Posted: Friday, 28 August 2009 10:46AM
Good Cops Get It, Bad Cops Don't
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, August 28, 2009
Good morning, class.
We’re here today to make you better police officers so listen up.
You’re on duty and attempting to restrain a wild, struggling suspect. You believe – erroneously, as it turns out - that the man is carrying a gun. The man spits in your face.
What do you do?
“I spit in his face.”
Sorry, officer, wrong answer.
“I punch him in his face.”
You’re a bad cop.
Officer Friendly?
“I use the restraining techniques I practice weekly. I’m here to protect and serve no matter what a suspect, who might even be mentally ill, does to provoke me. If I don’t control my emotions, my emotions will control me. And if that happens I place myself and my brother and sister officers in greater danger.
Good answer, officer.
You’re a good cop.
Now that the suspect is cuffed, he looks at you and grins. Then he calls you a filthy word that references your mother. How do you handle that?
“I pepper spray him and Taser him when he’s staggering around in a blind rage. I fire off as many racial slurs as I can think of. Then I charge him with trying to escape”
Sorry, officer, wrong answer.
“Then I crack him in the skull with my police baton and then break his nose with the lead-filled black leather gloves with the fingers cut out that I always wear on duty. Now I grin back at him and ask my partner if he saw the dirty skell trying to grab for my gun.”
You’re a real bad cop.
Officer Friendly?
“I talk to him. I try to calm him. The danger’s over. I reassure him that his rights will be protected and I ask him if he wants a soda. I don’t smoke but I ask if he does. If so I get him a cigarette from one of the unhealthy cops huffing and puffing nearby.”
Good answer, officer.
You’re a good cop.
When you get the suspect to the station, you find out that he’s a suspect in the murder of his wife. What now?
“I push him headfirst into his chair. Then I slap him a few times with an open hander and tell him we’re going to break one of his fingers for every bad answer he gives us. Then we tell him his confession and make him sign it.”
Sorry, officer, wrong answer.
Officer Friendly?
“I tell him I need to talk with him about the crime. I tell him not to say anything to me and to just listen. Then without pulling a card from my pocket and reading him his Miranda rights, I gently explain those rights in common language that I’ve been practicing so I have it all down so a defense attorney can’t successfully challenge me in court.”
Good, good.
Continue, officer.
“Then I ask him if he wants to talk with me about the loss of his wife. He knows he has the right to a lawyer but he also knows that I’m not going to treat him like an animal and that I respect him as a human even if he’s a killer. I believe that most people want to tell the truth and that he might confess if somebody is really willing to listen. It’s happened before. It can happen again.”
Sound far fetched?
It’s not.
For good cops everywhere no further explanation is necessary.
For bad cops, no explanation is possible.
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Corbett
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