Editor’s note: This essay is part of “Stories from the Street,” a Police1 series featuring first-person reflections from officers across the country. These essays are about the lived experiences and moments that changed how officers think, lead and serve. If you have a story to share, we’d love to hear from you. Submit your story here.
By Rhett Cady
There is something I wish someone had told me when I first put on the uniform: The academy is maybe five percent of the police officer you will eventually become.
It will teach you the law, procedures, tactics, firearms, defensive techniques and how to survive. But it cannot teach you what 20 or 25 years of carrying a badge will do to a human being. That education begins the first time you walk onto the street. And it doesn’t end when you retire.
The officer you were
You’ll never forget the first time people see you in uniform. Something changes. People who looked straight through you yesterday suddenly notice you. Some will respect you. Some will fear you. Some will hate you without knowing your name. And for a while, you’ll feel 10 feet tall. You’ll think you can tackle the world. Hold onto some of that kid. You’re going to need him later.
Your first arrest may surprise you. Mine taught me something the academy never could: Taking another human being’s freedom is an incredible power. The first time you put someone in handcuffs and realize that person cannot leave because you said so, you may feel something you weren’t expecting. Never lose that feeling completely. The day taking someone’s freedom means absolutely nothing to you is the day you need to ask yourself what the job has done to you.
In those early years, you’re also building something that may follow you for the rest of your career: your reputation. People will decide whether they trust you, whether they want you responding when things go bad and whether you’ll stand beside them when everyone else starts backing away. That reputation is built one call, one report, one arrest and one decision at a time. Protect it.
Learn from older officers while they’re still around to teach you. Pay close attention to the worst supervisors you ever have. They may teach you more about leadership than the best ones. You can have the best assignment in the department with the worst supervisor, and it will become the worst job you’ve ever had. You can have the worst assignment with the right supervisor and somehow look forward to coming to work. Remember that. Because someday you may become the supervisor.
And laugh. Laugh with your partners, laugh at yourself and laugh at the ridiculousness you’ll encounter at three in the morning. This profession will give you plenty of reasons to stop laughing later. Take advantage of the years when it still comes easily.
When the job starts following you home
At some point, the walls you built between work and home begin to crack.
You will see things most people were never designed to see repeatedly. Death. Violence. Children hurt. Families destroyed. People at their absolute worst. And then you’ll clear the call, get a cup of coffee and answer the next one. That’s the strange part. Life just keeps moving.
You’ll tell yourself you’re fine because everybody around you seems fine. You’ll put things into boxes. Work goes here. Marriage goes there. Family somewhere else. The things you don’t want to remember get pushed somewhere deep inside. Eventually, those boxes start leaking into one another. Maybe your marriage falls apart. Maybe you stop sleeping normally. Maybe you’re angrier. Maybe you start drinking. If you do, pay attention.
Being functional does not mean you don’t have a problem. You can still make roll call, make arrests, get promoted and be the person everyone trusts when things go bad. And still be slowly falling apart when nobody is watching. Don’t wait until the problem becomes bigger than you. The badge doesn’t make you immune to being human. You’re not the first cop to make a bad decision, and you won’t be the last. Every decision sends a bill. Sometimes it arrives tomorrow. Sometimes it takes 10 years. But eventually the bill comes due.
The job changes how you see the world, too. You’ll notice exits in restaurants, watch people’s hands and sit where you can see the room. Your family may think you’re being paranoid. Sometimes you might be. Sometimes you won’t be. That’s one of the difficult things about this profession. The survival mechanism that protects you at work doesn’t always know when your shift has ended. Learn to turn it down when you can. But never be ashamed of the part of you that learned how to survive.
What the years teach you
Eventually, younger officers will begin asking you questions. That moment sneaks up on you. Yesterday, you were the rookie asking where to stand. Now somebody is watching where you stand. Teach them. And don’t pretend you suddenly know everything because you have stripes on your sleeve.
When you become a supervisor, remember what it felt like to be the officer standing on the other side of the desk. Remember the good supervisors. Remember the terrible ones. Then decide which one you’re going to become.
At some point, you’ll find yourself caught between two teams: the people above you and the people below you. Sometimes your responsibility is to explain and defend the organization. But sometimes your responsibility is to defend your officers from the organization. Have the courage to know the difference. Rank should increase responsibility. It should never erase memory.
You’ll also discover that the organization you devoted your career to can frustrate you, disappoint you and maybe even hurt you. Thousands of cops before you have experienced the same thing. You’re not as alone as you’ll sometimes believe.
As the years pass, decide how high you actually want to climb. Command staff offers the opportunity to create real change. It also brings politics. There are rooms where compromise is necessary and others where compromise slowly becomes surrender. There is nothing wrong with staying in the middle of an organization if that’s where you can remain useful and remain yourself. Think long and hard before accepting a promotion that asks you to become someone you don’t respect.
And start deliberately passing things down. Tell younger officers not only what you did right, but what you did wrong. Your mistakes may become somebody else’s shortcut around disaster.
Some of your greatest mentors will retire before you do. Keep calling them. Their experience didn’t disappear when their badge did.
The people who stay
The brotherhood may not turn out to be exactly what you imagined when you were young. That realization can hurt. But eventually, you’ll understand that you never needed hundreds of brothers and sisters. If you walk away with two or three people who would answer your call at three o’clock in the morning 20 years after retirement, you succeeded. Cherish them.
You’ll also carry the memory of people who didn’t make it to retirement. A partner. A friend. An officer whose name you knew. Maybe somebody you trained. You will attend funerals that stay with you. You’ll hear bagpipes years later and suddenly remember a face. You’ll remember where you were standing when you got the call. Some things never completely leave. You simply learn how to carry them.
But don’t become so consumed by the people and responsibilities of the job that you forget those waiting for you at home. Maybe you’re still married when retirement arrives. Maybe you’re on your second or third marriage. Maybe the person you thought would be standing beside you at retirement disappeared somewhere along the journey. Maybe you changed. Maybe they changed. Probably both.
Life doesn’t always follow the plan the young cop made.
When the department moves on
Eventually, you’ll look at the calendar and realize something you once couldn’t imagine. You’re almost done.
Start preparing mentally for something almost nobody prepares cops for: One day, nobody needs you to be a cop anymore. Someone gets your locker. Someone gets your office. Someone drives your car. Someone eventually takes your position. The radio keeps talking. The calls keep coming. New officers arrive who have never heard your name. And that’s okay. There is no immortality in police work. You will be replaced. Accept it. You were supposed to be. The job belongs to the next generation now.
And maybe this is the part I wish someone had explained to me most. You were a human being before you were a police officer. Before anybody called you Officer, Detective, Sergeant or Lieutenant, there was a kid. There was a teenager. There was somebody who laughed without looking around the room first. Someone who trusted people more easily. Someone who had dreams that had absolutely nothing to do with a badge.
Police work changes that person. Slowly. So slowly you may not notice it happening. The job files away at you. A little cynicism here. A little distrust there. A tragedy. A divorce. A funeral. A bad call you never talk about. Another drink. Another night staring at the ceiling. And somehow the years pass. Then one day, you look in the mirror and realize the rookie who thought he could tackle the world has become an older man wondering where 25 years went.
Don’t hate that man. He survived. He learned. He made mistakes. He helped people. He probably hurt some people too. He loved, lost, failed and succeeded. And through all of it, he kept getting up and putting the uniform back on. But when it’s finally over, give yourself permission to put it down.
You don’t have to scan every room forever. You don’t have to solve everybody’s problems. You don’t have to win every argument or prove you’re still the cop you once were. Find the person underneath all of that armor.
Laugh again. Trust somebody again. Love somebody enough to let them know the parts of you you’ve spent years hiding.
Cherish your children, your family and those two or three friends who somehow survived the journey beside you.
Take care of your body. Take care of your mind. If the darkness becomes too heavy, ask for help. There is no medal for suffering alone.
And look backward with some kindness.
Remember the victories, the laughter in the patrol car, the ridiculous calls and the partners who made a terrible shift bearable. Remember the people you helped who never knew your first name. Remember those who didn’t make it home.
Remember your mistakes, too. They belong to the story.
Then turn around. Because there is still life in front of you. The badge was part of your life. Maybe even one of the greatest parts. But it was never supposed to be your entire life. One day, you will take it off for the last time. The department will move on. The radio will keep talking. Somebody else will answer the call.
And for the first time in decades, you don’t have to.
You’re still here. You’re still the kid, the teenager, the man or woman who laughs, loves, learns, creates, screws things up, gets back up and tries again.
The uniform didn’t create that person. It just borrowed them for a while. Now take them back.
About the author
Rhett W. Cady, born in 1973 and raised in Piscataway, New Jersey, is a U.S. Navy veteran who served aboard the minesweeper USS Sentry (MCM-3) before starting his law enforcement career at 25 with the Indian Creek Village Public Safety Department in Florida. Early on, he was assigned to a DEA task force investigating narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime.
He joined the Hollywood Police Department in South Florida in 2002 and worked in field training, criminal investigations, street crimes, narcotics, and vice and intelligence. After making sergeant, he supervised specialized investigative units and led complex cases. One of his proudest accomplishments was pioneering Florida’s first Offender Focused Domestic Violence Initiative, which earned him numerous awards for domestic violence prevention and investigative excellence.
A graduate of the Southern Police Institute’s Administrative Officers Course (Class 132) at the University of Louisville, Cady was later promoted to lieutenant and retired in 2022 after nearly 25 years of service. He dedicated his career to his father, William James Cady, a South Plainfield, New Jersey, police officer killed in the line of duty on April 19, 1975.
