Fear in Policing...

By Randy Sutton - The Power of Legacy

I’m a cop with a confession to make. It’s not easy to do; it’s something that I’m hesitant, even ashamed, to admit. But I don’t think I’m alone in my admission; I believe that I share this secret with countless men and women who also wear a badge on their chest. It’s a confession of fear.

Fear? Yes, a demoralizing fear that threatens to cripple my effectiveness as a cop. But not the kind of fear you might expect.

I have worn a badge for more than 25 years. I’ve walked the streets in uniform, patrolled the city in a black & white during every kind of political and social climate imaginable. I’ve done the equivalent of combat duty during citywide unrest, during urban riots when we, the police, were grossly outnumbered and under-equipped and were called “pigs” by the very people we sought to protect from harm. In those days, as a young rookie, I admit that I was afraid. But I was a cop so I learned, like we all did, to stand my ground and to stand tall because, no matter what, that uniform that I was wearing stood for Justice and Integrity. I never lost sight of that; it was the antidote to fear. I learned that the flood of adrenaline could be used for more than fight or flight – it could be used to take charge. And I learned, I’m proud to say, to temper all that I did with compassion. So that kind of fear, fear of being outnumbered and disdained, faded with the acceptance of the role and responsibility of a police officer. No, this is not the fear that I mean.

Then is it mortal danger I’m afraid of? The ever-present specter of death or serious injury? I, like most cops with a lot of years in, have accepted the physical danger inherent in the street cop territory – the shots-fired, man-with-a-gun, domestic-gone-haywire calls – any of those escalating situations that can suddenly explode in violence, threatening my life and the lives of those around me. No, that kind of fear no longer leaves an acrid taste in my mouth; experience and training has honed my fear into something more like concentrated energy. That is the kind of fear that I can live with and even embrace. 

No, I’m afraid of my police administration. I’m afraid that there’s no one up there to back me up. I’m afraid of being hung out to dry. I’m afraid of being the goat tied to the tree when the lions come to feed.
No, nothing has happened to me personally. Not yet. But I’ve watched it happen and so has every cop in the country. There is a public perception that we are expendable. That if we make a mistake – and I mean an accidental misstep, a stumble, if you will, while acting with good and honorable intentions, and not the gross misuse of power or abuse of authority that make the headlines – we can lose everything. 



Our jobs, our livelihood, our honor. We can be left high and dry and alone while the police administration, whether the despotic chief in a small town or the ubiquitous bureaucracy of a big agency, distances itself with disclaimers and spin and murmurs of expediency. But let me be clear: I’ll be the first to say that any police officer who dishonors his badge through breaking the law or bending the rules to suit his own needs must pay for what he’s done and public censure may well be a part of the price. But not until it’s proven. Every officer deserves initial unconditional support and, in a way, his street career is one long call and his eternal backup must be his police administration. Too often it’s not and he’s out there alone. Completely and totally alone. That’s the fear I’m talking about. And it manifests itself as a feeling of dread, as a reluctance to step into uniform and as a hesitancy to pin on the badge. For a police officer, there’s nothing worse. This is the fear that I shamefully confess.

Is there an antidote to this fear? There’s only one. Unity. The very thing we’re experiencing again as a nation, that united we stand and together we can endure, is what we need to claim for our police organizations. The police administrations must again join with the rank-and-file to fend off blows, accept censure, establish trust, root out malefactors… whatever it takes to protect and serve not only the public but our own. Then, united, we can all get back to the business of policing, of partnering with our respective communities, and do so from under that pervasive and destructive shadow of fear.