Roy Exum: A Police Officer’s Lament

  • Saturday, December 13, 2014
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

One morning earlier this week I was in a Cracker Barrel eating my breakfast when, two tables away, sat a guy with a close-cropped haircut talking with his wife. When she got up to look in the gift shop as he waited on the bill, I could see his windbreaker had the wording, “St. Louis Police Department,” so I couldn’t resist.

“A lot of folks down this way have had you guys in our prayers,” I told him and as he smiled and told me how much he appreciated it, he said something else. “I almost didn’t wear this but I’m really glad I did…you are about the sixth person who has said something nice to me. I can hardly wait to tell the guys back home.”

Two days later I was sitting with the Lookout Mountain Police Department at the annual Town Employee’s Annual Christmas Breakfast and the contrast wasn’t lost on me. Every year the people on Lookout Mountain contribute money so the police and streets crew each get a pretty sizable check. This year’s contributions didn’t skip a lick because if there is a finer bunch of people on earth I have yet to meet them.

As a matter of fact, I believe in every officer who wears a badge. Between the Chattanooga Police Department and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department we are immeasurably blessed and, down through the years, I’ve known enough highway patrol officers to certify those guys as saints. Oh, sure, I’ve gotten speeding tickets (because I deserved them) but when things really go bad I’ve seen I have been an eyewitness to police officers at their very best.

The reason I bring this up is because a friend sent me a letter written by a police officer that broke my heart. Allow me to share it:

* * *

TODAY I STOPPED CARING

By Lt. Daniel Furseth

DeForest, Wisconsin Police Department

Today, I stopped caring about my fellow man. I stopped caring about my community, my neighbors, and those I serve. I stopped caring today because a once noble profession has become despised, hated, distrusted, and mostly unwanted.

I stopped caring today because parents refuse to teach their kids right from wrong and blame us when they are caught breaking the law. I stopped caring today because parents tell their little kids to be good or “the police will take you away” embedding a fear from year one. Moms hate us in their schools because we frighten them and remind them of the evil that lurks in the world.

They would rather we stay unseen, but close by if needed, but readily available to “fix their kid.” I stopped caring today because we work to keep our streets safe from mayhem in the form of reckless, drunk, high, or speeding drivers, only to be hated for it, yet hated even more because we didn’t catch the drunk before he killed someone they may know.

Nevertheless, we are just another tool used by government to generate “revenue.” I stopped caring today because liberals hate the police as we carry guns, scare kids, and take away their drugs. We always kill innocent people with unjust violence. We are called bullies for using a taser during a fight, but are condemned further for not first tasing the guy who pulls a gun on us.

And if we do have to shoot, we are asked, “why didn’t you just shoot the gun out of their hand?” And when one of us is killed by the countless attacks that do happen (but are rarely reported in the mainstream media) the haters say, “It’s just part of the job.” I stopped caring today because conservatives hate us as we are “the government.” We try to take away their guns, freedoms, and liberty at every turn.

We represent a “police state” where “jackbooted badge-wearing thugs” randomly attack innocent people without cause or concern for constitutional rights. We are Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Rodney King all rolled into one lone police officer stopping to help change an old lady’s tire. I stopped caring today as no one wants us around, but instantly demands answers, results, arrests, when a crime takes place.

If a crime isn’t solved within the allocated 60 minutes it takes CSI on television, we are inept, incompetent, or covering something up. If we do get “lucky” it was just that and everyone with a Facebook account can post wonderful comments of how “they” would solve the case and how “we” are not nearly as clever.

I stopped caring today because a video of a cop six states away, from a department that you never heard of, screws up and forgets his oath of honor, thus firing up an internet lynch-mob of cop haters even though 99% of us work twice as hard not to end up in the news and to still be “the good guys.” We are “militarized” because we wear body armor and Kevlar helmets when shots are fired or rocks thrown at us and carry scary looking rifles even though everyone knows that they are easier to shoot and are more accurate than a handgun or a shotgun.

I stopped caring today because the culture of today’s instantly connected youth is only there to take and never give back. To never accept responsibility for ones actions, but to blame everyone else instead of themselves. To ask “what is in it for me?” versus “what can I do for you?”

To idolize gangsters, thugs, sexually promiscuous behavior, and criminals over hard work, dedication, and achievement. To argue that getting stoned should be a right, yet getting a job or an education is a hassle. To steal versus earn. To hate versus help.

Yes, I stopped caring today. But tomorrow, I will put my uniform back on and I will care again.

* * *

HERE’S ANOTHER VOICE

“A liberal paradise would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free comprehensive healthcare, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities, and only law enforcement has guns. Believe it or not, such a place does, indeed, exist. It’s called prison.” -- Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County, Arizona.

royexum@aol.com

 

 

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