I wrote this article about “The Philosophical Cop” on my website a couple of weeks ago. It’s about an American police officer who has come to WordPress to give the world his perspective on life in general. He’s an interesting man, made more interesting by the fact he hides his real identity from the world to protect both himself and his family. The only question that remains is, now that he has his blog, will anyone care enough about what he has to say?
A Philosophical Cop And His Blog
As it appeared in Issue #253 of SomethingCool News:
There’s this crazy story out of Los Angeles this past week involving the firing of a police officer after he allegedly used “excessive force” on a suspected car thief. The long and the short of it is that the officer was chasing the suspect, who he believed was carrying a gun, tackled him, hit him 11 times before finally restraining him. The incident was caught on tape and, naturally, the actions of the cop were second-guessed by everyone, including the media. Several columnists even called for his head – a wish that was eventually granted. And the suspect? He got three years in jail and a $450,000 settlement from the city.
This is exactly the type of incident that gets The Philosophical Cop all hot and bothered. He doesn’t hand out his real name, but he unapologetically posts his opinions on police matters on a blog, conveniently named The Philosophical Cop. “My mission here is simple: Education and understanding,” reads the very first entry on his blog, dated September, 2007.
“The vast majority of cops do excellent and heroic work in the vast majority of situations. Sometimes we fail. In either case, I think police incidents are often misunderstood, misrepresented, and unfairly characterized. Hopefully we can work on that together. I expect many readers will not agree with many things that I say. I know that not all of my posts will please you. Let’s talk about those. Welcome.”
If you caught the ‘we’ in the above paragraph, it’s not a typo. The Philosphical Cop is a police officer, who works for one of the largest police forces in the United States. He says he has worked as a detective, an officer, a tactical operator and a supervisor and done so in many different neighbourhoods. And like most police officers, has a healthy disdain for the mainstream press.
“My entire career,” he said, “I have been frustrated at the fact that (1) most Americans get their ‘view’ of the police from the mainstream media. And most of the mainstream media is either naïve, or downright hostile, about the way police work is done. And (2) a few activist groups get all the attention as they criticize the police and call them racists. WHERE ON EARTH is the silent majority?”
It is this frustration that led him to start his blog. “My mission has always been to represent the TRUTH about what cops do and what they go through,” he explained. “Their payment, by the way, for all the risks they take is the media selling them short, high blood pressure, family stress (missed weekends and missed kids’ parties), low life expectancy, high cancer rates, etc. Yet they keep on going.”
He knew he wanted to give people an informed voice on police work, but admitted he is far from a computer expert. Fortunately, websites like WordPress.com make blogging easy, so he was able to get up and running in no time. But now that he had the ability to “spread the word”, as he put it, what direction should he take?
“I quite simply wanted to show the world how life looks from a cop’s perspective,” he said. “Good, bad, or ugly, I just write the truth as I see it. Being a cop has changed me dramatically; I am more cynical, more short-tempered, and more judgmental in many ways. I am also more compassionate, more likely to help a stranger, and more in love with my family than prior to my service. So positive or negative, I wanted to show what this job does to someone. Cops don’t just go home…they are always cops.”
One of his other objectives was to present his views and perspective on current events in the media as they relate to police work. On the story involving the fired officer in Los Angeles, The Philosophical Cop was actually friendly to a columnist who previously chastised the officer before he had all the facts. “The media just seem to hate cops, and I can’t figure out why,” he wrote. “Outstanding work, then, by Steve Lopez for using his column this week as an apology to the officer who he initially sold down the river in Los Angeles.”
By adding his two cents to the debate, the Philosophical Cop feels he can hopefully give people something to think about in a way they might not have before. “I just want to mention how I see it. Many of the comments on my blog agree, and many do not. I simply wanted to speak my mind with no media editing involved. Isn’t that the power of the blogosphere? Isn’t that wonderful?”
Although the blog has not taken off the way he had hoped (he has only had 5,000 hits since September), he does have at least a few faithful followers. Gathering a solid readership has turned out to be a bigger challenge than he thought. “’Getting the word out’ will require many hundreds of readers. I am trying to learn how to do this, but thus far have not succeeded. I may have to learn more technical tricks.”
But he’ll learn them, if that’s what it takes to change people’s minds. “Sometimes police work is ugly. That is because officers are willing to place themselves in situations that no one else will; street police officers seek out the deranged man with the gun to arrest him, they search for the rapist to stop his crime, and they drive TOWARDS the murderer, while everyone else drives away. For that reason they deserve respect; or at the very least, a fair shake. Instead, they get biased, one-sided criticism from a media system whose bias is so clearly liberal it is sometimes laughable. Interestingly, I am a fairly liberal person (especially among cops) however the large newspapers and the anti-police lobby in the states just railroad the cops at the first smell of blood.”
You might think that writing about media biases and tragic police officer deaths would keep the Philosophical Cop in a perpetual state of depression. Not so much. “I am incredibly optimistic,” he said. “I am upbeat about the police / victim relationship. The men and women I work with go to work each day as victims’ advocates. They arrest criminals to prevent you from becoming a victim, and to provide justice to those who already are victims. It is cops, and cops alone, who stop that man from victimizing someone else. I also believe that 99% of Americans trust and respect police officers. That is precisely why it is so tragic that the mainstream media and a few outspoken critics poison the picture before it is presented.”
The Philosophical Cop is there to present us with the complete picture, or at the very least, as much of it as he can provide. Yes, police officers are imperfect creatures doing impossible work to achieve an impossible objective, but they still do it, and many with integrity and honour. And if they don’t, well you can expect that he will be first one to point it out.
In a post about a crooked New York City Police Officer, the Cop wrote, “I am the first one to stand by the officer who makes an honest mistake. I am also the first one to reign down fury on a crooked cop. This guy actually got caught bragging about a drug theft on his own wiretap. That means he knew the line was being recorded. I am the biggest supporter of cops that ever lived. But drug dealers are drug dealers, uniform or not. Straight to jail with this guy, I say.”
The Philosophical Cop Blog is a one-stop shop for something to think about for those weighty police matters. It’s not for the weak of heart and not for those who have already made up their minds. It’s a place where clear thinkers and people who want to learn something will always find something new. And it’s one more example of the way police officers work tirelessly at their jobs – whether they are on the clock or off.
There’s another good side to the blog as well – at least for its creator. “I confess that at least 50% of my motivation is selfish,” The Philosophical Cop said. “I vent and have therapy on that blog. So it helps me as much as anyone else.”
On the Web: http://philosophicalcop.wordpress.com
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