Editor’s Note: This week’s PoliceOne First Person essay is from PoliceOne Member Kenneth DeLand, who has been a patrolman for the past 23 years. In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an e-mail with your story.
By Kenneth DeLand
Police1 Member
Within the sanity of our own minds one would think its insane to put on a bulletproof vest, don a web belt bearing a handgun, 52 bullets, a rifle with 100 rounds plus, a TASER with 50,000 volts, pepper spray, an Asp, and handcuffs to do one’s job everyday. But we do it.
Day after day we are asked to step into harms way knowing that every corner we turn could be a reality check with a distraught individual ready and willing to take one’s life. But we do it.
But yet we do what is asked of us, and at times even ordered to do so, by individuals who sit within the protection of their own bubble, standing behind a wall of safety. But yet we do it.
We step out everyday climbing into our offices and patrol society trying to figure out a way to calm the evil that lurks within the shadows of every call. We do it.
We are asked to step between two human beings that are within a state of rage and unconcern for the life or safety of the one’s around them and control the situation. We do it.
We are asked to connect and communicate with all walks of life of all ages and mentalities. Then step back into our own sanity trying to make sense of it all. We do it.
Sometimes we step into the roll of a leader, a listener, a counselor, a mentor, a mediator, a consoler, and even a friend but never forgetting we are policemen first. We do it.
Yet we are asked to go home at the end of our shifts and leave the madness behind not to poison our families with the daily insanity we deal with, then maintain and even control not only our lives but all the lives we come into contact with. We do it.
But yet the next day “We Do It” all over again. Is it the insanity of the job we do? Or is it the sanity within our own minds that keeps us coming back for more?
