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One of my biggest beefs with the public has always been their collective inability to see the man above the neckline of my uniform. How many times do we all get lumped into the same category because one jackass cop in Nowhere, Missouri (no offense, MO) pulls a bonehead move and ends up on YouTube, and subsequently is the feature of a 20/20 special?
I get real sick of it, and I’ll bet you do as well.

I bring you good tidings of great joy, however! We can stem the tide of depraved idiocy currently flooding the interwebs. We can show the people we’ve sworn to protect that we are their neighbors, fellow community members and the guy/gal that sits across the aisle from them on Sundays. We root for the same team as they do … unless they root for the Raiders. Only parolees root for the Raiders.

Warm Fuzzies

There are great examples in social media that provide the general public with a completely different point of view they never would’ve considered. Be it good law enforcement blogs working hard to show the public the human side of law enforcement or feel-good stories letting the public glance behind the curtain in a way they never have before.

A few months back, there was a story out of Portland, Ore. in which an officer was pursuing a speeding vehicle. It was pouring rain and a car blew by at 17 mph over the speed limit. The officer gave chase, but suddenly came to a stop in the middle of the road when he saw a mother duck and her ducklings trying to cross the street. It was Portland PD who put the video out along with well-chosen music tracks and subtitles. The piece got rave reviews from around the country and the positive comments served to put the Portland PD in a great light.
They’re doing a fantastic job at creating and maintaining their reputation, both online and in the real world. They aren’t the only ones, though.

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Before Twerking

Remember all those terrible Harlem Shake videos and that abysmal Gangnam Style nonsense? Google that in conjunction with “police” and kiss your afternoon goodbye. Police agencies around the world made parody videos and posted them on their assorted social media outlets.
Are they goofy? Definitely.

Do they score huge public relations points? Indeed.

And that’s the point. When people are stopping by your page to check out your most recent shenanigans, they’ll also see the BOLO you put out and the suspect description from your most recent home invasion.

As much as we bitch and moan about how lousy the public treats us, we need to remember we bring a lot of it on ourselves. Sometimes, we are our worst enemies. We spend months in the beginning of our careers having the “Us vs. Them” mentality beaten into our brains and then we hit the streets and are surprised when citizens react to us with derision. A decade later, we are experienced and cynical at all the “ass hats we have to deal with.” You remember them, right? The ass hats? You know, the ones you got into this business to serve?

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D’oh!

There will be those in your department who will rail against the very idea of acting or looking, shall we say, less than in perfect control of any given situation. Those may very well be the same people who think only teenagers, pimps and tweakers use MySpace. And since MySpace hasn’t been a viable social media outlet for years, it’ll tell you how out of touch the naysayers are.

At the risk of beating that deceased equine, it would behoove you to remember your reputation is out there in the ether whether you decide to participate in its formation or not. Why would you, or more to the point, your administration, not want to have a hand in the direction your department’s reputation moves?

Showing the human side of law enforcement has a huge upside. Not only does it help the public see the man/woman under the Kevlar, it also helps the cop remember their human side. All too often, we forget that’s exactly what we are — human.
By Jason Hoschouer

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