Today's cop can only dream of being a hero.
The desert sun beats on my dark uniform, its rays reflecting off the shining badge on my chest. My hand remains poised above the gun in my holster. The dusty street is quiet as the showdown nears its climax ....
I can never cross the invisible line from plain citizen to lawman without an acute sense of transition. My personality changes, and my mind detours somewhere deep into the folklore of western America, creating legends of heroic stature.
As I walk the streets of Albuquerque I sometimes picture people saying, "Oh, here comes the town sheriff with his gun." Then all of the sudden -- I can just see it, you know -- some big bad guy wearing a pair of six-shooters on his hips emerges from a bar and says, "OK, sheriff, draw!"
I'm fully conscious that this is a fictional misrepresentation.
Police work very seldom reflects the heroic romanticism so frequently portrayed in television, movies, and books. To find the true nature of a cop's work, one must go beyond the superficial portrayals and the myths.
Only Dirty Harry has his lunch break interrupted by armed robbers. The fact is the average police officer never fires his weapon in self-defense in 20 years of duty.
The desert sun beats on my dark uniform, its rays reflecting off the shining badge on my chest. My hand remains poised above the gun in my holster. The dusty street is quiet as the showdown nears its climax ....
I can never cross the invisible line from plain citizen to lawman without an acute sense of transition. My personality changes, and my mind detours somewhere deep into the folklore of western America, creating legends of heroic stature.
As I walk the streets of Albuquerque I sometimes picture people saying, "Oh, here comes the town sheriff with his gun." Then all of the sudden -- I can just see it, you know -- some big bad guy wearing a pair of six-shooters on his hips emerges from a bar and says, "OK, sheriff, draw!"
I'm fully conscious that this is a fictional misrepresentation.
Police work very seldom reflects the heroic romanticism so frequently portrayed in television, movies, and books. To find the true nature of a cop's work, one must go beyond the superficial portrayals and the myths.
Only Dirty Harry has his lunch break interrupted by armed robbers. The fact is the average police officer never fires his weapon in self-defense in 20 years of duty.
