• HideTV Turns 1 Next Week!

    To celebrate the anniversary, we’ve got a full week of planned of exclusive giveaways, special live streams, limited-edition merch, and more surprises along the way. Keep an eye out!

    View thread

How do you LEOs do it?

It's the reason so many drink heavily and have PTSD, though most would never admit it.

The dreams come and go, but you can be just sitting in your car listening to the radio and a scenario will start going through your mind and your heart will start racing and your breathing will speed up etc.... Then you just take deep breaths (tactical breathing exercises help a lot) and focus on something else.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bender
We have one female that threw her baby in a ditch while at a truck stop in winter. Horrible things..... but I treat and talk to her like everyone else. The same..... it’s a struggle at times.... but you just shove it down, with all your other emotions. And having a very dark sense of humor is an excellent copping mechanism. It’s a must.....

Pigeons help too.....
 
We have one female that threw her baby in a ditch while at a truck stop in winter. Horrible things..... but I treat and talk to her like everyone else. The same..... it’s a struggle at times.... but you just shove it down, with all your other emotions. And having a very dark sense of humor is an excellent copping mechanism. It’s a must.....

Pigeons help too.....
It has been a kind of progression for me.

When you are brand new, you are disgusted and appalled. You think of them as animals. Then, before too long, you realize that we are all capable of this stuff, and you just get jaded and you hate people in general.

But... If you continue to work through it, and seek help from above, you realize that you are actually capable of showing love to them when you get the chance. Because... there but for the grace of God go I.
 
It has been a kind of progression for me.

When you are brand new, you are disgusted and appalled. You think of them as animals. Then, before too long, you realize that we are all capable of this stuff, and you just get jaded and you hate people in general.

But... If you continue to work through it, and seek help from above, you realize that you are actually capable of showing love to them when you get the chance. Because... there but for the grace of God go I.
I got there quick. These are still humans. Drugs literally change people into monsters. Most of who is in our facility have one of or all factors including but not limited to, Drug/alcohol abuse, poor economic status, and mental problems from many other factors. Because of the progressive push to shut down mental facilities in the last 40 years, these people still exist and need help, and either self medicate to cope or just flat out ride the drug train to full incapacitation, they get dumped into the county jail simply because they have nowhere else to go. There are some inmates I actually have bonded with and try to mentor them as much as possible when they are receptive, simply because they never had a father figure in there existence. They have never been told no. I don’t yell at my inmates. If you wind them up, it’s just going to be harder on you and they guy who is coming to relive you at shift change.

But exactly as you say. But for the grace of god, there go I......
 
And one day you realize, you have more in common with them closer to the bottom, than the flashy dressed hypocrites in shiny cars, big houses, and flashing big bucks.
Because them closer to the bottom smile when they see you, and welcome you at their table, and have your back when you really need it.
Because you've earned their respect by giving it to them every time you meet them.

And the bottom feeding animals respect you (for a bunch of reasons). (Even though you look forward to reading their obits. ) And those bottom feeders are more honest with you that the upper levels of command staff.
The lower level of bottom feeders like mentioned in the news article have no value in the world and deserve the most evil form of retribution allowed on them.

And then, you are no longer the person who started 30 years ago. And you see a lot of things different. No surprises any more. Just another day to survive and stay sane (there "are" different levels), dont take it home with you (impossible), dont let it touch you (possible), and appreciate that, "but for the grace of God, there I go"...

And you realize Karma is one truly bad bitch, as you see it "take them out" in some pretty ingenious ways, and you recognize Karma likes you, rewards you, keeps you safe, gets you home, Karma is your friend.

And you get up tomorrow and do it again.

Ymmv...
 
Last edited:
If the point of jail time it to pay their debt to society and rehabilitation of the individual to be released back into the community they might as well put them in a cell with tank and bubba for a week and then shoot them because there is no way they can pay society back for this and there is also no way somebody like this can be rehabilitated and can be trusted in society again. They will just cost the tax payer hundreds of thousands of dollars over their corrections stay...... blast em with hard cast lead as copper is to good for them.
 
If the point of jail time it to pay their debt to society and rehabilitation of the individual to be released back into the community they might as well put them in a cell with tank and bubba for a week and then shoot them because there is no way they can pay society back for this and there is also no way somebody like this can be rehabilitated and can be trusted in society again. They will just cost the tax payer hundreds of thousands of dollars over their corrections stay...... blast em with hard cast lead as copper is to good for them.

lol

STFU

lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bender
The point of jail is to keep them locked up away from us. When they are in jail they aren’t victimizing us. It’s cheaper to keep it them locked up than to keep them out. Add up the cost of crime, investigation, and prosecution and it exceeds the cost of incarceration alone. They get caught only 10% of the time, think about that.
 
The frustrating part was not dealing with the trash (and Mayberry was, well, Mayberry... we had our winners..... but not big city winners...)

The frustrating part was that you would do a great job getting a sierra-bravo off the street, paper them up, airtight investigation, case, caught dead to rights...

And a bleeding heart states' attorney would refuse to prosecute... some lawyer would play technicalities... a lefty pot-head judge would give them a hug and tell them not to do it again. And they would be back out in hours, days or weeks with an expunged record and more confident than ever that they can escalate... and many did. Then were on the hook for stabbings, shootings or other things (usually out of our AO)... but guess what? They had no record! Because it was expunged in diversion or because it might stop said sierra bravo from getting into Yale.

It's like picking up all the litter on your road, tying the bags up nice and tight.... and having your neighbor the lawyer walk up, scatter it all over the road again and say "Look at the good I did for society... "

Was a second career for me. I'd never have made it as a first career.... The perspectives of age and patience, I guess.

Though I still think that Dexter and The Star Chamber should be documentaries... not fantasy.

Sirhr
 
Imagine the worst city you have ever been to. Now imagine the worst part of that city where almost everyone is scared to go and most won’t. That’s where I work everyday unarmed with just my wits and what comes out of my mouth. Young men that have thrown their lives away at 18,19 ,20 years old and older doing life sentences for murders. Like a lot of the others say you never understand it but at the same token, everyone is possible of anything. For me I pray that I do my lords will and not my own and that he guides me keeps me safe and let’s. Me go home everyday.

A coworker of mine was murdered this year at work. RIP Sgt. Mark Baserman.
 
This is part of the reason I retired back in June. 26 years of both full time and part time, active shooter team, sniper school and years of training. I also have an engineering background that pays way better. The other issue was the trash coming out of the academy that thinks they are above the average citizen who we protect and serve. Couple that with a knife fight at McDonalds on the South side of Indy while off duty last year, I had enough. I did not have an off duty weapon on my person (I know....my bad) so I had to go old school and fight. I stay in shape and use to fight in the cage but at 50 years old, I don;t heal up as quick. I broke the meth heads arm for him to take the knife and ended up having to choke him out since he was so high I could not hurt him. My wife saw it on the news before I could call her and let her know I was OK,

The guys he stabbed 3 times didn't fair so well since he was stabbed 3 times but he was the drug dealer so it worked out. The suspect had 2 attempted murder charges in Chicago already. Imagine that.
 
I was told by one of my trainers when fighting that it's a fine line between badass and dumbass. My wife pointed out both dumbass=for leaving off duty weapon in the car and badass=for at least making the effort and not running out the door like the 15 truck drivers when we watched the video. I really dind't have time to even think about it because it happened so fast it was just game on?
 
I worked 5 years in a Max Psychiatric Hospital that at my last day on watch, had 186 forensic " patients", and 257 violent predator sex offenders. All in a un armed setting. Over 90% were multiple murders, and the sex offenders had an average of 7 arrests. ( I still refuse to add the total up. I just dont ever want to know how many people wanted to kill me every day when I went to work)
It was sickning to have to show compassion, and restraint..
I would get out of work roll up my windows, turn the heat on max, and just drive.. as long as it took to sweat away the days events.

I never went home while I was still on edge. Because once I got into my driveway, I was now a loving Dad, and Husband. And protecting them with all Iam , is what kept me going every day.
I would say a prayer before every shift as I walked through the ft gate , and again as the gate slammed shut behind me, being thankful I was going home that day.
A good day was when all the staff, visitors, and fellow officers, made it back home that day, There were many bad days where that didnt happen. Those are the ones that you always remember, and try to forget. ( but i still remember every detail).

I learned to love my family even more than I knew possible, and showed no compassion for anyone who would do harm.
 
Last edited: