I learned a valuable lesson early in life: Always be nice to cops. No matter. If the cop kicks in your tail light and then cites you for driving with a broken tail light, you just smile and say thank you. If I’m in a bar and anyone related to a cop walks in (wife, brother, cousin, dog walker), I buy them a drink and I’m sure to say “Tell your *insert relation to cop here* that I said hello.” Brown-nosing goes a long way when you get caught pissing on the side of a post office on the way home from the bar or the like. Specifically, a long way towards covering your own ass and also being able to wink at cops when you turn down their request for donations to the PBA fund, because you have your own way of donating.
Since this has worked so well for me, I’m not surprised to see the reverse works just as well as. That being said, as a friend of cops everywhere, I kind of don’t appreciate the way these officers were treated when all they wanted to do was have a quick meal together.
Via ABC News:
“Officer Chuck Thomas of the Homestead Police Department told ABC News today that he and three other officers sat down for dinner at the Eat n’ Park restaurant last Friday, the day after a shooter in Dallas killed five police officers and injured 11 other people.
“A male and female were going to be seated across from us, and he said, ‘I don’t want to sit there,'” Thomas said, “which drew my attention, and we made eye contact, and his body language just told me that he wanted nothing to do with police. I looked over at him and said, ‘You don’t have to worry about it. We won’t hurt you. ‘No, I’m good. I don’t want to sit there.'”
A server at the Eat n’ Park, Jesse Meyers, told local ABC News affiliate WTAE-TV, “A table goes to sit down, and the guy looks over at one of the police officers and was like, ‘Nah, I don’t want to sit here.’ So they got moved completely opposite, away from the police officers.””
He said, “We get stuff like this all the time, and you brush it off,” but he felt like reaching out after what happened in Dallas.
Thomas said that he wanted to leave the two a note but was unsure how to go about doing so and then decided to pick up their check and scribble a message on the receipt. He wrote that he paid for their dinner and thanked them for their support. He also left a $10 tip.
“What it really came down to was that, ultimately, I just wanted to let them know that we’ve got to better the relationship between police and the community,” he said. “The day after Dallas, it was tight. You could feel the tension in the air. A lot of people did come up to us and thank us and shook hands and spoke of their sorrow. This was the only negative experience of the day. Ultimately, we’re here for you,” he said. “This us-against-them mentality that’s out here — we’ve got to change that. We’ve got to break that.”
Thomas said that he paid the tab while he was on his way out and that the server later told him the couple was “thrown back by it” and ended up “chuckling.””
I understand that we are at a tough crossroads in American society, but all police officers aren’t part of some malicious hivemind. most of them are just human beings trying to do their job. They just happen to be the topic of incredible controversy right now. A few of them enjoying a quick meal on their break aren’t going to jump out of their seats and start doing table pops in the middle of the restaurant. They’re just people trying to make sense of the current state the world like we are.
[h/t Daily Mail]
NEXT: COP PULLS OVER GIRL TO GIVE HER BIEBER TICKETS: