HOW TYPICAL
Some of you may have noticed the Letter of the Issue in Vol 61, Issue 19. I was going to respond to the policeman’s irrational nonsense rant, but after discussions with Sam, I felt his typical ad hominem attack on me, that failed to address any of the quite serious issues I’ve raised in recent columns, merited a more detailed exploration. His letter perfectly illustrates the point I have been making about how the police consider us beneath contempt and respond to any condemnation of their behaviour by attacking the critic rather than the actual criticism.
Let us begin by examining the first of several lies you tell in your letter, officer. It was the lie about how you normally “flick past” my columns. Now, I know you only told that fib to hurt my feelings, but given you were somehow compelled to respond to columns you apparently don’t even read tells me you are quite breathtakingly dishonest.
That you think my genuine offer for an officer to speak to me anonymously is in some way “brave” is also most revealing. Why would you consider such an offer “brave”? Am I exposing myself to some kind of danger?
Then you go ahead and get all confused – which is not surprising, since I doubt you were hired for your vast intellect. Firstly, I am not a “journo”. Secondly, journos are not normally required to have an “imagination” since all they do is report facts. Thirdly, I never asked for a “formal response”, did I? If I’d wanted that, I’d have approached your Media Unit.
You go on to style the cops as some kind of “umpire” and declare that criticising them is an “easy mark”. Well, given how much material for critique you’ve recently provided, it is easy, but please do not imagine you’re any sort of “umpire” and thus immune to criticism. You are the armed enforcers of the State’s will. That is not an unbiased referee-like position, is it?
You then reveal you’re struck with how “flimsy” the image used to illustrate my column was, given my comment on how polite foreign cops are. “Flimsy” is not the word you’re looking for, but perhaps I should have used a shot where you’re Tasering some unarmed foreign student, or beating some hapless Palm Island Koori to death. Would that have been less “flimsy”?
Note how they are motivated by honourable incentives
So now we are halfway through your letter and apart from attacking me personally, you have yet to address a single issue I have raised. Happily, you do then attempt redemption by allowing there is the “odd wanker” in the police, but then drop the ball by calling me a “tool” in the same sentence. And then, quite typically, you launch into the age-old cop-mantra about how the vast majority of cops “serve their community with integrity and respect”. Dead-set? Is this the same community your bosses state has lost all respect for you, spits on you, calls you names and won’t help you find the bad guys? Or is this the community of cops to which you actually belong? I am unclear as to which “community” you purport to “serve”. If it is the former, then one cannot help but wonder that if what you state is even a little true, why does that community hold so little respect for you? Can it truly be apropos of nothing? Really? We don’t like you “just cos”? Is that it?
You then admit that the Highway Patrol cops are referred to as “cockroaches” by General Duties cops, but that the term is “used light-heartedly”. Damn shame you didn’t go on to explain why they’re called that in the first place, or would that negate the “light-hearted” aspect of it? You also proclaim they’re motivated in their work by “honourable incentives” and begin to spin me some fantasy about being “first” on the scene and blocking off arteries, etc. Stop it. In all the years I have been riding and with all the ensuing road trauma I have witnessed, the cops have NEVER been first on the scene. The people who call the ambos are the first on the scene. Then it’s the ambos. And then the cops turn up to direct traffic, automatically decide the cause of the accident is “speed” and start issuing Neg Driving infringements. “Honourable incentives”? Sure.
And then you make an appalling attempt to obfuscate matters by declaring it “deplorable” that my column even went to print after David Rixon was shot in Tamworth. How dare you cheapen that officer’s tragic death by linking these two utterly disparate things? What a dire and pathetic attempt to draw attention away from your own abject failure to address the issues I raised – issues the entire community faces when it is continuously confronted by a police force too damn arrogant to accept any criticism of its behaviour.
Good work, officer. I’m sure your colleagues are proud of your infantile attempts to defend the indefensible where you play the man and not the ball. You are exactly what is wrong with today’s police and you damn yourself with your own words.
About the Author
Boris is a writer who has contributed to many magazines and websites over the years, edited a couple of those things as well, and written a few books. But his most important contribution is pissing people off. He feels this is his calling in life and something he takes seriously. He also enjoys whiskey, whisky and the way girls dance on tables. And riding motorcycles. He's pretty keen on that, too.
