Since I’ve done my share of ripping into thug cops, it always seems fair to give the better ones a tip o’ the hat. And this tale — from a freedomista’s wary daughter — is pretty cute.
Her dad writes:
So my daughter S. moved away from home at the beginning of November. She graduated from a medical arts program in June, and Florida seemed like a good place to be. My mother-in-law lives there in a [huge community almost entirely made up of seniors].
We packed up the car and my wife took S. to FL to stay with her mom to help her out and until she gets set up on her own.
Mom is getting up there, and her health isn’t that of a youngster anymore. Her daughters all live far away, and most of her friends have passed. But 3 yrs ago at 85 she dumped her 75-year-old boyfriend and bought a house for the first time on her own. She’s fiercely independent, and even though her health is declining she will not accept any outside hired help. The only real “service” she has is a morning phone check-in with the county sheriff’s dept. elder unit.
Unfortunately, mom found herself in the hospital on Thanksgiving morning. She had been there a week. But Thanksgiving morning at 9am, the phone rang at her house with the call from the sheriff’s office. They were making holiday dinner and were inviting all the people on their check-in lists. S. explained that Mom was still in the hospital but could get out for the day, and gave them Mom’s direct number at the hospital so they could invite her to their dinner.
S. thought this was the end of the story.
At about 2 o’clock, S. is trying to decide what to eat before she goes to the hospital to visit, and there’s a knock at the door. She looks through the blinds and sees there’s a sheriff’s officer standing on the stoop. Raised the way she was, she’s automatically suspicious. What could they possibly want? She opens the door a crack to say hi and find out what’s going on, and she sees a big box in the sheriff’s hands. “Hello, I’m Sheriff Soandso. Your grandma told us you were here all alone on your first holiday away from home, and she was worried about you being all alone, worried that you wouldn’t eat, etc. So I brought a full Thanksgiving dinner in this box for you. There’s turkey, stuffing, ham, taters, veggies, gravy, everything. Oops, Sorry, everything but pie. The oldsters ate all the pie”
She was floored. She called the next day to say “Dad, I’ve been around enough to see the sheriffs serve papers, serve subpoenas, and even serve search warrants, but I never thought I’d ever see the day when a sheriff came to the house to serve me dinner! And Dad, it was even good!”
He probably planted a tracker on her car.
Cynic.
That’s wonderful, and really a surprise coming from Florida after all the horror stories. We have a sheriff and deputies like that here, and I carefully cultivate our cordial relationship. I went to a funeral for a neighbor last week, and a deputy I know well was there too. He came over and asked me if I’d do a presentation on situational awareness for the next deputy’s inservice. He presents the “lethal force” section of my self defense classes often, and I’m glad to reciprocate.
Yes, we so often see them all as adversaries, and we are rightly paranoid in most cases… but don’t ever let that come between you and a clear evaluation of each person as an individual. WE want to be seen as individuals, not parts of any demographic. We need to do the same for everyone else.
The food pantry where I volunteer hosts a big toy giveaway at Christmas. The local sheriff’s dept manned a toy drive in front of Wal-Mart this weekend and they did a wonderful job. Beside the manhours, they brought some of their equipment with them to be sure to attract attention to the toy drive. Around here, the deputies are our neighbors and are actively involved in the local communities. So, it’s good to hear stories from other areas where the LEOs actually do protect and serve.
The police are like any other occupation-the vast majority of them are probably pretty decent, it’s just the clinkers that cast a shadow over the rest.
Scott- there are no “good cops”, only “nice” ones.
Now I understand I am dealing in gross generalities here but in my experience Sherriff departments are more responsive and generally “nicer” than police departments. I think it has something to do with them being directly elected vs. an appointed police chief. Also round where I live the Sherriff’s departments tend to be smaller than the big city police departments.
The site might be an upper end retirement community called The Villages, where there is a high STD incidence and the inhabitants bring their northeast manners. If one has to drive through there, one should cut as many people off as possible, since that’s what they’ll do to you. When back in regular Florida one should behave courteously as it will be appreciated.
It must have been a deputy sheriff that called. I have found them unfailingly polite and helpful here in FL. One time when I was stopped by a small town cop, he noticed my CCW which I really hadn’t thought about. I handed him the bag which had the gun, and the conversation immediately became like a social one. I was trying to convince him to go to IDPA and he was telling me time was a problem. He let me go with a verbal warning; later another officer who knew him told me he doesn’t do that very often.
Ever since then, I hand them my CCW along with my driver’s license. I have never gotten a ticket since and virtually every conversation immediately has become very relaxed and pleasant. At times they almost seem apologetic. Once I failed to notice the blinking light by a school and never slowed down (there was no one else on the road and no children were visible). My driver’s license, unknown to me, had even recently expired. I got a written warning. Another time I was stopped for an expired trailer tag. I told the officer I had a handgun on each hip. He asked me to get out of the truck, which I did and stood by the back as ordered. A little later I look up and there were two other police cars, both with lights flashing. No doubt passers by were wondering about things. I waited quite a while; I presume they did more than the usual check. In the end he gave me a written warning also. If any of these people had a problem in my presence, I’d stick my neck out to help them if it were necessary, knowing that’s fraught with danger including my being mistaken for a bad guy.
I even like and respect Feds I’ve known, some a lot. Yes, really. The problem now is that the new people coming in are almost being vetted to be hostile to the public and the Constitution, or at least it seems that way to me.
I’ve recently finished Radly Balko’s book, Rise of the Warrior Cop (bought through this site’s Amazon link). He notes, among many other alarming trends, that the picture painted for prospective new cops is one of aggressive violence and not community service, so the wannabe Rambos find it very appealing.
The food for the dinner was probably confiscated from a crack house or non-compliant food kitchen and redistributed to the seniors to buy their votes next election. Probably funded by outrageous fines on drivers with out of state licenses.
[The police are like any other occupation-the vast majority of them are probably pretty decent, it’s just the clinkers that cast a shadow over the rest.]
This is so, and it’s true they should be treated like individuals.
On the other hand, people who are not police have to go out of their way to be assholes, for the most part. Merely doing their job does not make them so. Cops, bureaucrats and some others, merely by doing their jobs, become assholes. To avoid assholiness they actually have to make an effort to do their job “poorly” (according to the standards of their bosses).
This is not even getting into the attraction of the job for people who are inherently assholes.
Kent and Paul, you may very well be right-it’s just that-so far-I’ve not had any grief from the police. The ones I have met all seemed pretty decent. For all I know, that may change on the way home. Or five minutes from now. The worst…professional pricks..(what I’m thinking is a lot worse) are the low-level, local-yokel ,Dillbert-cubicled crotchbites that insists you really need a permit for that water heater-there really is immense value to it, and woe be unto you if you don’t get the permit and we find out about it. The little power-tripping wannabes are almost impossible to reason with.They should be ignored whenever possible.What *really* ticks them off is to know their own rules better than they do…
Scott, what I am talking about is described here:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle582-20100808-05.html
Just having them looking me over, which is definitely their job after all, gives me the creeps. I guess I don’t like the violation of the MYOB principle.
Attempting to gain acceptance to continue doing their job by going out and not doing their job — and I am suppose to be glad of this campaigning???
Of course they want to hand out food, doing their actual job, stealing from the productive class, killing puppies, and being the aggressive arm behind millions of pages of administrative codes, keeps them at the top of the most-likely-to-commit-suicide list — rightly so, too.