If we watched enough “CSI” and “Law & Order,” we know pretty much all there is to know about police work.
Right?
Of course not. So it’s no wonder fully a third of the posts on the website officer.com in December 2014 and January 2015 include something of the notion that the average citizen has no idea what it takes to be a police officer and that “civilians just don’t get it.”
They don’t, in fact — get it, that is. None of us ever fully knows someone else’s job until we do it.
Unlike the average butcher or machine shop worker, though, a police officer’s job often plays out in the media, leaving his or her actions — right or wrong — open to speculation by media, politicians, race baiters and average citizens.