do your job?

If you are not doing anything wrong then what is there to worry about? What you cant sit and talk next to each other for an hour at a time now? Save it for the office or send emails, texts, just do your job and stop worrying about if someone is watching you! You are a public official all the citizens are your boss too. I see you guys sitting around hiding in corners, ect and your not doing speed control if you know what I mean. Im glad your boss is watching you all now. Now maybe you, as a public official, will not abuse your job authority and just sit around waiting and hoping nothing comes your way.

[Dirty Harry]

Dear Citizens, Neighbors, Friends and Family,

My name is Jill and I am a cop. That means that the pains and joys of my personal life are often muted by my work. I resent the intrusion but I confuse my self with my job almost as often as you do. The label "police officer" creates a false image of who I really am. Sometimes I feel like I'm floating between two worlds. My work is not just protecting and serving. It's preserving that buffer that exists in the space between what you think the world is, and what the world really is.

My job isn't like television. The action is less frequent, and more graphic. It is not exhilarating to point a gun at someone. Pooled blood has a disgusting metallic smell and steams a little when the temperature drops. CPR isn't an instant miracle and it's no fun listening to an elderly grandmother's ribs break while I keep her heart beating. I'm not flattered by your curiosity about my work. I don't keep a record of which incident was the most frightening, or the strangest, or the bloodiest, or even the funniest. I don't tell you about my day because I don't want to share the images that haunt me.

But I do have some confessions to make:

Sometimes my stereo is too loud. Andrea Bocelli's voice makes it easier to forget the wasted body of the young man who died alone in a rented room because his family feared the stigma of AIDS. Beethoven's 9th symphony erases the sight of the nurses who sobbed as they scrubbed layers of dirt and slime from a neglected 2-year-old's skin. The Rolling Stones' angry beat assures me that it was ignorance that drove a young mother to draw blood when she bit her toddler on the cheek in an attempt to teach him not to bite.

Sometimes I set a bad example. I exceeded the speed limit on my way home from work because I had trouble shedding the adrenalin that kicked in when I discovered that the man I handcuffed during a drug raid was sitting on a loaded 9mm pistol.

Sometimes I seem rude. I was distracted and forgot to smile when you greeted me in the store because I was remembering the anguished, whispered confession of a teenager who pushed away his drowning brother to save his own life.

Sometimes I'm not as sympathetic as you'd like. I'm not concerned that your 15-year-old daughter is dating an 18-year-old because I just comforted the parents of a young man who slashed his own throat while they slept in the next bedroom. I was terse on the phone because I resented the burden of having to weigh the value of two lives when I was pointing my gun at an armed man who kept begging me to kill him. I laugh when you cringe away from the mess in your teen's room because I know the revulsion of feeling a heroin addict's blood trickling toward an open cut on my arm. If I was silent when you whined about your overbearing mother it's because I really wanted to tell you that I spoke to one of our high school friends today. I found her mother slumped behind the wheel of her car in a tightly closed garage. She had dressed in her best outfit before rolling down the windows and starting the engine.

On the other hand, if I seem totally oblivious to the blood on my uniform, or the names people call me, or the hateful editorials, it's because I am remembering the lessons my job has taught me.

I learned not to sweat the small stuff. Grape juice on the beige sofa and puppy pee on the oriental carpet don't faze me because I know what arterial bleeding and decaying bodies can do to one's decor.

I learned when to shut out the world and take a mental health day. I skipped your daughter's 4th birthday party because I was thinking about the six children under the age of 10 whose mother left them unattended to go out with a friend. When the 3-year-old offered the dog the milk from her cereal bowl, the dog attacked her, tearing open her head and staining the sandbox with blood. The little girl's siblings had to pry her head out of the dog's jaws - twice.

I learned that everyone has a lesson to teach me. Two mothers engaged in custody battles taught me not to judge a book by its cover. The teenage mother on welfare mustered the strength to refrain from crying in front of her worried child while the well-dressed, upper-class mother literally played tug of war with her toddler before running into traffic with the shrieking child in her arms.

I learned that nothing given from the heart is truly gone. A hug, a smile, a reassuring word, or an attentive ear can bring an injured or distraught person back to the surface, and help me refocus.

And I learned not to give up, ever! That split second of terror when I think I have finally engaged the one who is young enough and strong enough to take me down taught me that I have only one restriction: my own mortality.

One week in May has been set aside as Police Memorial Week, a time to remember those officers who didn't make it home after their shift. But why wait? Take a moment to tell an officer that you appreciate her work. Smile and say "Hi" when he's getting coffee. Bite your tongue when you start to tell a "bad cop" story. Better yet, find the time to tell a "good cop" story. The family at the next table may be a cop's family.

Nothing given from the heart is truly gone. It is kept in the hearts of the recipients. Give from the heart. Give something back to the officers who risk everything they have.

Jill Wragg is a retired Police Officer from Massachusetts. She can be reached at JKWragg@yahoo.com

(This piece is copyrighted and can be used by permission only

You are a public official all the citizens are your boss too.

Easy there Joe Blow. Without some stripes or bars, you will not be telling me how to do my job.

yo, Joe, take a long hike4, off Pier 60 ok? You got cajones, you know exactly what the officers out there are up to eh? Man, you are the MAN....even I, who have done the job over 30 years couldnt get it that right....damn, you should be in intel at least, maybe for the TSA......thats THE right place for yourt opinionated, dumb azz....

And when esxactly are the guys n girlz out there supposed to trade info on reports, investigations, suspects and the like? Not everyone lives on their cell like you, and some things dont need broadcasting over any medium. But then since you are all knowing you already knew that eh?

And regardless the job you have, if any, since you have the time trolling the streets to watch out for the miscreant officers on the watch, when do they get to take their breaks, write their reports, defuse after a bad citizen "contact" before they run into a numbskull such as yourself that says the same bs comment we heard on a daily basis, "...but I pay YOUR salary..." and its downhill from there. Yup, you may see them somewhere, but since the populace has determined lower taxes are the fix to it all, and overtime is stringently watched, and paperwork HAS to be done before you can walk out the door, exactly when are they to get it done Mr Perfect Joe Citizen? You are clueless. Go back to your recliner, open the beer, and worry about what would be at your door if they were NOT out there

mwg/156 of old

If you are not doing anything wrong then what is there to worry about? What you cant sit and talk next to each other for an hour at a time now? Save it for the office or send emails, texts, just do your job and stop worrying about if someone is watching you! You are a public official all the citizens are your boss too. I see you guys sitting around hiding in corners, ect and your not doing speed control if you know what I mean. Im glad your boss is watching you all now. Now maybe you, as a public official, will not abuse your job authority and just sit around waiting and hoping nothing comes your way.

Where are all of these trolls coming from all of a sudden?

If you are not doing anything wrong then what is there to worry about? What you cant sit and talk next to each other for an hour at a time now? Save it for the office or send emails, texts, just do your job and stop worrying about if someone is watching you! You are a public official all the citizens are your boss too. I see you guys sitting around hiding in corners, ect and your not doing speed control if you know what I mean. Im glad your boss is watching you all now. Now maybe you, as a public official, will not abuse your job authority and just sit around waiting and hoping nothing comes your way.

Hey Joe Citizen,

Go F*ck you’re self! You ungrateful horses A$$! Just be grateful that there are people like us who run towards the bullets while you’re wetting yourself and for crappy pay. We don't ask for medals or even compliments. All we ask for is some damn respect for doing a job that most will not do. Now that's not too much even from a jack off like you! Now go bury your head in the sand and live in your pristine thing you called life. Just know that you and I may see the same things but we have different eyes and they view the same things very differently. Do us all a favor and just say thank you and go away. Better yet, maybe we will all get lucky and you can be our next signal 7.

thank you, my significant other is an LEO. I love him and truly respect was he does for a living but as you may know, I don't really feel like I "know" what he does for a living. I do not believe he gives me credit for "not knowing" what he does for a living. I try to listen.....(when he tries to "share" things with me.....which isn't often and I nod and hold him and try to comfort him but he just shrugs it off by saying, "you just don't understand". He is right I really don't as I am not in his shoes........and he isn't in mine........he doesn't understand what it is like to share your life with someone who really isn't sharing with you.......he doesn't understand what it is like to hold someone who you know is still thinking about that , (i.e.), baby he found in a trash bin just this morning. He doesn't understand what it is like to be in a relationship with someone you always have to make excuses for....when you attend social functions alone........today I was reading your blog on LEO affairs and wow, your blog was so informative. It really was. I don't know why, if it was because it was written by a woman or if it was just that the words you spoke just clicked with me today.....I am not sure but it makes me want to go and meet him for lunch right now.....I can't even wait that long I am going to call him right now just to say hi and see how his day is going......just like I always do....I'm not sure if he even realizes though that I am always there right beside him, standing behind him, supporting him.......always calling him just to say hi and see how his day is going..................thank you Jill