A Real Cop Explains What Cops Do

Fred Reed

Fred Reed used to be a cop.  In Washington, D.C., if I remember correctly.  He has written an essay on the difficulties of being a cop on the street.  He explains how a cop must sometimes make a split second decision to shoot a suspect, thinking that his own life is in immediate danger.  Sometimes innocent people get killed as a result.

He writes:

With time, your views on police brutality will become ambivalent, or not ambivalent. You will see the pretty blonde rape victim, fifteen, about due for her first prom, screaming and screaming and screaming, sobbing and choking,  while the med tech tries to get a sedative into her arm. And you will hear the cop next to you, hand clenching hard on his night stick, say in cold fury, “I hope the sonofabitch resists arrest.” Yeah, you may find yourself thinking, yeah. Social theories are nice. The streets are not theoretical.

And you will find that the perps are almost always black. If you are a good liberal, you won’t like this, but after three months on the street you will not have the faintest doubt. If you are a suburban conservative out of Reader’s Digest, you will be surprised at the starkness of the racial delineation.

All cops know this. They know better than to say it. This can be tricky for black cops, especially if former military who believe in law and order.

Read it all here.   It is worth your time.