The Anatomy of a Bad Cop: A View From the Inside
By Miguel R. Llull
Cops fall into the “us vs them” situation every day. It’s hard, in fact, to escape it. Every time you are in the public - in your patrol car or walking a beat - all you get are dirty looks, or middle fingers and fuck offs. Stuff like that goes a long way toward pushing police officers to only care for those who empathize with them. While that may be understandable, I’m here to tell you that it’s dangerous; plain and simple. Departments, I believe, should have programs that are specifically designed to address this issue. (They may now, in fact, have some, but I don’t remember any such programs when I was working as a Police Officer or Sheriff).
When a Police force, in its entirety, hits the street every day thinking it’s “us vs them”, each officer begins his or her shift with a chip on their shoulder, whether they know it or not. That chip, as you might imagine, is not going to make them a better cop, and is certainly not going to make them more empathetic. On the contrary, it’s going to make them jump to conclusions. Now, instead taking the time to think through a pending interaction, they are more likely to react from the chip that they carry with them. That can only make matters worse.
Cops are, of course, sent to therapy or counselors after major incidents. The rationale behind that is to make sure that their heads are right, and that they can still make solid, educated decisions in a split second. If the major incident keeps them from being able to do that, the therapist and the Department will require them to stay in therapy until they can be cleared, and only then, will they get sent back out on the street again.
Big traumas like that are obvious. Shootings, accidents, child deaths, death of any kind; Officer involved incidents, too. But it’s the day-to-day little things that I believe eventually become insidious, and at that point, start to eat away at the compassion in a heart. It’s the middle fingers repeatedly aimed in your direction that’s so frustrating, particularly when you know you’d risk your life to save that person if called to do so. Besides all of the fingers, and the other disparaging comments, it’s the mom who is now calling because she’s had it with her incorrigible teenage son. You can see the sadness and pain in her eyes as she tells you that she’s giving up on him. Arresting decent people who’ve made mistakes is hard, too. Knowing full well just how upside down their lives will soon become. Then there are the suicides, where there’s no head left on the body from the shotgun blast. Or it’s the dog who resorted to eating its dead owner due to starvation after the owner died in a recliner weeks ago.
These are the things that build up and make the job so disheartening. Worse yet, if these experiences are left unchecked, they can turn an honest, admirable human being - who just happens to be a cop - into an us versus them powder keg that’s about to explode.
The bottom line is this. Departments and cities and administrators must do a considerably better job of promoting overall mental health in the rank and file. Ultimately, this now needs to become the culture within Police Departments. It should be talked about during every shift. Each briefing should not only contain pass downs from previous shifts by the watch commander – plus other pertinent information about safety, trends, and ongoing investigations - but equally importantly, there should be a mental health check-in with each and every cop.
A big part of police supervision is to assess the fitness-for-duty of each cop every day. I also know that when it’s done conscientiously, it is effective. Yet, no one talks about mental health, even though that’s where it gets dangerous. I’d just like to see more openness in Police Departments, so officers feel more comfortable talking about it.
Mental health check-ins could come in the form of open-door policies for mental health discussions. Not simply having the tools to do this, but Departments need to directly promote them, while simultaneously removing any stigmas associated with them. The leaders also need lead by example, including taking advantage of the processes for themselves, and then encouraging everyone else to follow. Watch commanders should also pay close attention to the type of calls their cops are on, especially during their shift, and then check in with them when it’s over to see if they need some help.
I see all this as important ways of preventing decent humans from becoming jaded officers, who are now more apt to work against the community, than for it.
At the other extreme, is the inherently bad person who has slipped through the cracks in the hiring process. Racial sensitivity courses are a joke. They are literally check-the-box type of trainings. Instead, they need to be in depth, and the attendees have to be accountable to the material and the overall theme. It is no longer enough to believe you are an ethical person who wouldn’t allow racial bias to enter into your work. The truly conscientious ones need to take on the added responsibility of weeding out, or perhaps correcting, those they that see are getting out of line.
I’ve seen the television coverage of scenes where people are being killed by cops. It’s made me think about situations that I was in. Situations that had begun similarly or were similar in some regard. Did I ever worry that one of my partners on the street was racist, or was going to put me in a position where I would have to make a decision? No. I never did. Not the people I worked with in a small police department. I felt that they were all solid. It was a young group of good cops being shown the ropes by an older group of good cops. Smaller departments have the luxury of being selective in their hiring to fill an open position. They generally are only filling a handful, at the most, when larger departments have to hire, sometimes, hundreds at a time. Simple math tells you that they won’t be hiring hundreds of quality candidates at the same level that the smaller department can, especially because the latter are only trying to fill one or two positions.
When I worked in a larger department, however, I immediately saw a huge difference. I still worked with some of the most solid people I will ever know. Quality people with above-board intentions. But in the bigger Department, I was faced with coworkers who I did not necessarily trust; in particular, that they wouldn’t put me in a situation where I’d be forced to make a decision.
Personally, I was sure that I never was involved in, or even witnessed, an incident of racial bias as a Police Officer. I was confident about that. Then I got married and raised two biracial children. Watching them grow up was another matter. That’s when my eyes were finally opened. Then I began questioning myself. Had I experienced any situations of racial bias? Or was I just being very naïve? Looking backwards, naïve is the better fit. That’s been a disappointing lesson for me to learn.
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Miguel R. Llull was born in Spain and moved with his family to the United States. He spent 23 years in Law Enforcement and Security fields, including consecutive stints as a Police Officer and a Sheriff. Now retired, he is chasing his dream of being a freelance writer and photographer, splitting time between Spain and the United States.