One Cop, One View #2

One cop, One view #2

Since my last post one more cop was shot and killed and a second will be taken off of life support by the time this posts.  Another officer is in critical condition after being shot during a traffic stop. This seems to be a trend and not a good one. Let’s hope this insanity comes to an end soon.

Speaking of traffic stops, some people may wonder why we sometimes approach cars with our guns drawn. Let me try to clarify some of this for you. The two areas of law enforcement that are the most dangerous for us are the domestic violence calls and traffic stops. Let’s talk about the traffic stop from a cop’s point of view. When I was working patrol (in uniform and in a black and white police car) I very seldom had to look very hard for traffic violations. I was what was called a shit magnet. If anything was going to happen, it would happen in front of me. If there is a drunk driver or bad driver, they tend to pull out in front of me. So I never had to look very hard for violations. When I did pull a car over I always took into account the driver, the number of passengers, the location, time of day, the condition of the car, and what the violation was for. I did not care if the driver was black or brown or any other color. If the driver was well dressed, older, and the car was clean and well taken care of I tended to be a little more relaxed in my approach. If, however, it is two in the morning, there is a car load of what appear to gang members, and I am in a known gang area, my approach will be very different. On this stop I will most definitely approach the car with great care by giving the passengers and driver instructions to keep their hands where I can see them and not to move. I will wait for a second officer to arrive to assist before I make my approach. I will slowly walk up to the car with my gun out and down by my leg. I will check the trunk as I come to it just to be sure no one is hiding inside with a gun. If anyone in the car does not comply with my orders I will raise my gun since this has now escalated to a more serious contact. I take my gun out as I make my approach because if someone is going to attack me, it will happen quickly. If I don’t take my gun out first it makes for a half second delay as I take my gun out of the holster. This half second can be the difference between life and death.

I can hear some of you not in law enforcement saying that I am profiling the car and assuming that just because the occupants look like gang members, that does not mean that they are. In some cases you may be right, but as a cop I can not afford to take that chance. My experience has taught me to be this cautious. In the situation I have described in the second stop, I can tell you that perhaps 5% of the time I was wrong. Gang members dress a certain way, act a certain way and when they are in a known gang area they are most likely gang members. Anyone who lives in this area that is not a gang member will not dress like the gang bangers because the gang itself would not allow it. If they are gang members but do not live in the area they are considered to be rivals and are there to shoot at or attack the gang that lives in this area. Either way, they are often armed, especially a car load, and they do not like the police. When we approach a car like this we don’t know who is armed, (more often then not there is at least one gun in the car) if they are wanted for something, on drugs, have drugs, are a third strike candidate, or if they just want to make their bones in the gang. Making their bones refers to the gang requiring them to commit crimes to show they have the heart and loyalty to the gang. We as cops are often the target of them making their bones. It shows the other gang members that they have the guts or balls to commit a crime against the cops. Shooting at or fighting a cop caries a lot of weight with the gangs. And if that is not enough to worry about, we also need to be aware of the surrounding area since other gang members not in the car can and do take shots at us. We have had several of our officers shot at during such stops in the gang areas.

If we approach the car and are timid as we make our contact, the gang members or career criminals will sense this immediately and we have just lost control of the situation. We must approach this car with authority, determination, and control. If we do that, we are able to handle the stop with more control and in the long run with less danger to all involved. I have been on both sides of this kind of car stop as an officer. When I first started as a cop I made a car stop on a car load of gang members and I walked up to the car without that authority and control. The end result was a fight with the driver, two passengers running away and both the driver and I sustaining some injuries. This was a definite learning experience and I used that knowledge in future situations. The driver later told me that he fought me because I did not know what I was doing and he thought he could get away after fighting me. Hence, my approach after that was much more serious, authoritative, and in control.

Now if you have noticed I did not say what color these gang members are. Well, it really doesn’t matter. I have dealt with all of them, whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and even the stoners and they all still fit into the actions listed above.

You may ask what about the older, well-dressed person in the first stop? Well, experience again has taught me that in most cases this stop will be much different; much safer. About 5% of the time I am wrong with this assessment and since I am not perfect, I will still approach this car with caution but not to the same degree as the gang members. If a person is well dressed, polite, driving a well taken care of car and it’s during daylight, the chances of having a dangerous situation are minimal. People who take care of themselves and their property tend to be more on the law abiding side of things. The one exception to this is drunk drivers. They tend to cross all races, income levels and status.

My point is that as a cop when you approach a car you never know what you’re going to get. Did the driver just rob a bank/store that you don’t know about? Is he wanted for murder somewhere and is he willing to kill you to stay free a minute longer? Is he a third strike candidate who is holding an ounce of dope and will do life in jail if he gets caught with it? Is he stoned, drunk or crazed on some kind of dope? Is the well-dressed man/woman driving the nice car drunk or crazy? We don’t have a crystal ball to tell us the truth of the car stop until we are done with it. Until then it is a guessing game we play. We use everything at our disposal to deduce what we are going to encounter when we walk up on the car. If we are wrong it may cost us our lives, just as it did the officers last week. It may put us in critical condition in the hospital with career ending injuries.

We might have to make our apologies to someone because we came on strong in the beginning not knowing what we faced. Luckily, I have only had to apologize to a few people for being wrong. I did not have to give my life up and my family did not have to deal with my death because I made the wrong choice.

There is one significant problem with all the microscopic examination that the press is forcing on us today and it is very one sided. It is going to make some cops hesitate, question whether or not their actions will be put on YouTube or even worse, not act at all. In my 24 years as a cop I know that if I had hesitated in many instances I would have gone to the hospital or the morgue. I learned early on to listen to my inner self that if something didn’t feel right, it wasn’t and I took extra precautions. Many times this saved me from being injured or having to shoot someone. On Face Book and other social media sites I see a lot of the posts showing two cops saying to each other ‘maybe I should put this out on the media to see what we should do?’ I know this sounds like an over simplification but the truth is that as cops, if we hesitate, we or someone else may die. Cops are not perfect, none of us are, but we are required to make split second decisions.  We don’t have the luxury of sitting back and reviewing our options and actions for weeks and years to determine if we were correct or not.

The other thing about traffic stops is that people sometimes get upset with the officer because he comes across as heartless, hard, and couldn’t give a shit if your insurance rates go up because of the ticket he just gave you. Do you ever think that just maybe, that officer came from a fatal traffic accident that involved someone making the same violation that you just made? Do you know what it is like to pull out four bodies from the same family in a traffic collision because someone just couldn’t do the speed limit or just had to make it through that intersection? This happens to us as cops and it happens a lot more than any of us care to remember. Believe it or not, we do care and by giving you a ticket today we may save your life tomorrow. For me personally and for many of the cops I worked with, I did not like to write tickets unless I absolutely had to. I preferred to use the contact as a learning moment. One thing that would change a verbal warning to a ticket; Attitude! If the violator was polite, respectful and admitted to the violation they would get the warning. If on the other hand I was met with ‘Why the hell did you pull me over?’, or ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’ then they are the ones who will get the ticket. Attitude makes all the difference.

My hope in this post is to make you think about the officer and what he sees and has to deal with. Traffic stops can be very dangerous and there are a lot of unknowns involved in them. I hope this makes you more aware of the officer’s point of view the next time you get pulled over or have contact with a cop.