Reply to “Police officers AREN’T our friends”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So said my teenage son to his five-year-old brother.   For the first time in my life, I stayed silent on this topic.

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But this is not inaccurate. Even when they are not "the enemy" they are certainly NOT your "friends." 
Their job is the POLICE (verb) the community. So if you have contact with the police that is NOT initiated by you... for any reason, it is likely to be as a suspect --whether you are suspected of driving over the speed limit or suspected of matching a description of a burglar or suspected of lurking in an area that is off limits with intent to do harm, etc.

Likewise, if you are taken into police custody just because the police want to "chat" with you about a crime, you need to remember that they are NOT your friend in this scenario. There is a reason your miranda rights are worded "you have the right to remain silent...should you choose to give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law"---and it does NOT say "anything you say can and will be used to help exonerate you from responsibility or suspicion" b/c they are not there to help you build a case of innocence. They are there to use what you say AGAINST you. Period.

It is wise to not be naive.
But it is also okay to let children and teens know that, in a jam, the safest place to go for help is a woman with children or a store employee in uniform (preferably firefighter, EMT, mall security, etc.) And if police are called to a situation BY them, then they are likely going to be helpful rather than harmful.

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Only if the person is white.  Don't send your kids to a black person to call the police to help them or they could get them killed.  It is not safe.

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Fair enough. As a white person, I can only speak for myself on this.
I am only echoing that I also do not consider "the police" to be "our friends" in circumstances where I have contact with them UNsolicited.
I have only had once instance where I have called police to my home and it was after a vehicle theft and not in the middle of a crisis. I was still very nervous and felt like I needed to prove that I had not done anything "wrong" to cause the vehicle to be stolen. Wasn't anything that the guy did. He was just doing his job. But definitely even then did not feel that the police were being my friend.

This is not to say that there aren't friendly police officers or that I would not be friends with any individual who is a police officer. I just think it's important to distinguish to our children that police officers are there to perform a job. And it is a job in which they see and experience a lot of danger that probably causes many of them to view every person they come into contact with on the job as a potential threat to their ability to return safely to their families. I don't envy that, so i'm not trying to bash all officers or anything. Just saying that I think it's okay to not view police as your friend and to be cautious.

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