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Showing posts with the label thin blue line

Tater Take: Supervision from a beat cop's perspective

Cops and their supervisors; if you want an earful ask a cop about the worst supervisor they've worked for and grab a seat, and maybe some popcorn.  Every cop has the horrible supervisor story, and probably more than one.  Why is it some supervisors don't see why they are being bad at the job they are supposed to do? I've found that bad supervisors were never the real, working police.  And the ones that were, have forgotten what it's like. Any cop reading this can point out their good/great supervisors.  The ones that they didn't mind working for or when the supervisor asked for volunteers or for some sort of activity, the officers gladly went and did it.  I have had several really good supervisors, and still do, and while I am not a supervisor (yet...maybe one day?) I have been in positions of leadership or supervising in my life. The best supervisors I have had have done police work or been on a team of sorts (tact, gang, narcotics, etc.).  They know how paper shou

What is the "Thin Blue Line"?

There are American flags with a blue line down the middle.  Or the flags of other nations modified to show the blue line. City flags with blue lines down the middle. T-shirts espousing that the blue line will be defended. Spartan helmets and the infamous Punisher skull with a blue line on them. When a cop is killed profile pictures change and a blue line runs across the photo. So what is the "Thin Blue Line"?  Is it a symbol of white supremacy and an alt-right movement?  A symbol of a code of silence where a cop can get away with everything under the sun and never have anything happen to them because no other cop will say anything? Or something more poetic.  Perhaps a recognition that police are the ones that figuratively, and at times literally, separate normal citizenry from the evil that lurks within their fellow man?  As the idea that George Orwell so plainly put forth: people sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men and women stand ready to do v