A Fistful of Keepers: The Challenges of Police Work No One Talks About

I fired up the roof and navigated traffic like an Olympic slalom skier.  Time was not on my side.  Seconds counted.  As I came closer and closer to my destination, beads of sweat formed on my forehead while fear and doubt crept in like seeping water into a life raft.  “Am I going to make it in time?”  I had to push the thought of failure out of my mind.  I steeled myself against the impossible odds and focused —

“Drive, just drive.”

I screeched to a stop, threw my cruiser in park, and bailed out.  I moved quickly, deliberately, all while remaining controlled and focused on my mission.  As I approached the door, I immediately began reaching for my duty belt with both hands, unsnapping my keepers as fast as I could.   With a fist full of keepers I barged through the entry door, moved in a high speed wobble down the hall, and into the Men’s room like a ninja … a panicked ninja.  At this point I was in full clench mode, praying I would be spared.  I flung my duty belt off with reckless abandon like a freed prisoner casting off his chains. With the stall door slammed shut and the lock in place, I assumed the position, and wondered why toilets didn’t come standard with seat belts. Nonetheless, I thanked my lucky stars. I had made it!

Sometimes the train comes into the station and it just doesn’t stop.  Alas, I will spare you the rest.

The Little Things

This job taxes us in many ways.  It’s not just the shift work, the holidays, the mediocre pay, the administration that treats us like faceless cogs in a bureaucratic machine, the entitled chuds who want us to fix in minutes the problems it took them years to create, or the thankless public who consume and ruminate on the liberal media’s horrible portrayal of us with a seemingly insatiable appetite.  

No.  It’s more than all that.  

It’s the little things; the day-to-day.  We can’t catch a break to have thirty minutes to ourselves to eat a meal in peace or have easy access to a clean bathroom when Nature calls.

No one appreciates that.

Yes, People. Cops Are Humans Too.

I remember standing in line at the local House of Pizza to pick up a sub I had ordered while the general public looked on wondering what I was doing there.  It was as if I wasn’t human and shouldn’t need food (in this case, a steak and cheese sub) to sustain me.  People always seemed surprised that I needed to eat or use the bathroom.

But you, me, all of us at Johnny Tactical, and all the members of the Johnny Tactical Tribe, we appreciate that.  We know the hardship of forced doubles, missed meals, the Code 3 trips to the bathroom, the fist-full of keepers, the looks, the glances, the raised eyebrows.  All of it.

We know.  We know, because Johnny Tactical is a business of cops, by cops, and for cops. Johnny Tactical exists to make law enforcement better from within and safer from without, all the while helping you take your work seriously, but not yourself.

Now get out there, and have yourself a steak and cheese sub, … unless of course you’re lactose intolerant.  Then, just make it steak. The janitor thanks you.