Hello all, Officer J reporting in again.  I’d like to take a moment to thank all my brothers and sisters who get out of bed everyday, leave their families, and risk their necks so we can carry on life the way we do.  It is a tremendous burden we are tasked with that can’t be explained; it has to be lived.  Police work is not just a job it is truly a way of life.  I could explain all day long how hard it is to be a police officer and the different trials and tribulations we are faced with, but you wouldn’t completely understand until you see it first hand.  I have often told people who are not police officers, that being a police officer is hard on your soul.  Hard on your soul, you say?  Officer J that sounds awful!  Well before you jump to conclusions, let me explain what I mean by this.

The way that police work is hardest on your soul is simply put, “All the shit you see…..you can’t unsee.”  As a new officer I had no clue all the terrible things I would see with my eyes.  Things that I feel another human being should never have to see.  Things that once you have seen them, can’t ever for any reason be unseen.  One of the worst of these images is death.  Death is a terrible thing.  When someone dies it is a tragedy.  The funeral directors at the funeral home do an amazing job cleaning the body up making it look as though the deceased person is asleep.  If they can’t obtain these results then the casket is closed during the viewing.  We have to investigate those deaths.  All of them.  Whether the person died at home, was murdered, died in a tragic accident, or a horrendous car crash.  We have to be there for all of them.  Those scenes haunt your mind always.  There is no way to get these images out of your head.  Sometimes the same scene will linger for weeks if not for months everytime you close your eyes.  The worst part about all the death, at least for this officer, is having to tell a mom, wife, or child that their loved one is deceased.  When you arrive at the house they have no idea why you pulled up and got out of your patrol car walking towards their door.  They automatically have a knot in their stomachs because they know something is wrong.  And 9 out of 10 times they ask, “Is everything okay officer?”  At that moment it takes every ounce of courage you can muster to shatter their world.  Yes you read that right, you are the person who is going to break news to them that will utterly shatter their world. You have a dismal message you have been tasked with carrying.  And you are the son of a bitch who has to deliver it. It is one of the worst tasks an officer can ever be assigned.  I had a sick feeling in my gut just writing about it.

Another way that police work is hard on your soul, coming in at a very close second, are all the terrible ways human beings actually treat each other.  Before becoming a police officer I never knew that people could actually be so cruel to each other.  Human beings can treat each other worse than can be imagined.  Growing up I had always heard the saying, “Truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction,” and I believe this holds true with the situations experienced during a shift.  People murder each other over seemingly non existent problems, abuse children, let children live in the nastiest of conditions, sexually assault children, beat their spouse,  lie to each other, steal from each other, and the list goes on and on and on.  After years of working with people it’s easy to lose faith in certain sections of humanity.

Losing faith in certain sections of humanity makes it hard to create relationships with people who are not police officers.  When you work in a community you get to know people, where they work, if they have a family, and what side of the “law” they are on. After getting to know some of these people and thinking that they are in fact law abiding citizens, a call will come out where they are the suspect in a case you have to work.  Now your opinion has changed because you know the truth behind the person, not just the public image they display.  It is also easy to not want relationships with people due to being lied to on a daily, almost hourly basis while on the job.  After getting lied to day after day and watching seeming good people in the community get in trouble for crimes you never thought they could commit.  It makes the relationships unrelated to other officers hard to maintain.

Since becoming an officer I have always tried my best to leave the job in the cruiser at the end of my shift.  Sometimes that is harder than the day you just endured.  My ½ unit is extremely supportive of my job and understands the constant pressure and stress we face.  When I come home, I may have had the worst day of the month but she doesn’t know.  She will always ask how work went (even if it’s 0400 before I get home).  I always tell her that work was fine. There are (2) two reasons why I do this.  First reason I do this is because it is not my ½ unit’s fault for how terrible a day I had.  If I come home and spill my guts about how hard it was and what a terrible day I had, it does no good.  She doesn’t understand because words can’t accurately describe what I went through.  My ½ unit does not need to be burdened with my work problems like I am.  I would rather just talk to the other officers at work about it.  Second reason I do this is because I don’t want to worry her about all the perils at work I face everyday.  In my mind it’s easier for her to think I am just pulling people over and writing tickets than to think about me running hot calls on domestics and suspects with weapons.  It is truly hard to turn off the day when you go home.  Even though it is harder on you as an officer to turn the day off I feel that it is important for your family. 

Honestly, one of the hardest things on an officer is dealing with the administration of the Department.  The administration constantly scrutinizes every minutiae of your job.  After years of this it truly pummels an officers morale and can even make them question their career choice.

Finally, this job is hard on your soul because you question everything.  Everything anyone tells you whether on duty or off duty is questioned.  With all the reasons listed above it causes officers to be extremely cynical of everything and everyone not related to police work.

The list could honestly keep going.  There could also be much more detail in this post but I wanted you to actually keep reading it instead of listening to me ramble.  I would venture to say other officers that read this will agree with most, if not all of what I said.  In future posts I plan to dive into each of these topics in greater detail.  I know Officer E is tired of hearing me talk about these issues as I’ve bent his ear time after time.  If you have any comments or suggestions please advise.  

Always watch your six and keep your brothers and sisters in blue safe.