BlueSheepdog
10 Years Experience
Around the Way, FL
Male, 40
Cheating death and fighting communism: that is how a fellow officer once described our job. It was meant to be funny, but as time went on it seemed all too true.
I spent more than ten years in law enforcement, all of it on the street in uniform patrol. I've been a patrol officer, instructor, sergeant and lieutenant.
Do not report crimes here. Nothing here should be considered legal advice. All opinions are my own.
Unethical behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances.
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Online fraud cases are pretty easy to trace and prove, even when people use VPNs, proxies, etc. Offline fraud is even easier. Don't expect me to tell you how.
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Department policies dictate when a report will be filed by a police officer.
Generally: The same incident will generate only one report. Multiple incidents of the same nature, by the same subject may generate more than one report depending on the circumstances.
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I'm afraid I don't know anything about your friend or the specific circumstances.
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Private Detective
Have you ever turned down a job because you thought it was too dangerous?
Investment Banker
What's the craziest partying you've ever seen among bankers?
Bartender
Which customers are the worst tippers?
Different departments have different regulations regarding tattoos. Many have in place policies prohibiting visible tattoos, while others have policies about the kinds or locations of tattoos (nothing obscene, nothing on the face or neck, etc.) The more visible tattoos you have, the fewer agencies that will employ you. Something under your shirt, on your back, etc. will not hurt you.
Being a member of the US Navy Reserve will greatly enhance your application and overall success in a law enforcement agency.
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Working in law enforcement is a very toxic environment. When surrounded by members of the criminal element for most of the day, police officers experience and witness violence, depravity and ugliness never shown on TV or adequately depicted in movies.
Unfortunately, what happens at the job never really stays at the job. A new officer will change, and must change, to survive in the environment. If the officer fails to adapt to the violence and brutality, the officer will either not make it through training or will be killed.
Those changes will effect how the officer interacts with other people, including family. The unprepared spouse will not always learn to adapt to the officer and conflict will arise.
For example, a once-talkative person who is now a cop may be a lot less talkative with his or her spouse. That's not a reflection on the relationship per se, rather is often a result of the officer not wanting to expose his/her spouse to the ugliness that he/she works in. The spouse who wants to hear about the cop/spouse's day, however, may not realize that the cop/spouse just doesn't want to relive the child abuse call he/she investigated earlier. So when the cop/spouse doesn't want to talk the non-cop/spouse takes it personally.
There is never enough time as a cop. Even if the police officer isn't on any special units that require additional time and call outs (like SWAT, negotiations, etc.), he/she is always subject to court. And courts NEVER take the officer's schedule into consideration. More than once, I would work a midnight shift, leave the station at 7 am and go straight to court at 8 am. Stinking from all of the fights, foot chases and sweating the night before, I then would sit in court until 5 pm or so. Then go home, try to grab three hour's sleep before heading back into the PD. After another night, right back in court the next morning.
Nearly every police officer I know has to work part time jobs to make the family bills. So, on the nights he/she isn't scheduled to work, he/she is working security at a bar, directing traffic at a church, or working a security detail in a pharmacy.
Sound miserable? It can be. But, that is just life. Every job has its downsides - police work just a few more than others, I suppose.
I highly recommend reading I Love A Cop ( http://tinyurl.com/krvampy ) which deals with a lot of the issues & questions you might expect. It talks about what a family can expect if a spouse is in law enforcement, and offers solid suggestions on how everyone in the family can work to mitigate the problems the job brings.
For what it is worth, my wife has put up with a lot of long hours, very scary situations and crazy problems from my law enforcement career, but we are still happily married.
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Most frequent question: "Shoot anybody?"
The most annoying thing people do is loudly announce "I didn't do it!" when you walk into any store or business in uniform. The folks making these announcements seem to think it is both original and funny. What they don't realize is it is hardly original: I probably would hear it 10 times a day. At that point it is about as funny as a toothache.
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