By Melissa Littles
I’m a cop’s wife, and I’ve been a vocal advocate for law enforcement officers and their families on a national level since 2009. My husband has been an officer for seventeen years. My praise, my pride, my admiration and respect for my husband is not born from the badge on his chest, but the character he maintains as an individual, while representing the badge on and off-duty.
You’ll hear it time and time again that law enforcement is a lifestyle. For those who are in law enforcement that lifestyle represents family, honor, honesty and a genuine desire to serve and protect the public with dignity and moral ethic. For some, both officers and the public, that lifestyle represents arrogance, a superiority complex and an opinion that the badge is a license to make your own rules and subject the innocents to them as you please. Unfortunately it takes time to weed out the bad from the good, and more times than not the bad are also good performers in doing what it takes to obtain that badge to begin with.
There’s no good cop who has love for a bad one. A bad cop will never take a bullet for my husband, and he’s well aware of that. There’s no question my husband willingly signed up to potentially be in a position where it would be his duty to lay down his life for his fellow man. We willingly kiss each other goodbye, possibly for the last time each and every shift, because that’s part of our game of life. However, neither of us agreed to sign up for him to be hunted by individuals seeking to cause harm.
Construction workers and fishermen and loggers and oil field workers are killed on the job way more than cops, and they signed up for that as well. I’ve not once sought out a construction worker to remind him my husband risks his life for him daily. I call him when I need construction work, much like most call 911 when they need a cop. I appreciate construction workers, they built my home.
There are over 700,000 officers and less than 200 deaths each year. Their duty is to protect and serve, which involves putting themselves on the line for the sake of public safety. However, they are being assassinated by repeat, felonious criminals on a mission to eliminate with no regard for who they are as individuals. I don’t recall my husband signing up for this particular aspect of the job.
As an officer for seventeen years I’ve seen my husband come home from the bad calls. He willingly does so and loves his job. The good still outweighs the bad, and he still looks forward to going to work each day. He’s more than a cop though. He’s a human being. He’s a father, a husband and my best friend. Believe me, I know the difference. Perhaps others should begin to consider the same.
The men and women of law enforcement in this country need our support. The bad cops need to clean up their business and quit bringing more harm to the good ones. I’m an officer’s wife. I want to grow old with him. I want our children to come home to visit, not meet at the memorial wall. Call me an optimist, but I’m not quite ready to give up on that dream just yet. Not ever.
