.

Okay, One War Story

I responded to a “routine” domestic violence call. Now my boss would scoff at the term, since cops all learn that no call is routine. Sure, but after 10 years of false alarms and situations that had ended an hour before we got there, anyone can get complacent. I was a block away and locked up my breaks when I saw this nightmare in the street: In an active lane of traffic was a woman lying on her back, covered in blood. A male (her loving husband) straddled her waist, and was repeatedly stabbing her in the chest with a butcher knife. Each time he pulled out the knife, I saw blood flying over his head. He let out a grunt with each penetration of her chest.

It turns out he had just discovered his darling was “seeing someone else” and he felt that was not appropriate. So why not just kill her, he figured. She survived, by the way, and he did too, albeit just barely. More on that after I retire. Hopefully he will be in prison forever. Good outcome to an incident, and one that shows how hot these calls really are. In over a decade, this is one of the few that kept me up a few nights.

I hope these explanations and my little anecdote provide a bit of brief insight into a complex and dangerous problem. Let me know and we can talk more about it…

If you arrived at this post because you or a friend have been a victim, please call your local police department or 9-1-1 for help. Do not assume things will get better by themselves; they will not. Also see this site for excellent victim support links.

The Philosophical Cop Police Blog » domestic violence

Freeze, Police!

Domestic Violence 101