Hi All

[hayrake]

Hi All.

I'm new here and just want to start getting acquainted.

I am not with the police in any town or city anywhere and never have been. There are some in my family who have been (or still are) policemen; and the pastor's son where I go to church just recently surprised most of the congregation by becoming a policeman. I would have sworn that boy was leaning towards some area of psychology, but then I suppose a good deal of psychology might come in handy with police work. At any rate, I feel for him. He works in an area very near to downtown Atlanta, GA; and even though he has only been with the department for a very short time he's already seen some crazy things. Volatile things. He shares some of that with us in the church and it makes me even more glad that he grew up knowing how to pray.

Anyway, police always manage to find themselves in places most of us wouldn't want to be. It would be nice to hear more about the situations they find themselves in where everyone involved ends up well. I guess those don't make the news as often, though.

OK. Enough of that. I'm just looking forward to looking around. Thanks for having me.

 

[laurelbell85]

I have friends that are police officers and some of the things they tell me are like whoa! They can't go into detail about a lot of things, but the stuff they CAN talk about is nuts. It makes me thankful for the police officers out serving. I just wish most of them were nicer and actually cared about the citizens. Where are you from? I'm from Florida! It is nice to meet you!

 

[hayrake]

Hi laurelbell.

Nice to meet you, too.

I live between two little towns about sixty miles southeast of Atlanta, GA.

I agree with you that we need to appreciate these good folks who serve as law enforcement officers. And, yes, there are some who definitely just don't really need to be serving there, but there's always some bad element in pretty much every group of people of any size anywhere. Most times we associate with them and don't even have a clue what goes on inside their minds or in their homes. It's just that we tend to expect the police force to be held to a very high standard as officers of the law while the standards of society in general appear to be going down the tubes.

I think I pity them for the most part. And I wonder what makes a person choose to be a police officer in this day and age. Everything is so different from what it once was. And from what it should be. It's a crazy thing when a person will keep fighting with a gun to their head, but it happens all too often now. Where is common sense?

 

[laurelbell85]

I want to know where the common sense is as well! It seems like not just police officers have this problem. Common sense has been lost from humanity in most cases. Things are extremely different than I once was. I mean, I'm 29...and when I was younger I could go run the neighborhood with no fear of being snatched and never coming home. My parents would allow us to play outside until the street lights came on. Now, yeah, not happening. I have a 5 year old that can't leave my site. She is not to be outside (in our fully gated yard from front to back) without having the door open...and even then, she is not allowed to even use the yard! lol. She literally has to play on the carport so I can see her. I'm so over protective of her. The world today is scary. I want to be a prosecutor, but in time be a homicide investigator. However, the investigator may not happen because I am too scared to be a patrol officer, and that is mandatory for at least 3-5 years! I wonder if police officers can enforce common sense?

 

[greensat]

Yeah I totally agree, the world has gotten scarier, maybe it's the fact that we have so much tension in the world right now, with foreign and even domestic issues. With the middle-east terrorist group, ISIS, and rumors of a third world war. Things are getting quite frantic and scary. Although the world is quite disagreeable right now, every time that I venture out on the streets at night, I still see quite a lot of children who have yet to hit puberty yet, playing around on the streets. I did wonder to myself, "Don't these kids have a curfew?"

 

[hayrake]

Mercy. I believe I'd be afraid to be a patrol officer, too.

You know, when I was a kid in the sixties there were no police women like there are today. There were meter maids and women who wore the uniform (skirts, back then) and directed traffic or worked in an office, etc. There were no female patrol officers. It was thought to simply be too dangerous for a woman to do that. However, the racial violence thing was so crazy back then that they might as well have been patrol officers. I was in Memphis at the time, and I remember how things escalated after MLK was shot. Every day there was at least one incident where a woman in uniform was severely beaten while doing her job. Among other acts of violence, of course; but always a woman who was basically defenseless at the time.

I know things have changed for women; but with things going the way they are with race relations right now, hearkening back to the sixties, I'd be more than a little hesitant to choose a law enforcement career right now if I were a woman. Or even if I were a man. It's a darned good thing there are still some people out there who are more than willing to do it.

I wish you well with your desire to be a prosecutor. Maybe somehow you will make homicide investigator as well.