View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > June > 13
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Giving yourself a ticket…and a lecture
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you saw CBS-46 the other night, you saw the story where our chief wrote himself a citation for running a red light. He paid a $175 fine. Some folks were taken back by it but if you know him, you’ll see this is in line with his philosophy of how we should present ourselves every day.
Actually I told him not to pay it but go to court and plead “not guilty” and see how that played out.
The hard part about giving yourself a ticket is having to give yourself that lecture.
“Did you know that light back there was red?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Well I could you know.”
And so on.
The fact that the Chief wrote a ticket to himself has made me paranoid about myself now. When driving, I come to a complete stop at stop signs now because I’m afraid that I might be there looking for me.
We’re like everyone else. We tend to get heavy-footed at times and forget what the public sees—which are those big letters that say “POLICE” on the side of the car. We occasionally get driving complaints. We constantly reinforce safe driving at roll call. Sometimes we get sloppy, like everyone else, but they don’t have “POLICE” on the car and we do.
Image is everything.
Several years ago, my youngest and I were at a restaurant and next to our table were two paramedics. Both of them were smoking cigarettes. My son asked “Why do they smoke if they save lives?” It was a good question.
Image is something that we don’t think enough about. We forget. We get caught up with day to day.
