LMPD creates new Burglary Intervention Unit

You are obviously the famous trucker clock "who wants it"..... The people who serve and protect are the finest. They deserve respect. If there is one amongst them who disreprects their honor they will know who they are and separate them from the the heard. I challenge you to meet the standards of LMPD. They serve this community with pride and honor.

I retired January and to this day I never was sorry for joining. I never felt that way about my job, if you feel that way keep it to yourself

I was reading the post and was about to have a smart a$$ response back and started to think about what was posted.

I am sitting on almost 20 years in the retirement system. When I came on, over 2500 people had applied for 22 positions to become police officers. I was lucky, I made it the 1st try. I was recently prior active service, struggling through college on the GI Bill and had stumbled into law enforcement because a friend had been discussing how much he loved being "on the job". So I graduated and applied and got hired. I was lucky.

I came with all of the right reasons. I wanted to serve. I wanted to protect. I fully believed that our justice system worked.

I still believe in those reasons. I have added quite a few.

I went through the academy with some great people, some of us with degrees, most not. Some of us prior military, most not. All of them good people.

I remember my first day, walking into roll call, standing against the wall and being assigned to my FTO. Our first run out of the box was an active domestic. My FTO and his beat partner had approached the door, and was standing cover (which is what he had told me to do) as the screaming, slamming and breaking of property and body parts could be heard from 10 feet away. They ended having to kick the door, and we all stumbled into a mess. Dad, a drunk, had hid his "common law" wife, wife had returned the favor, the five year old had tried to stop it and had been knocked to the wall, with a bloody nose. We ended up fighting "dad", unleashed two cans of spray into his face, and were finally able to get him cuffed. I called for the wagon for mama and the kid, screwing the address up twice. I went to assist my FTO who was talking to the "victim" (mama) who had begun to cuss us and tell us we "were the problem". She accused us being everything but Christian.

I was shocked, after all hadn't we just kept the big bad wolf from killing her? This wolf had just hurt her child? And here she is cussing us?

As we cleared my FTO looked over and said, "What did you expect? Did you think she was going to thank you? We did right tonight, and only the three of us and that kid in there know it. Get over it or quit. That is just the way it is."

That was the beginning. Later when I got on my own, he would check on me and laugh, telling me I was still soft, but getting harder everyday.

For a period I got to callous, I didn't care. After all if the animals wanted to kill themselves, who was I to get in the middle of it? At some point I was talking to my former FTO, now my beat partner, and he pulled me aside and asked what was going on with me. He again told me to get my head out of my a$$ or quit, saying "you have to give a **** about these people, it is not only your job, but what you came on the job to do". He was right, again.

So now, having seen things that still occasionally giving me nightmares, I think back and say I have had a good career. I love this profession. I still smile at some memories and try to forget others. I would recommend this profession to those who come for all the 'right' reasons, but will caution you to "toughen up" but "don't get hard". Stay grounded, you young guys will all outlast several command staffs, and may one day be the command staff that is getting cussed.

So I will end by quoting that great beat partner and FTO of mine, "get over it, or quit".

I cuss this job just about every day, I hate the way things are being done now, dont like the chief we have, most of the command are unqualified for the positions they have, but.... I thank God every day I have this job, wouldnt do anything else, no regrets whatsoever, am so glad I got the chance to do this for the past 23 years and would do it all over again, no doubt about it. Ive met the best people ever doing this job, made some good friends, worked with some great cops, seen the world and the way people really are in a way citizens never will. The horror Ive seen, the bad stuff that hard to forget, seeing people at their worst sucks, but, the fun times Ive had, the laughs Ive gotten from some of these people we make runs on, the laughs from some of these cops Ive met thru the years, the stories you come away with, priceless. Im very lucky, very blessed for this career. Its done me very well in a lot of ways. I know its hard to have a good outlook most of the time but despite all that we as cops have it a whole lot better than a lot of other people do so remember, it could be worse.