A couple years ago, male police officers in one NJ town petitioned to wear earrings on the job, to make them look more intimidating.
Earrings. On male police officers. To make them look more intimidating.
I can’t even wrap my mind around that.
Did anyone think to ask exactly who those cops are fighting that they need to “intimidate”?
If you’re defending against an INVADING ARMY, by all means, paint your face blue, Braveheart. You’re a soldier fighting an enemy.
But cops? You need to look like the citizens you work for. Don’t try to intimidate us. WE’RE NOT YOUR ENEMY.
I got a terrifying taste of the new soldier/cop mentality a couple years ago when my Los Angeles neighborhood suburb was sealed off by cops looking for someone involved in a shooting nearby.
Cops with rifles and body armor on every corner. Streets barricaded. You couldn’t drive in or even walk back to your home. We were “ordered” to stay inside our houses.
After eleven hours, a couple neighbors and I finally approached the cop on the nearest corner to ask when family members could come home. He wouldn’t speak to us — he just starting SCREAMING at us not to take another step toward him and to go back inside our houses immediately or we’d all be arrested. He put his hand on his rifle butt and started jabbering into his radio for back-up.
He was a shaved head, ‘roided out a-hole, completely out of control, who had no business handling a machine gun in the suburbs.
I will never forget it. Martial law was declared by... whom? Not a the mayor. Or the governor. It was a bunch of cops playing soldier.
When I was growing up, there were a few old timers with earrings. They were old swabbies who had sailed the 7 seas, and wore that earring as a symbol of their travels. Part of the blued, screwed, and tattooed process I gathered.
Now if I see a man with an earring I immediately think druggie or fruit.