Commentary by David Whiting
The Orange County Register
Retired officers reflect on why they chose the job.
A family friend excitedly tells me he’s on his way to becoming an Orange County sheriff’s deputy and, when pressed, admits some people question his wisdom.
In a county with citizens screaming, hurling bottles and calling police killers, their doubts come as no surprise.
I ask the 24-year-old college graduate why he wants to put on a uniform that some mock, spit on, shoot bullets at.
His answer centers on something that allows companies to invest in factories, that ensures we drive safely to work, that lets us use money to buy groceries.
It’s about the rule of law.
I ask grizzled officers - men who have saved lives, been shot at and assaulted - about the times they’ve been thanked.
They don’t have many examples.
People become officers for many reasons - for adrenaline, because each day is different, to avoid being stuck at a desk, perhaps even for power, although psychological screenings test for that. But mostly those in uniform tell me they enter law enforcement to help build community.
Despite Hollywood rogue cops, the officers I know maintain that sense of service. Even the guys some civilians call “cowboys.”
Mike Kennard, now 72 and living in Huntington Beach, joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department six months after the 1965 Los Angeles riots. He served 24 years in Air Rescue and SWAT. And, yes, he joined to give back.
Twenty years after the Rodney King riots, I ask if police are treated worse today.
Kennard stuns me when he says the way police are treated in 2012 isn’t much different - from the Sixties. It was bad then, too.
I guess that statement qualifies as good news - at least last week’s demonstrations in Anaheim and this week’s sometimes raucous protests don’t mark the beginning of the end to civilization.
What’s it like when civilians shout obscenities, wave The Finger three inches from your face?
Kennard says, “When someone spit on me, I couldn’t do anything.
“To walk in our shoes takes some doing.”
To offer a glimpse of what it’s like inside SWAT, Kennard details a series of call- ups. Here’s one: The team gets ready to bust a drug dealer, knowing bodyguards with shotguns are on the other side of the door.
“We’re all swatted up with armor, with ammo, shotguns,” Kennard says of that night. Serving as medic, he takes some pulses before going in. It’s like the officers are asleep.
“You’d think we’d be more excited,” Kennard says. “But with so much confidence and training, you don’t feel stressed.”
He explains patrol officers face a different type of danger. “At a traffic stop, they never know what’s going to happen.”
Kennard recounts the time when he walked into a liquor store, responding to an armed robbery call. Five seconds later he found himself in a gunfight.
Although officers know they are alive, family members at home can only wonder. Sometimes it is their stress that tears apart families. He tells of one night when he rolled on three SWAT calls, the last at 4:30 in the morning.
“Mike, I can’t take this any longer,” he heard as he was leaving. “Please don’t come back.”
Kennard has four children by three wives.
Kennard says thank-yous are rare. “I’ve flown 6,000 hours air rescue. The times I’ve been thanked I could count on two hands.”
He recalls one. A car smashes into a motorcyclist and his girlfriend. They are pinned under the car. The manifold is burning through the man’s
back. The woman’s bleeding badly, her legs crushed.
With gasoline everywhere, Kennard’s team jacks up the car and the team med-evacs the couple to a hospital.
A week later, a car pulls up to headquarters. A man gets out carrying one of 15 cases of beer.
He says, “Thank you for saving my daughter’s life.”
Gary Weinmann, 58, of La Habra, served in the Los Angeles Police Department for five years before becoming a sheriff’s deputy. He retired two years ago and never considered his job especially stressful - until he retired.
“You live with stress or are in denial,” says the twice-divorced former officer. Weinmann was in denial. “It’s weird,” he admits to thinking he wasn’t stressed. “After all, I wore a bulletproof vest and had a gun.”
Without knowing details, he doesn’t condemn or condone the recent shootings in Anaheim. But he offers a suggestion to those concerned about police behavior:
When ordered to stop - stop.
“When you run, it doesn’t mean you deserve to be shot,” Weinmann explains. “But it shows a big presumption of guilt - of something - and it notches up the situation.”
Father of three, Weinmann echoes Kennard, saying: “It’s hard for the public to put themselves in the shoes of an officer during a chase. The fear, the adrenaline, the consequences, the tactics for survival...”
Weinmann, who was a patrol officer, explains that furtive movements can mean danger. “If you wait to seea gun, you can get killed.”
I ask about the challenges my young friend will face.
“Well, the first thing a cop should realize is that he’s a necessary evil. It’s a negative-contact job. We’re always telling people to do things they don’t want to do.
“When we’re needed, it’s hurry and get there, solve the problem quickly and then leave until we need you again.
“Not appreciated? Maybe, but that’s the job.
“When you start your career, you want to help people,” Weinmann says. Later, he allows: “It’s kind of becomes us against them. Sad but true.”
Still, Weinmann reports he had a fascinating job. “I don’t regret being a policeman - but also I don’t miss it.”
Without rancor or boasting, an Orange County sheriff’s deputy recently told me, “We’re held to a higher standard.”
Perhaps that’s the way it should be for people charged with enforcing laws, who have the ability to arrest and who are granted the authority to use lethal force. Instead of poisoning attitudes, the criminal charges against two Fullerton police officers in the wake of the Kelly Thomas beating should strengthen faith in our system.
Of those who blanketly condemn police, my family friend suggests, “The actions of the few shouldn’t ruin it for the many.”
So why go into law enforcement?
“If you have laws, that’s one thing,” the aspiring deputy tells me. “But what if people ignore those laws?
“You need somebody to enforce them.”
For a young man’s commitment to service, two words: Thank you.
Copyright 2012 Orange County Register