PO Potatoes- The thoughts and musings of a crime fighting Potato

  I'm going to preface this entire post with this: This is strictly my opinion, my observations, my experience, and my story.  You may not like it, and while I'd love nothing than to put this supervisor on blast by name, if you know me, you know who this person is because I've been vocal about this since it happened. The other reason is I've always felt that when the upper echelon of supervisors in a department DO NOT lead their people correctly, the toxicity that lack creates disseminates itself into the front line officers.  It is in that toxicity that trauma (job caused or otherwise) festers and comes out as the dark side of policing: addiction, alcohol/drug abuse, violence at home and work, risky behaviors, and far, far too often...suicide. One more point: I'm not writing this for accolades but to give a back story.      My police pedigree started in the 011th district, as for those of you who read this outside of the Chicago Police Department, think of the dist

If it isn't apparent lately everything has been about sound bytes, knee-jerk reactions, click-bait headlines, and edgy hashtags. I've seen hashtags like #defundthepolice, #abolishpolice, #policereform and so on. Our own mayor wants all sorts of changes done within 90 days.  She is going to force reform one way or another.  I've seen the new co-chair of the working group for the city say if she doesn't get her way, she has the ability to go over the mayor and superintendent and have a federal judge force the changes. Let us be honest, we all dislike change.  New schools, new grade, new house, new job, new significant other....everything comes packaged with an awkward and anxious-filled phase.  Learning the ropes, where things are, trying not to look lost, and so on.  But for whatever reason cops hate change even more. I don't have an exact answer why, my own personal opinion is I don't feel I've been doing anything wrong.  It took a while to learn the

One of the narratives that is alive and strong today, more so in certain circles, is that the police are nothing more than a wing of the government that is meant to oppress, tax, and murder.  Usually along with that narrative is that modern policing sprout from slave catchers pre- and during the Civil War era in the US.  That frame of mind does nothing but put police on the same plane as the pro-slavery supporters, Nazis and bloodthirsty communists of the 20th century, and the sociopaths that police routinely put behind bars. More times than I care to count I have been on the scene of a shooting, usually a young man, more often than not black/African American, and normally known to us from arrests or not-so-positive interactions.  Usually they are in their gang's territory, or were followed.  In any case, there are usually young teenagers or young adults.  Many have been in and out of bad homes, or come from single parent house holds, or even just raised by grandma.  They foun

Last year, 2018, more cops took their life than were killed in the line of duty.  2019 hasn't started off much better for Chicago or the US.  Just about every cop has been touched by suicide of a brother or sister in blue, myself included.  Even when it isn't someone we know, the sadness still dwells in our hearts, but we regroup and return to duty. Our veterans of our wars take their lives at an alarmingly high rate, roughly 22 per day.  But other than a push-up challenge and a few celebrities speaking out on it, its probably not on the forefront of most people's minds.  We've asked them to put themselves in horrific situations and circumstances and then forget their service outside of a few holidays. Most know it's rude to ask a service member if they have taken a life in war, and most people wouldn't ask that.  Most people would probably ask about what cool weaponry they used or their fallen brethren.  Most people know not to ask the sensitive questi

There's a weird thing about police work.  It never stops. Like never? Never. While some officers work smaller areas, towns, cities, or middle of nowhere, there is still something to do.  Calls to be handled, complaints to be listened to, reports to be filed.  Always something needing to be done or someone needing something. As you move into larger cities or municipalities or departments the shift seems to go from things needing to be done to things needing to be done NOW . Traffic crashes, burglaries, crime scenes, stolen car recoveries, complaints and reports as usual and then, as population density increases so does violent crime.  Seems that the closer and denser people are to each other, the more the violence potential increases.  Sprinkle in low employment, poor services, deserts of all types, and you have created society's powder keg of violence. And with violence comes death.  And usually violent deaths. Any cop who has handled a murder scene, or their first dead