When God made Peace Officers...
When
the Lord was creating peace officers, he was into his sixth day of
overtime
when an angel appeared and said, "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on
this one."
And
the Lord said, "Have you read the spec on this order?
A
peace officer has to be able to run five miles through alleys in the dark, scale
walls,
enter homes the health inspector wouldn't touch, and not wrinkle his uniform.
"He
has to be able to sit in an undercover car all day on a stakeout, cover a
homicide scene that night, canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, and testify
in court the next day.
"He
has to be in top physical condition at all times, running on black coffee and
half-eaten meals.
And he has to have six pairs of hands."
The
angel shook her head slowly and said, "Six pairs of hands... no way."
"It's
not the hands that are causing me problems," said the Lord,
"It's the three pairs of eyes an officer has to have."
"That's
on the standard model?" asked the angel.
The
Lord nodded. One pair that sees through a bulge in a pocket before he
asks,
"May I see what's in there, sir?" (When he already knows and wishes
he'd taken that accounting job.) "Another pair here in the side of
his head for his partners' safety. And another pair of eyes here in front
that can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, 'You'll be all right
ma'am, when he knows it isn't so."
"Lord,"
said the angel, touching his sleeve, "rest and work on this tomorrow."
"I
can't," said the Lord, "I already have a model that can talk a 250
pound drunk into a patrol car,
without incident and feed a family of five on a civil service
paycheck."
The
angel circled the model of the peace officer very slowly, "Can it
think?" she asked.
"You
bet," said the Lord. "It can tell you the elements of a hundred
crimes; recite Miranda warnings in its sleep; detain, investigate, search, and
arrest a gang member on the street in less time than it takes five learned
judges to debate the legality of the stop... and still it keeps its sense of
humor.
This
officer also has phenomenal personal control. He can deal with crime
scenes painted in hell,
coax a confession from a child abuser, comfort a murder victim's family, and
then
read in the daily paper how law enforcement isn't sensitive to the rights of
criminal suspects."
Finally,
the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the peace officer.
"There's a leak,"
she pronounced. "I told you that you were trying to put too much into
this model."
"That's
not a leak," said the lord, "it's a tear."
"What's
the tear for?" asked the angel.
"It's
for bottled-up emotions, for fallen comrades,
for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the American flag, for
justice."
"You're
a genius," said the angel.
The
Lord looked somber. "I didn't put it there," he said.
Anonymous
Source unknown
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