I hope that...
I hope that you had the opportunity to read yesterday’s Dash and took a look on YouTube as I suggested. Before we go any further though I would like to say for those of you who may have recently started reading or following me that I don’t dislike cops but I do have “concerns’ about them.
If I were...
If I were given the choice of only two jobs in life and one was that of cop and the other was a garbage man for sure I would’ve been slinging trash into the back of a garbage truck.
It doesn’t take much education to become a garbage man you just have to be physically fit, have a driver’s license and a strong stomach or bad sense of smell. Well, in my prime, I was more than qualified to be a garbage man.
Also I suspect that there are a lot of garbage men who are actually qualified to be law enforcement officers, at least here in Texas, because the qualifications aren’t that much different.
If that man...
If that man on the back of that garbage truck spent two years in the military on active duty and was honorably discharged he would qualify to become a “peace officer” which is the official designation here in Texas.
The garbage man could just as easily be handcuffing trash and throwing it into the back of squad car instead of the garbage truck like he does now.
When you sit...
When you sit back and analyze things the two jobs aren’t that much different between garbage man and police officer.
Both jobs are tasked with removing the garbage from the streets, the main difference is that the garbage men know what their garbage is and the people know where to place it and on what day to have it picked up.
Police on the other hand have to go in search of their garbage to collect.
We realize police...
We realize police officers have a more difficult job because we know that looks can be deceiving. There are plenty of sayings that get the point across like ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ or ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’.
So just how does a police officer know when he needs to get to work and clean things up?Does he just arbitrarily go about his day deciding for himself which is his ‘trash’ he needs to collect?
Heaven knows he...
Heaven knows he doesn’t; there are written codes and statutes along with the constitution that are supposed to guide him in deciding.
Of those guiding documents the constitution takes precedent over the other two. In most every code or statute you will find some verbiage like, “…unless otherwise provided by law” or this one, “notwithstanding any other law”.
That “other law” or “law” in most instances is the constitution but the writers of codes and statutes don’t really want you to know that. How clever of them is that?
Those police officers must also be struggling with those phrases too.
So the cop...
So the cop has his “book”. The book, as in “book ‘em Danno”, is where the cops go to decide what trash is. Have you ever tried reading codes and statutes? If not, give it a try sometime.
Keep in mind that the laws we are supposed to know and understand are written by lawyers and are often vague and very confusing.
Not to mention that those laws have words that often have a different meaning than the meaning in everyday conversation so even if you think you know the meaning of the word it may have a completely different meaning in the law. So how is the police officer supposed to know what the law says?
Did I mention...
Did I mention the educational requirements to become a police officer? Damn, I didn’t. Let me get that out of the way right now. How did I overlook that, education must be important right?
Nope. Education isn’t important; two years active military and an honorable discharge along with a high school diploma is all you need here in Texas to qualify for a peace officers license.
In fact you can bypass that high school diploma requirement with a GED (general education development) certificate.
Now if you...
Now if you didn’t serve in the military there are some educational requirements like taking a basic licensing course and passing a written test. So with as little as 20 weeks of schooling a person can get qualified to become a Texas peace officer.
Somewhere in my research it said that a person needed only to attend 80% of the class time and have a 2.0 grade average on a 4.0 scale to pass the course so that should give you some idea that things aren’t very difficult in becoming a Texas peace officer license holder.
In fairness to...
In fairness to the system there is additional training that takes place once a city or county hires one of these peace officers; most of those “in house” training programs are another six months.
Nevertheless, a high school dropout with a GED can become a police officer in as little as a year’s time and be walking around with a gun and badge deciding if you meet his standards for trash to be removed from the streets.
If that isn’t scary then I don’t what is; you tell me?
So even though...
So even though they have a “book” with the laws can they even read and understand those laws? Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to answering that question.
What happens, I believe, is the “monkey see; monkey do” method. They put the young officers with the more seasoned veterans on the force to show the rookies the ropes. Then after some time the young officers are turned loose “on their own” to ‘uphold the peace’.
Those You Tube...
Those YouTube first amendment audit videos are a testament to the very dangerous way cities and counties “protect and serve” the public. I am wondering what those government agencies pay in liability insurance premiums each year for these police departments?
I also wonder if the insurance companies watch these You Tube audits of agencies they insure. If not, it might be a good idea for them to do so.
We haven't discussed...
We haven’t discussed money yet but we are about too.
The pay for a Houston police officer ranges from $42,000 for a probationary officer up to $79,000 for a regular officer. Senior officers make between $85,000 and $93,000 a year.
That isn’t a whole bunch of money for a job that requires you to put your life at risk every day you go to work. Some of the ‘trash’ these officers pick up have been known to be armed and very dangerous.
Every job has...
Every job has a certain degree of risk involved with it, even the garbage man job does. He could fall off the back of the truck or even get run over by the truck when it is backing up; but I’ve never heard of a garbage can pulling a gun on a garbage man and opening fire on him.
I can’t say the same thing for the cops.
The average garbage man makes $24,000 a year working for the city of Houston in case you are wondering.
I've been writing...
I’ve been writing lately on the system being broken and this system of law enforcement is one that really needs to be looked at.
My guess is that Texas isn’t the only state with what I would call “weak standards” to become a law enforcement officer but I haven’t looked at any other states, have you? Will you now after reading this? Do you even care?
George Floyd...
George Floyd. Will you or I be the next George Floyd? I hope to God we aren’t but there is nothing saying for certain that we won’t be.
It is time to start questioning everything when it comes to how our governments are run and the people who are running them. Don’t wait until you are pulled over on the side of the road by the local trash collector before you decide to do it either.
Nothing good can come from a confrontation with an armed man who has very little training and even less understanding of the law (constitution) than you do.
Until next time,
Sult
Photo credits: Sult N Papper
