Police Officer Week

This is National Police Officer Week, a time set aside to remember those officers who gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect their communities. An average of 154 officers die each year in the line of duty. In addition, there is an average of 58, 261 assaults against law enforcement officers each year, resulting in over 15,000 injuries.

While it is important to remember the fallen in our hearts and minds, it is equally important to consider the state of our current police officers, working day in and day out so we can live our lives in relative peace and security. Last year 120 officers died in the line of duty and an additional 126 committed suicide. They are killing themselves at the same rate as their job is. That is concerning. Studies show that law enforcement officers tend to have higher rates of depression, anxiety, domestic violence and divorce than other groups of people. One third of officers suffer from PTSD (and most are not being treated for it because they don't even know they have it).

There are many factors that cause this high rate of depression and suicide in police officers (crazy schedules, feeling unappreciated, city and department politics, lack of faith in the judicial system), but I think one of the biggest contributing factors is the lack of balance. There are many other stressful careers out there, but most of them have a balance of good and bad in them. For instance, medical professionals see people die, but they also watch people heal.  Police officers generally only see the dark side of humanity. When a person is being kind to others, the police are not called to witness it. When they come in contact with people on duty, it is because those people are drunk, violent, selfish or are accident victims. In the role that police play in our communities, they do not often get to see people turn their lives around, families being reunited, or victims on the mend. Being immersed in negativity every day is bound to make even the most cheerful person a little melancholy.

I have posted a story below that kind of shows what it is like to be a police officer. Let's take a moment this week and say an extra prayer for the physical, mental, and spiritual health of our law enforcement officers.

When God Made Police Officers

When the Lord was creating Police Officers, He was into His sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared and said, “You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.”

And the Lord said, “Have you read the requirements on this order? A police officer has to be able to run five miles through alleys in the dark, scale walls, enter homes the health inspector wouldn’t touch, and not wrinkle their uniform. They have to be able to sit in an undercover car all day on a stakeout, cover a homicide scene that night, canvas the neighborhood for witnesses, and testify in court the next day. They have to be in top physical condition at all times, running on black coffee and half-eaten meals, and they have to have six pairs of hands.”

The angel shook her head slowly and said, “Six pairs of hands…no way!” “It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the Lord, “it’s the three pairs of eyes an officer has to have.”

That’s on the standard model?” asked the angel. The Lord nodded. “One pair that sees through a bulge in a pocket before they ask, ‘May I see what’s in there, sir?’ (When they already know and wish they’d taken that accounting job), another pair here on the side of the head for their partner’s safety, and another pair of eyes here in front so they can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, ‘You’ll be all right, ma’am,’ when they know it isn’t so.”

“Lord,” said the angel, touching His sleeve, “rest and work on this tomorrow.” “I can’t”, said the Lord, “I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk into a patrol car without incident and feed a family of five on a civil service paycheck.”

The angel circled the model of the Police Officer very slowly. “Can it think?” she asked. “You bet”, said the Lord, “it can tell you the elements of a hundred crimes, recite Miranda warnings in its sleep, detain, investigate, search, and arrest a gang member on the street in less time that it takes five learned judges to debate the legality of the stop…and still it keeps its sense of humor.

This officer also has phenomenal personal control. They can deal with crime scenes painted in hell, coax a confession from a child abuser, comfort a murder victim’s family, and then read in the daily paper how law enforcement isn’t sensitive to the rights of criminal suspects.”

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the Police Officer. “There’s a leak,” she pronounced, “I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model.” “That’s not a leak,” said the Lord. “It’s a tear.” “What’s the tear for?” asked the angel. “It’s for bottledup emotions, for fallen comrades, for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the American flag, for justice.” “You’re a genius,” said the angel.

The Lord looked somber. “I didn’t put it there,” He said.

 

(author unknown)