PLATFORM : Look Past the Shining Badge

As a police officer, you are trained to defend yourself, your partner and the community. In order to do this, you form a bond of trust with other officers. In large part, this trust is based on your training, the selection process, personal values and your desire to trust someone as much as you feel they can trust you. This trust is similar to the trust a child has in a parent. It is a trust that in most officers is well-deserved.

When I taught classes at the Police Academy to sergeants and senior officers, I would discuss this trust. I would then discuss the need to look past the badge, much as officers are trained to seek and detect wrongdoing (in the community): Don’t accept another officer’s behavior at face value; when answers are needed, look past that shining badge.

More officers lose their careers and health to misconduct than due to shootings, stabbings and other violent events.

When I was a new patrol captain, I became aware of an officer with a drug problem in my command. He was subsequently fired from the department and arrested, and when he was, several officers came forward and said they had known something was wrong, but had accepted the usual answers. They did not want to suspect the worst of their fellow officer. They want to trust those they work with, who at any moment could be called upon to save their lives. They do this knowing that police officers are human beings with all the weaknesses, strengths and prejudices found in our society. They know that police have engaged in criminal acts and have been punished for it. Yet they still want to believe.

Perhaps many of the officers who have failed to report misconduct in the past were going through this process. Perhaps they lacked courage, or maybe they were overwhelmed by what was occurring. I don’t know; only they know. However, I do know that officers are the best to people for policing their own activities. Every officer has an obligation to himself, his fellow officer, the department and the community to look past that shining badge pinned on his or her chest. We are all human.