Why was that deputy so rude? The importance of professionalism

A few weeks ago I talked about the "cop attitude" that we often find in law enforcement and the difference in what the law enforcement officer is trying to accomplish by being cop. There is no shortage of stories of rude, bossy, overly suspicious, and arrogant cops, so what is the image a cop should have? When a deputy puts on a uniform every day, what causes them to have the attitude they have?

When a deputy trains, they are always training with two different goals in mind; protect the innocent (playing defense), while chasing down the criminals (offense). This can be very difficult at times though, and takes a great deal of self-control.

Let's take a look at what some days can be like as a road deputy; first, you get a call of a suspicious vehicle parked next to a home that does not belong. You arrive and find a truck trying to speed away with a bunch of stuff in the back of it. You try to make a traffic stop, and the truck goes even faster.

After a few minutes of chasing the truck, it stops, the driver jumps out and runs off into a field, and you begin chasing after him. Do not forget you have an under shirt, vest, uniform, and duty belt making you heat up like an oven and weighing you down. After a few minutes of running, you lose the suspect in some woods and cannot locate him. After a few more minutes of looking through the woods (now you have ticks crawling all over you), you find him lying in some brush. You place him in handcuffs and begin walking him back to your car.

The entire time, he is yelling at you, calling you names, trying to spit on you, and threatening to come burn your house down (where your wife and children live) when he gets out of jail. You drive the suspect to the jail (and now he's banging his head on the side of the cage in the back of the vehicle) and about the time you are arriving at the jail, you get called to a domestic in progress and need to leave ASAP.

You drop off your suspect at the jail and start running with lights and sirens to the domestic. When you arrive at the domestic, you find a female sitting in the front yard crying and holding her hand on the side of her head and a male subject standing over her yelling. As you approach, he grabs the females arm and tries to drag her towards the house. She screams and pulls away.

You run over and try to detain him, but now she has gotten up and is pulling on the back of your shirt screaming at you to leave him alone. After you have him detained and place him in your patrol car, you ask the female if she needs medical assistance because she has some blood on the side of her face and she begins screaming at you and calling you names for handcuffing her boyfriend. You take this person to jail for domestic assault (because you can't leave them together if you believe he will continue to hurt her).

After you finish with that call, you are told of a pending call where someone is upset about a neighbor's dog barking too loud and bothering them. When you arrive, the person is upset because they called 45 minutes ago and begin telling you how bad your service is. At this point the deputy, soaked in sweat, ticks crawling all over him, and knowing he has hours of paper work for the last two calls he just finished smiles and says, "I'm sorry what can I do for you."

This would be comical if it was an illustration. Sadly, this is an actual chain of events in one day that took place not so long ago right here in Vernon County. I want all of our deputies to be polite and professional when responding to calls, and hopefully they will truly mean it when they say, "What can I do for you?" If a deputy is not polite and professional, I welcome any comments and concerns from citizens; but I also encourage citizens to try to understand some of the very real difficulties that deputies face each day.