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Good Cop Bad Cop

Trey Binder

            When you think of a good police officer what do you think of? Kind person? Someone who would do anything to protect you and your family? Someone who isn’t afraid to risk their life every day to protect their community and the people who live within it. Police officers a forced to make tough decisions every day to save not only their lives but people’s lives around them. In a split second, everything can change if they don’t make the right decision. Police officers leave their families every morning to go serve yours, they stop drunk drivers that could have possibly killed you or your kids, they chase after suspicious people so they won’t break into your house or car. Police officers don’t always make the right decision, sometimes they do abuse their power and take things too far but that’s not all police officers. Today, all police officers are viewed as racist people who are out to get African Americans because they are racist. Every time a story makes the news of a cop abusing his power its always with an African American, they never show it when it happens to a white person. Sometimes excessive force is needed to protect themselves. Not every cop is a racist person only in it for the money. Sure, there are some bad ones but a majority of them are not corrupt. You see good cops all the time changing tires on the side of the road with people or playing with little kinds in the street, you can’t judge every cop by what bad mistake other cops have made.

            There are many things that make a police officer a good one. According to Dorothy McCoy “being friendly, caring, intelligent, polite, assertive and emotionally and psychologically stable makes a good police officer.” (McCoy par. 4).  Most police officers are nice and caring and care about the people they are protecting it’s not just a job to them. Most cops will help you change a tire on the side of the road, cops stop and play basketball with kids in the street to show not all cops are mean. If you are a very nice cop with a good personality and a good sense of humor more people are probably going to like you more because you’re not the mean cop who takes his job to seriously to where no one likes him. According to Elizabeth Xu “You might be surprised to know that a good sense of humor is essential to the job” (Xu par. 4). You also have to be assertive to be a police officer, you can’t be someone who get pushed around all the time. You have to know when to stand up for yourself if needed. Also, to be a police officer you must be emotionally and psychologically stable. Most of the job as a police officer is boring and is mainly driving and sitting, but in a split second of time anything dangerous can happen and you have to be able to get out of that bored state and jump into action. This is not easy to do, that is one of the reasons that makes the job so dangerous.

            Nowadays in the world there are race problems everyday with people being racist towards ones another. Everyone is at least a tad bit racist. But since some cops make bad decision they have a stereotype that every cop is racist and out to get you, this is not true at all.  With that being said, when a cop makes a bad decision and does something he/she isn’t supposed to such as using excessive force when it’s not needed or firing their weapon because they feel in danger when the criminal doesn’t have anything, everyone is going to know about it. It is going to be all over every social media, the television, the radio, etc. According to Maureen Boyle “Out of the 765,000 cops in America less than 1 percent are corrupt.” (Boyle par. 7). Police officers are not saints, they are normal just like the rest of us. Therefore, they struggle with normal people problems. They are not more racist that the average person in the world just because of their job. Cops protect our streets and our communities every day, not matter the race of the person they are arresting.

            Any police officer that leaves his family in the morning to go and serve yours, is a good cop. That one cop that stopped a drunk driver that prevents him from killing you and your family, is a good cop. The one cop that stopped suspicious guy on the street from breaking into your house or your car is a good cop.  According to Mike Rayburn “Training, especially force-on-force training, can help you in being more prepared to handle various situations, subsequently allowing you to think more clearly under stressful situations.” (Rayburn par. 4). It doesn’t matter how big you are, how strong you are, how fast you are, or how smart you are, without the proper training in this field of work you could get seriously hurt or possibly even killed. When you are a police officer you need to learn how to control your temper if you are a hot head. Controlling your temper on the job is one of the hardest things to do for most officers. According to) Larry E. Capps “Although difficult to achieve, officers should strive for perfection in this regard. This involves self-control or self-discipline and requires an abundance of competence, confidence, and emotional maturity—desirable traits in their own right. Peel recognized that officers who cannot control their tempers would not be well-suited to properly handle people in the wide variety of circumstances law enforcement personnel confront.” (Capps par. 14). But training isn’t the only thing that makes a good cop. To be a good police officer you need to have good communication skills, good knowledge of the laws, you need to be civil in the community, thirst for more knowledge, and egar to be the best police officer you can be.

            Some people can argue cops are nothing but racists people who are out to ruin people’s lives, and are only in it for the pay check and don’t care about anyone but their selves. Sometimes cops don’t make the right decision. When it comes to the physical part of being a police officer some cops take it too far when it is not needed. On more than one occasion police officers have mad terrible decisions of shooting and killing and innocent person or they used excessive force when it was clearly not needed. There are many incidents where police officers have made the wrong decision and ultimately became the bad guy. An example of this was in Flagstaff, Arizona. A male police officer punched a woman in the face and then the women was arrested for assault. According to David Lohr “Suddenly, one of them strikes her in the face with a closed fist.” (Lohr par. 4).  The lady was struggling with the officers, but not near enough to be hit in the face. That was an example of a bad decision by the officer, he made a terrible decision to strike a women and use excessive force when this was not needed.  

            In conclusion, the number of good cops strongly outweigh the bad ones. There are a lot of good cops out there that possess all of the traits that it takes to be a good and successful police officer. Cops that risk their lives everyday so you and your family and friends feel safe. Just because there are some bad cops out there doesn’t mean every cop you come by is a bad cop. Don’t judge every cop you see by what you see on social media because most of the time its not true and they are not life that. Get to know them before you make a decision on what kind of police officer they really are.

 

Works Cited

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Capps, Larry E. “Perspective: Characteristics of an Ideal Police Officer.” FBI, FBI, 27

June 2014, leb.fbi.gov/2014/december/perspective-characteristics-of-an-ideal-police-

officer/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2017.

Lohr, David. “Video Shows Cop Punching Woman, But She Gets Arrested For 'Assault'.” The

Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 17 Nov. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cop-punches-woman video_us_582ddbd0e4b030997bbdd8c3. Accessed 30 Mar. 2017.

McCoy, Dorothy. “Test: What Makes a Good Cop?” PoliceOne, 22 July 2005, www.policeone.com/health-fitness/articles/117321-Test-What-makes-a-good-cop/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2017.

Rayburn, Mike. “5 Traits of Great Street Cops.” PoliceOne, 12 Sept. 2013,

www.policeone.com/police-jobs-and-careers/articles/6444595-5-traits-of-great-street-

cops/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2017.

Xu, Elizabeth. “Rasmussen College.” Rasmussen College - Regionally Accredited College

Online and on Campus, 2 Mar. 2015, www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/justice-

studies/blog/what-makes-good-police-officer/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2017.