Friday, February 29, 2008

Second City Cop

Second City Cop is written by an anonymous group of CPD officers illustrating the trials of a patrol officer. This week, The Chicagoist did an interesting interview with SSC about the recent shake-up in the department and the lumps CPD has taken over the past year.

The interview, and the blog are pretty interesting. I think the fact that the blog takes a political stance (Links for Right Thinking People) distracts from the substance of the site: The Job. I was immediately put off. Besides that, I was pleasantly surprised. It is well written and thought out. I think people are want to believe "Cops Suck" or that "You want them on that wall... you NEED them on that wall" and not think about all the intense shit they deal with, the bureaucracy, the death, the mettle necessary to do what they do: the daily stare into the abyss that is our society without going crazy. Just like there are good and bad people, there are good and bad cops, and we tend to paint them with too broad a brush.

That said, a lot of the substance of the blog deals with departmental minutiae, and disgust with the new Superintendent (Jody Weis from the FBI, in case you live in a cave) trying to create a trust relationship with community leaders in high crime neighborhoods, namely "the reverends." There is a lot of talk about certain "demographics" who make up, according to SSC, the majority of perps, the disparaging of Weis' attempt at hiring more minorities and conducting sensitivity training... the list of grievances goes on. Fine. This is America, say and think what you like. However, how can you constantly say others don't look at a cop's lot from a cop's perspective, when you don't look at anything from the perspective of community leaders (or "reverends" or "fronts for gang activity"). Any hint at this double standard is met with "I put my life on the line every day".

Needless to say, policing a city the size of Chicago, with the breadth of issues this city faces is a daunting task. There are no easy or definitive fixes. But cops, like the "reverends" need to realize that they also don't have all the answers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In response cops do what what is going on in society and know it better than most people. We have the pulse of the area we work in down to a science.

Liberalism is great conceptually but not in actuality, it just doesn't work. People are inherently good but they are also inherently greedy.

I have seen leftist do gooders get on the job and within three years they are totally different people. This also applies to nurses,teachers and EMS personnel. The school of hard knocks (reality) wakes them up in a very crude manner.

I challenge you to take a ride along in the 7th,4th,3rd,5th,6th,8th,11th,15th or 10th District on a hot weekend night and see what goes on. You will have a much different opinion of the Chicago Police Department.

Peace Out!

Anonymous said...

WTF

Supposedly our beloved Chief Of Patrol (COP) Ha Ha, has so much time on his hands that he reviews officer's use of time due to determine if someone should be a personal concern. So now you have to be careful what you do, be careful what you say, be careful how you look at someone and when you need to puke over all the B.S., don't ask for time due to do it on. Remember, use to much time due and you must have something wrong with you and that you need to be watched.