COPS has nothing on the Crowley Police Department

This past Tuesday I was invited to go on a ride-along with the Crowley Police Department while they did a check up of the registered sex offenders in Crowley.

I have to admit it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be (nothing like COPS) but it was still pretty cool to ride with the officers and spend some time watching them interact with each other as they began their day. I also learned something I guess I really never understood.

Police officers are just like everyone else - the only difference is that they are cops.

Up until around seven or eight years ago I would freeze up when I saw an officer driving behind me. I’ve had my share of tickets and I wasn’t always a model citizen when I was younger but I would still get a sense of nervousness inside me even at times when I wasn’t doing anything wrong at all. Now that I think of it I really don’t know why.

Maybe I kind of had it programmed in me from listening to different people and the news as I grew up that police weren’t to be trusted. They go about their job in an uncaring, robotic fashion. They can beat you up for nothing and get away with it. And perhaps the most overused cliche - cops let their power go to their head. After all, thats really all we ever hear about on television is when an officer does something wrong. We rarely hear about the good things they do. Sadly, I guess that’s what gets ratings these days.

However, judging from what I saw the other day none of these things could be further from the truth. When I went to the station the other morning, the guys I met were joking around, hassling the new guy, and doing the same things that have been done at just about every job I’ve ever had. A couple of their comments were downright hilarious and I burned my chest pretty badly when I coughed up some coffee while laughing.

I already knew K.P. and Jimmy Broussard and knew that they were both friendly, stand-up guys but I have never really spoken to anyone else. The officers I rode with, Konrad Kirsch and Marcus Deville, were both very friendly people who joked around with me and such as we rode around. I thought they would be annoyed that they had to cart me around and who knows, maybe they were. However, if this was the case they certainly didn’t show it.

Something else I realized as I watched them go about their work. Part of their job is always having to be always be “on guard”. I thought about what it must feel like - having to add this characteristic to the stress that I’ve had at different jobs and it must be downright exhausting. After all, these guys have to knock on doors and stop cars without knowing what they will encounter once they meet the person inside. Though I didn’t see it Tuesday, I’m quite certain that each of these guys has a horror story that began with just a simple knock on the door.

While I’ve always respected the job that police officers do, I never really took the time to think about things from their perspective. They put themselves in harms way on a daily basis to serve the public by enforcing the law. For those of us that have gotten tickets or been arrested for a law they don’t agree with it needs to be said that these guys don’t make the laws - it’s their job to enforce them. Looking back, I’ve seen very many people get arrested who express their anger towards the arresting officer regarding the reason for their arrest and I must say that most of the cops I’ve seen are pretty good about keeping their head. I think I’d probably lose my temper at times listening to someone cry about a law I didn’t make when I was just doing my job. People need to know that they should save any complaints they have regarding these issues for the judge.

I was going to go off on a tangent here about how I’ve heard around town that these guys could definitely use a raise and go into the reasoning about why they should get one. However, I believe I may have listed most of these reasons already. The only thing I know is that next time I look in my rearview mirror and see an officer I will feel quite comfortable.