I
don't. They look sloppy and nobody wants the slob correcting their behavior or
giving them a little written "note" for their poor decisions. OK,
seriously, dirty patrol cars irk me, but it's bigger than that. Dirty uniforms
annoy me, slovenly appearances are an irritant and the fat, out of shape, torn
uniform, worn out leather gear wearing cop drives me nuts. I know, you don't
care, and I'm good with that. It’s
simply my opinion. But you should care, it's not just me, it's everyone. It’s our "customers" that we deal with on a daily basis who
notice this too. I'm not talking about the nice elderly lady you came across or
the soccer dad. I'm talking about the dude who ISN'T go back to jail and his
buddies, he notices your appearance too. Your appearance is an officer safety
issue.
"You
never get a second chance to make a first impression." Who's heard this
before? I think we all have and it's true. For those of you who share my
profession, we are judged by our appearances constantly and right from the
start of anything we get involved in. The second you step out of your car, you
are being watched, just like you are watching. Everyone makes judgements about
what they see. They especially do when they deal with those of us in law
enforcement. Everything you do and say is watched, remembered and then used by
the folks we deal with. You can probably agree with me on this, but how could
it possibly be an officer safety issue and how can you appearance make the job
safer (or more dangerous)?
Take
this scenario; put yourself in the shoes of one of our
"customers." You know you have
warrants (or whatever), you know you don't like cops and you know they will
probably take your freedom away when they find you. Driving down the road and
those red and blue lights come on behind you, crap...there goes your freedom, unless
you can get away somehow. So, we stop and you're watching that rear view mirror,
who do you want to see getting out of that patrol car? The slovenly,
unpolished, scuffed boots, wrinkled uniform wearing officer, or the squared
away, polished boots, pressed uniform, clean gear wearing officer? Who do you
think you have a better chance besting in a brawl or running away from? The
squared away guy probably puts the same effort into his officer safety tactics,
his weapons training and his work as he puts into his uniform. The slovenly
guy, heck, he looks lazy and probably hasn't arrested anyone or even cleaned
his gun in months. Put yourself in the suspect's shoes, which of these
officers would you want to deal with?
I
know, that sounds silly, not all of that can be based on appearance. Maybe,
maybe not, but I'll take any advantage I can to get out in front and maintain
control of the situation. I worked, many years ago, with a great group of guys
on a graveyard shift, we were all young, new and fired up to go out and find
"the bad man." Two of the teams on the shift consisted of drastically different partners. One half of each team was squared away and the other half, well,
with about two years on, they had the attitude and appearance of a couple of really
senior officers who just didn't care anymore. (Hey, senior guys, I'm not
picking on you, the key there was, "just didn't care anymore", we ALL
know these guys.) Anyway, both teams split up, the two squared away guys both
transferred out to different areas, the other two stayed in the area and
partnered up. The rest of us started noticing that these two suddenly had a
suspect control issue. It became routine to respond to calls for assistance
from them because someone was taking leg bail or fighting with them or
whatever. It wasn’t that their activity was
going up, all of us maintained pretty much the same level of work, it was that
more people they interacted with were willing to challenge them. One night, at
the end of shift they pulled into the back lot in their filthy patrol car
running with a headlight out. I pointed
out the headlight and the general slovenly appearance. The reply I got…”well, it’s a working man’s car.” No, my friend, it’s not, it’s a lazy slob’s car.
In
this profession we should all be aware that what WE do and how WE look
represents everyone else who wears the same uniform as us. The public doesn’t see Officer Sloppy, they see all of us in that single person. Take
some pride in yourself. We all know that our job occasionally (OK, maybe more
often than not) requires us to get scuffed up, bruised and dirty rolling around
in the filth with some of the folks we come across. That doesn’t mean you have to report to the next shift looking like a sack of
dirty laundry. I don’t know about you, but I look
for every advantage to get ahead of what is coming and take control of a
situation as opposed to trying to react to what someone else is doing. The next
time you lock horns with some predator at work, a professional, squared away appearance
and bearing may give you that split second advantage to get control while your
adversary thinks, “do I really want to take
this guy on?” That puts you on the
winning side to carry out your job and, more importantly, successfully complete
your most important duty…going home safe and in one
piece to your family at the end of your shift. Think about it…your comments and thoughts are always welcome.
Stay
safe out there.
Original
content by Michael McCarthy, posted to his Blog: The Highway Ranger.
