A Series of Firsts: My First Complaint

The story was a complete fabrication, and I was livid.

It was one of my wife’s favorite farm stands. It was small, local, and owned by an old man with a white beard and a big belly who somewhat resembled Santa Claus when he was out of uniform. He was friendly, knowledgeable, and knew just about everything about the plants that he sold. The quaint little farm was tucked away on one side of town along a secondary backroad that served as a cut-through.

Pet Peeve

One summer evening I was patrolling my sector and drove by it, admiring how alive everything looked — which was in stark contrast to the certain death faced by any plant that had the unfortunate fate of ending up at my house. About a mile down the road past the farm I could see a kid riding a bicycle in the distance up ahead. What caught my attention was a throwing motion and a light colored object hurtling over his shoulder and landing somewhere in the woods along the road. It looked like he had just tossed a bottle or a can. Not on my watch. Since littering is one of my pet peeves I figured I would stop the young man and have a little chat.

Our cruisers were equipped with a dash camera mounted by the rear-view mirror and a wireless microphone that we wore on our shirt. One of the two usually wasn’t working, though it was usually the microphone as was the case on that evening.

A Little Chat

I turned on my blue lights, gave the siren a little whoop-whoop, and the 17 year old on the bike pulled over and stopped. He was very friendly and we had a brief conversation which explained everything. He was a farmhand at the farm down the road and had just got off of work. On his bike ride home he had been eating an ear of corn and when he had finished it he had tossed the cob into the woods, which explained what I saw from a couple hundred yards away. This kid was so nice he offered to go back and pick up the corn cob. No, I told him, there was no need, he hadn’t done anything wrong. We shook hands, he rode off, and I soon forgot all about it — until the next day.

After roll call I got pulled into my supervisor’s office where I was slapped with a harassment complaint. I was so confused. But that only lasted long enough for me to read the complaint and my confusion turned to abject infuriation.

The Complaint

This boy’s mother had come to the station, sat down with the Captain, and had the gall to file a formal complaint against me, alleging a number of lies. In my estimation there were a few things that may have been the inspiration for her efforts. She and her son happened to be Honduran, I happened to be white, illegal immigration was a hot topic in the news at the time, there were no other witnesses, and she probably had a lawsuit and a dollar amount on her mind.

Her story went like this: I had only stopped her son to harass him because he was Honduran and I assumed he was an illegal immigrant. She also said her son had fallen off his bicycle when I stopped him, been injured in the fall, and I had refused to get him medical attention — in essence, to watch him suffer.

Dark Horse

Most complaints you can see coming. This one was a dark horse with stealth technology draped in an Elven invisibility cloak. It caught me by complete surprise which probably made it seem so much worse. That, and it was my first complaint.

When I was notified of the complaint, I was furious. But my anger had nothing to do with the severity of the allegation — I’m sure there are far worse things to be accused of — it was that it impugned my integrity, character, and my reputation. And I was willing to go to war over that.

The Silent Witness

The complaint kicked off the whole IA process which revealed the one thing she didn’t know about: the dash camera. Although there was no audio, which was unfortunate, it was obvious that the boy never fell off his bike, was not injured, and both our demeanors were friendly and ended with a handshake. There was not a sniff of truth to what this mom had wildly alleged and I was rightly exonerated.

Complaints are going to happen, no matter how squared away or careful we are. They are, unfortunately, a reality of the dishonest, greedy, litigious world that we live in and the nature of the job that we do. At the time I was but a mere fledgling in my career. I was still bedazzled by the job and assumed most people felt the same. The idea of making up a story and accusing someone out of the blue for publicity or a payday was something I could not conceive.  But that was then.

No Surprise

Don’t be surprised when complaints come our way, that is not something that we can control.  The only thing we can control is ourselves. We ought to guard our integrity, our character, and our reputation above all else, both in our public and private lives. If we make a habit of doing what is right we need not be concerned that we live in a day when everyone is walking around with an agenda, a video camera at the ready, and a false narrative to go with it.

Guard your reputation above all else. It takes a lifetime to build one and only a moment to tear it down. Be a person of integrity and you won’t have to worry about who is watching. Be a person of character and you won’t have to worry about the next complaint. Don’t try to create the image of a perfect police officer, just try to be a better one.

People are watching us now more than ever. But I say, let them watch.

__________________________

• What was the first complaint filed against you?
• Was there anything you could have done to handle it differently?
• Are you the same person when no one else is around?
• How can you guard your reputation?

__________________________

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