The first post is always the most awkward.
I’m a youngish officer at a medium-to-large city police department in the Midwest. (While I appreciate the weight of specificity, speaking publicly as a police officer is a complex thing, and I’m not ready to say more about who I am just yet.)
I’m not what most people expect from a cop. I, like almost all my non-cop friends, could safely be called a liberal–though those same non-cop friends would probably accuse me of having drifted to their political right. I was raised a pacifist, am educated in nonviolent communication, and experienced in peace activism. I have a Master’s degree and worked in higher education before coming, later than many, into law enforcement. And what I’ve found is that this identity–being engaged in communities that seldom overlap–has positioned me to provide a sometimes unique perspective to both pro- and anti-police folks.
That’s not to suggest that I have a perspective that’s better than anyone else’s or that everyone has something to learn from me. But having found myself in so many of these cross-cultural (if you will) conversations, I’ve felt a consistent desire for quite a while to throw some writing out into the blogosphere, specifically about law enforcement issues.
I hope that I will find police and civilians alike in my audience; the only commonality I seek in those I speak to is having some interest in policing in America. But at the outset, what I will probably most often be trying to do is explain the often insular and mysterious world of law enforcement to those outside our circles, who may be confused or angry by what they read or experience, and who may want to know more.
So if you don’t have one, I’m your token cop friend, here to help explain how policing works and maybe provide some insight why we do things the way we do. And if you’re a cop, I’ll be your token crunchy liberal, offering a peek into a mindset that is equally foreign.
And then we’ll see where it goes from there.