Officer Friendly

There’s a video of two Calumet County Wisconsin Sheriff’s deputies hassling a woman because her kids went to the neighbor’s house to play. 

In response, the Sheriff posted this message:  

The problem with both the video and the response is the attitude.  This is the kind of behavior that gets people upset at law enforcement.  

Look at the male deputy in the video.  His tone is berating.  His attitude is condescending.  His body language is aggressive.  The Sheriff says the Deputy is there to educate the mother, that the deputies were not there because of a violation of the order.  But that’s what the deputies accuse her of – violating the order by letting her kids play at the neighbor’s house. 

The male deputy’s posture and word choice is confrontational.  He doesn’t educate, he berates.  It angers me just watching it.  He did nothing to de-escalate the situation.  
The female deputy’s passive-aggressive behavior is little better.  She doesn’t educate or placate, she’s there to document the contact for future prosecution because now the mother has been warned.  And the mother was uncooperative!  That’s going on her Permanent Record!  

That is the sort of officious, snotty, condescending, infuriating behavior by petty tyrants that causes unrest, as in “unrest in the Middle East” or “another day of unrest in Northern Ireland.”  People who can’t behave professionally in customer-facing positions should find another line of work.

Let me be perfectly clear for law enforcement and other people of limited intellectual ability: I am not calling for people to shoot cops.  But if this woman had and I were on the jury, I’d vote to acquit.
Joe Doakes

There’s something about “public service” that brings the worst out of a certain type of personality – the kind wonderfully parodied by Rainn Wilson for nine years as “Dwight Schrute”.

Although this isn’t funny.

4 thoughts on “Officer Friendly

  1. The woman brought it upon herself the minute she violated the cardinal rule for contact with the cops: “Never say anything to the police. Nothing.”

    In this case, she could and should have simply walked away without a word. Instead, she got sucked in and played their game.

  2. What gets me is the repeated asking for her last name. Pretty sure they have a computer in the car and could find that out.

    Sounds like the police found out from someone tattling on them.

  3. Mom does a great job of asking for authority, and somehow I’m reminded of Officer Barney Fife. Except the two guys in question probably have at least three fully loaded 15 round magazines plus a fully auto AR in the car apiece instead of Barney’s one bullet issued when there is an emergency.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.