Tributes

Here is a peace officer poem that I love. The author is unknown, but credit given to the author.

When God Made Peace Officers
Author Unknown

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 specs 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 Charter 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 their country”
"You're a genius," said the angel.

The Lord looked somber. "I didn't put it there," he said.