We Are the Cops by Michael Matthews Read Free Book Online

can turn around but for some people there’s no hope; they’re just hardened criminals – career criminals – they’re not going to change, they’re not going to come out and get a 9 to 5 job. They’re going to come out and if they want your iPod, they’re going to beat you or they’re going to shoot you and they’re going to take it. And that’s the way they are. So those people should be locked up, kept away.
    It’s not about rehabilitating them, it’s just about keeping them away from innocent people.
    ****
    This woman took her dog into court. The magistrate shouts at her to take the dog out.
    She said, ‘But your honour, this dog is my witness!’
    The judge went crazy. There were four cops dragging her out, an arm and leg each, with her dog snarling and snapping at them.
    ****
    Our old booking facility had the old, electronic sliding doors that close real slow; big heavy doors, in the custody area. This one part of it was kind of a holding cell for all different kinds of people; you’d bring somebody in, you’d swipe your card, the door would open and you’d put your guy - your prisoner - in there and the door would close. Then another door would open to a room and your guy would go sit in there with multiple other people.
    I was working on paperwork for one of my own prisoners. I went to get my guy out of the holding cell and the door openedreal slow. Once I got my guy out, the door started to close again, real slow.
    As it was closing there was somebody else’s prisoner inside and he wants to ask me a question and he goes, ‘O… o… off… officer. O… o… officer.’ And I could tell that he’s got a stutter when he’s talking. So the door is starting to close and he’s stuttering and he’s like, ‘O…o…o…officer, l…le…le…let me ask you a question officer.’
    And the door’s closing and I go, ‘Dude, you’d better hurry up.’
    And he’s like, ‘I… I… I just want to ask, I… I… d… d… do… do… do you know… do… do you k… k… know…’ And it’s just getting closer and closer - it’s just inches from being closed. And right before it closes he goes, ‘I… I… I… j… j… just… a… a… a… ah fuck it!’ And the door closes.
    ****
    I don’t know if it’s an average but I think most police officers do about twenty-five years service. Most of them figure, twenty-five is enough and then get out, although it depends on a person’s attitude and what they’re doing, I guess.
    They did away with age limits in the States and we just had a guy – a colleague of mine – retire at fifty years. Fifty years service! He’s seventy-five years old. He came on in 1962. He was a patrol sergeant and he worked the streets right up to the end – up to the time he retired. It was incredible but he stayed in good health and good shape.
    At fifty years he gets a hundred percent of his salary. The wayit works is you get two percent for every year you work. So at fifty years, he retires at one hundred percent.
    I don’t know how long he’ll live to enjoy it thought!
    ****
    One of our traffic cars hit a deer and it scurried off into the woods. Well, it damaged the vehicle and as Crime Scene Investigators, we had to go take pictures of it. In the process of going out there and doing all that, they had to shoot the deer and put it down and everything.
    So we go out there and I pull out my knife and I field dressed the deer, got all the meat off of it. That meat is in my freezer. I did it the redneck way – no blood involved. The way I do it, there’s hardly any blood. I go in through the back. I do it inside out. I leave all the guts right inside. One side we didn’t get though. One side was pretty tore up from the accident.
    My partner said, ‘That only took you ten minutes.’
    I said, ‘It would only have taken five minutes if you’d keep your flashlight turned off.’ Because, you know, poaching in the backwoods, you do it in the dark.
    Deer meat is