Police Badge Quotes

Unhand me,” Grandfather barks, “you badge- bunny of uncivil justice.

The most dangerous thing in life is an incompetent that has been given a gun and a law enforcement badge.

It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman.” If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers.

I fully expect the police to come after me. To which I have just one thing to say: good luck.

And everyone got mad about Kaepernick tweeting an image of a police badge and a slave catcher’s badge with the caption “You Can’t Ignore Your History—Always Remember Who They Are.” People can get mad, but he was telling the truth: throughout the South, that’s exactly how police departments started. Police in the South were in charge of maintaining the economic order, especially retaining the “property” of slave owners. After the Civil War, the cops were back in action making sure that blacks were staying in their place.

No cop on earth would call his badge a government identification document. Cops don’t work for the government. Not in their minds. They work for their department. For each other. For the whole worldwide brotherhood. For the city, just maybe, at the very best. But not the government. They hate the government. The government is their worst enemy, at every level. National, county, local, no one understands cops and everyone makes their lives more and more miserable with an endless stream of bullshit. A cop wouldn’t use the word.

Most undercover cops are vastly skilled at compartmentalization. It is a talent as valued as lying. They seal off their real feelings and create imitation emotions. Easily torn down when it's time to show the badge, drag someone downtown, and sit across from him in an interrogation cell and tell him how fucked he is now.

AFTER PROCESSING THE HOUSE, THE POLICE SAID TO DREW WITTHUHN, “It’s yours.” The yellow tape came down; the front door closed. The impassive precision of badges at work had helped divert attention from the stain. There was no avoiding it now.

what does Daddy say about people's opinions?" "Not to listen to what they say and to form my own 'pinions." "Except for…?" "'Cept for strangers with candy, and the weatherman on TV, and police that won't show you their badges, and people who don't like music, 'cause we can't trust those people." I laugh. "You forgot boys who want to date you. You should always trust your daddy's opinion on them.

A cop lost his temper and rushed into the crowd to seize an agitator … and that was the last we saw of him for about three minutes. When he emerged, after a dozen others had rushed in to save him, he looked like some ragged hippie … the mob had stripped him of everything except his pants, one boot, and part of his coat. His hat was gone, his gun and gunbelt, all his badges and police decorations … he was a beaten man and his name was Lennox. I know this because I was standing beside the big plainclothes police boss who was shouting, “Get Lennox in the van!

Out popped Paul Duffy, in plain clothes except for a state police windbreaker and a badge clipped to his belt. He looked at me - I think by now I had dropped the bat to my side, at least, though I must have looked ridiculous anyway - and he raised his eyebrows. 'Get back in the house, Babe Ruth.

When police officers refuse to give you their badge numbers, it is a strong indicator they are engaging in fraud with you.

What most people see is a badge, behind and beyond the badge is what they need to know...the person.

Vimes had believed all his life that the Watch were called coppers because they carried copper badges, but no, said Carrot, it comes from the old word cappere, to capture.

I write from that dark place in my mind where all the sad, ugly, and twisted cases I've worked are stored. Writing keeps me sane.

It’s a compassionate reaction that all testicles have for fellow testicles being whacked, kicked or ripped to shreds by footballs, martial arts students or dead palm frond stubs, respectively.

One-Fifteen I’m often asked why Starr never refers to the police officer who shot Khalil by his name, only by his badge number. Since her father has always instilled in her that names have power, it’s hard for Starr to give the officer any sort of power by referring to him by his given name. By using his badge number, it’s her way of refusing to humanize him—because in her mind, what he did to her and Khalil in that moment was anything but humane.

This fucking city is full of nothing but thugs, money grubbing porn-bitches, and hustlers. I’m calling the police.” Ex fumed as he struggled to pull his cell from his pocket. If Syn weren't so damn angry it would’ve been funny as shit the way the man’s jaw dropped when God and Day both pulled their gold badges out from under their shirts. Day smiled that sinister grin and kneeled in front of them, speaking in an official tone, “911, what is your emergency?

When I worked streets, I ran across a lot of people. Some of the most challenging I called "Beer Bottle Tigers," those drunk guys and gals in St. Johns and in the North End. The courage they got from getting drunk. Then the fight was on.

The viewpoint character in each story is usually someone trapped in a living nightmare, but this doesn't guarantee that we and the protagonist are at one. In fact Woolrich often makes us pull away from the person at the center of the storm, splitting our reaction in two, stripping his protagonist of moral authority, denying us the luxury of unequivocal identification, drawing characters so psychologically warped and sometimes so despicable that a part of us wants to see them suffer. Woolrich also denies us the luxury of total disidentification with all sorts of sociopaths, especially those who wear badges. His Noir Cop tales are crammed with acts of police sadism, casually committed or at least endorsed by the detective protagonist. These monstrosities are explicitly condemned almost never and the moral outrage we feel has no internal support in the stories except the objective horror of what is shown, so that one might almost believe that a part of Woolrich wants us to enjoy the spectacles. If so, it's yet another instance of how his most powerful novels and stories are divided against themselves so as to evoke in us a divided response that mirrors his own self-division. ("Introduction")

surreptitious entry of a business establishment” in Fairfax, VA (meaning CIA officers broke into a place of business), the Fairfax City Police Department provided them with a “badge” to use as “flash identification” in the event they were caught.

Jamie Raskin, the brilliant and perpetually disheveled Maryland Democrat, asked me about internet conspiracies that alleged I was beaten by the mob because I was mistaken for an Antifa agitator. I stifled a smile. "Well, I was in full uniform. I was wearing my uniform shirt adorned with the Metropolitan Police Department's patch. I had my badge on until somebody ripped it off my chest." I could have added that I also wore a jacket with the words," METROPOLITAN POLICE" stenciled across the back and a helmet emblazoned with the letters "MPDC." Keeping a straight face, I told Raskin, "I do not believe I was mistaken for a member of Antifa.

He loved his police uniform. While he was on the force , he slept in it most nights, with his gun,He must have thought he was really something, prepared for the middle-of-the-night call to come and catch the bad guy. Such calls for heroism never came. I have to admit it one way, so I'll put it my way: He loved only himself and was full of pride and wore his badge like a gold star affixed to his chest by God himself. If he sounds trite he was trite. He was very trite.

By the time the plane touched down in Portland, we had obtained signed, handwritten confessions from both criminals. They planned on hitting it rich in Vegas using the payroll money as a grub-stake. Now, the were broke, busted and bound for an Oregon jail. I often marveled at the criminal mentality. Sometimes because of their sick perversity, sometimes because of their rare ingenuity, and sometimes because they just didn’t get it; that crime doesn’t pay. You can’t do bad and get good in return.

Police Sonnet Police is not a profession, But a promise of protection. So long as you carry the badge, You must discard self-preservation. The thin blue line of service, Is not for self-serving narcissists. When your sole concern is society, Only then can you uphold justice. You mustn't become manikins of politics, Nor of bureaucratic brutality. Your allegiance is only to the people, Their welfare will rescue your humanity. In the sea of selfishness be the selfless drop, Taking care of people you become a real cop.

The formula for a public assassination is: the character assassination before the physical assassination; so one has to be made killable before the eyes of the public in order for their eventual murder to then be deemed justifiable. And when the time arrives for these hits to be carried out, you’re not going to see a C.I.A. agent with a suit & tie, and a badge that says "C.I.A." walk up to someone, and pull the trigger. What they will do is out-source to local police departments in the region of their target, and to employ those that look like the target of interest to infiltrate the workings in order to set up the environment for the eventual assassination (character, physical/incarceration, exile) to take place.

We were scarecrows in blue uniforms. After a grand total of five days of blackboard instruction and fifty rounds at the NYPD firing range, my new police academy classmates and I were standing out on the sidewalks of central Brooklyn pretending to be police officers. They gave us badges. They gave us handcuffs. They gave us guns—standard police-issue Smith & Wesson .38 Specials. They told us, “Good luck.” In early July 1966, riots had broken out in East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville, Brooklyn. Hundreds of angry young men were roaming the streets and throwing bottles and rocks. Already they had injured police officers and attempted to flip over a radio car. On one corner, police found eighteen Molotov cocktails. The borough commander was calling for reinforcements—and fast.

There has never been a more necessary time for law enforcement officers who reveal misconduct to be protected. By rising to uphold our Nation's values, ethical law enforcement officers choose a conflict for which no education, experience, or training can prepare them. They discover their communities breached and their opponent already beyond their gates. They confront criminals, intimidators, and tyrants that disguise themselves wearing the same badge they hold so dear. They advance against others who would otherwise seek to abuse the public, control the narrative, investigate themselves or obscure the truth beneath a facade of pursuing the greater good. Afterward, they often find themselves cast out, lost, and silenced permanently from their profession for doing nothing more than what we asked of them: Policing.

Here is an interesting side note about burglary psychology. Many burglary reports, after itemizing a list of stolen possessions, note that the burglar has defecated in the house, sometimes in a corner, on the floor, and sometimes in the bathroom, and sometimes in the shrubbery outside, beneath the broken window. I remember one burglary victim telling me, “He took all the stereo equipment in the den, ransacked the bedroom and then took a shit in the bathroom but didn’t flush. I came home and found a big turd floating in the toilet!” It almost seems to add insult to injury, doesn't It? Actually, there is a physical reason for this. Burglarizing a house causes the burglar to produce stress hormones, like Noradrenaline, corisol and adrenaline. Often an extreme amount of stress hormones can be created while in the act of burglarizing a home. And some people react to stress by taking a shit. Not flushing the toilet, that’s the insult part.

I definitely do not like the Law," said Simple, using the word with a capital letter to mean police and courts combined. "Why?" I asked. "Because the Law beats my head. Also because the Law will give a white man One Year and give me Ten." "But if it wasn't for the Law," I said, "you would not have any protection." "Protection?" yelled Simple. "The Law always protects a white man. But if I holler for the Law, the Law says, 'What do you want, Negro?' Only most white polices do not say 'Negro.' " "Oh, I see. You are talking about the police, not the Law in general." "Yes, I am talking about the polices." "You have a bad opinion of the Law," I said. "The Law has a bad opinion of me," said Simple. "The Law thinks all Negroes are in the criminal class. The Law'll stop me on the streets and shake me down—me, a workingman—as quick as they will any old weed-headed hustler or two-bit rounder. I do not like polices." "You must be talking about the way-down-home-in-Dixie Law," I said, "not up North." "I am talking about the Law all over America," said Simple, "North or South. Insofar as I am concerned, a police is no good. It was the Law that started the Harlem riots by shooting that soldier-boy. Take a cracker down South or an ofay up North—as soon as he puts on a badge he wants to try out his billy club on some Negro's head. I tell you police are no good! If they was, they wouldn't be polices.

The killing of a police officer has a ripple effect across the nation, even the world. It’s like the wave at a ballgame but you can’t see it if you aren’t at the game. Every law enforcement family in the world is at the game daily, each officer who falls represents one less person in the stadium. The stadium seems smaller each time. Spouses, children and parents breathe a heavy sigh, a sigh filled with grief for the profession and the fallen. A sigh hiding a smaller one that thinks “Thank God it wasn’t mine this time.

Imagine this garden; one you’ve planted from seed, cultivated with love. When the seeds break the ground, they seek sunshine, warmth, and nutrients. The seeds have no control over the weather. They are as dependent on it as we are on our minds. You may have control over the location of your garden, the frequency with which you tend to it, and the amount of care you give it, but you can’t control the weather. It may be sunny one day, rainy the next. You prop the vines in the hopes they will flourish once the rain passes. And they may, until the next rain comes. The weather changes, sometimes without warning. Sometimes you can see it coming, much like the triggers a depressed person avoids, and you try to protect the plants before the storm. The intensity of the labor can get frustrating, especially if there is no relief in sight. One day, a tornado or hurricane passes through. Even though you see it on the horizon, you can’t stop it and you may not be able to seek shelter soon enough. The plants are torn from their roots, the garden completely destroyed. You may have thought you could protect it yourself, that the storm wouldn’t be that bad, or you simply didn’t know how or were afraid to ask for help. Your neighbors and family couldn’t help or didn’t know you needed help. The garden is gone. This is the way of depression; if you don’t have it, it’s very difficult to understand this cycle.

Human life is precious; the life of a child even more so. Knowing that your grasp is the only thing that separates a child from life and death is a heavy burden. Although it may take a split second, those times feel like hours when you are praying that you are making the right choice. Should I wait for more help? Can she hang on long enough? What if the river pulls her from me? What if she can’t hold her breath long enough? What if she panics and tries to break free? These types of questions and fears run through a person’s mind when they are trying to save someone. For a police officer, the decision has an even greater impact. He will be judged. If he can’t hold on, if she can’t hold her breath or the river takes her, he will be judged. He will be stupid for not waiting, he will be weak for not holding on tight enough, and he will be prosecuted in the court of public opinion without being able to defend himself. His picture will be displayed on the news alongside the image of the dead, innocent child. You have seconds to decide. What will it be? Will you risk your life, your reputation, and your future to save this child or do you wait? If you wait and she is lost, you still lose. This is the riddle of law enforcement: finding a way to do the right thing and succeeding at it, without upsetting or injuring anyone.

Police," I say. "Let's see your badge." "I'm undercover. And I'm going to need that as evidence." She hands me the spiff. I take a drag. "Yep, it's the real deal. You're busted.

All I could do is look down the barrel of the gun and think about my kids who were shot,” said Johnson, who filed a citizen’s complaint with the CHP in December. “I didn’t know he was a police (officer). Never once did he say he was or show a badge. All he said was, ‘get back,’ with his gun out.” In a response to Johnson’s complaint, a CHP captain wrote to Johnson: “The California Highway Patrol maintains the highest level of expectations from our employees. I hope that if you should have any future contact with a member of this department it will be under more favorable circumstances.

Without that courage, an officer is just another person in the crowd of badges. Demonstrating courage takes practice. Many police professionals have the knowledge and ability to lead. Yet, they may choose not to exercise their leadership skills—not to do the right thing—because they fear losing the rewards that conformity provides (such

He had, in fact, held every rank in the Philadelphia Police Department except police woman.

Those undercovers are all alone out there. No gun, no badge, no backup. I'm all they have, so I give them everything I've got. You could say ... I already have.

after they interviewed the owner, then she’d need the change in the cupholder in her car to loosen their lips. Giving it away now would only throw that chance away later.  Roper paused at the door and proffered it to her. ‘After you,’ he said. She knew he just didn’t want to touch the handle. She took hold of it and pulled back, wondering for a second if she should open it just enough to slip through so that Roper would have to grab it to let himself in.  She decided that was too petty for the morning of a murder investigation. Inside, the interior was cool. A short reception area led into the main hall — a double-height function room with a hard rubberised floor filled with sleeping bags and other homeless people. There were at least twenty, maybe thirty. It was difficult to tell at a glance. At the back of the room, a woman in her fifties with a long fleece vest on, the pockets heavy and sagging with keys and who knows what else, was filling cups of coffee from a big stainless steel dispenser, handing them to a line of people queuing silently, their heads bowed.  The air was humid inside and the low murmurings of the people talking around them created a soft background din that swallowed their footsteps. Roper looked around, not hiding his disdain very well.  But with the nights getting colder, these people deserved somewhere warm to hole up. The winter was vicious and it was closing in fast this year, bearing down on the city in waves of rain and frost.  The woman serving coffee leaned around the line and looked at them, squinting a little to make them out. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and her reddish hair was curled back up over her head, spilling around her ears. Big and cheap gold earrings clung to her stretched lobes and shook a little as she looked them up and down, her face a mixture of trepidation and worry. Police turning up at a homeless shelter never meant anything good. She smiled warmly at the person at the front of the line, told him to help himself to coffee, and then walked around the table towards Roper and Jamie.  She held her hands wide and then clasped them together, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. Her earlobes wobbled and her heavy earrings caught the halogen strip lights overhead, glinting. ‘Can I, uh, help you?’ she asked.  Jamie and Roper flashed their badges to get it out of the way. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Paul Roper, and this is my associate, Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson.’ ‘Mary Cartwright,’ she answered diligently. ‘Are you the owner of this — er — establishment, Mary?’ Roper asked less than tactfully.

AT: oKAYYYY, mY BROMO SAPIEN, AT: r U READY, AT: tO GET STRAIGHT IN, FLAT DOWN, BROAD SIDE, SCHOOL FED UP THE BONE BULGE, AT: bY A DOPE SMACKED, TRINKED OUT, SMOTHER FUDGING, AT: tROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, TG: dont care AT: oK, lET ME, AT: oRGANIZE MY NOTES HERE, AT: oKAYYY, AT: (tURN ON SOME STRICT BEATS MAYBE, iT WILL HELP TO LISTEN TO THEM WHILE i DESTROY YOU,) AT: wHEN THE POLICE MAN BUSTS ME, aND POPS THE TRUNK, AT: hE'S ALL SUPRISED TO FIND I'M TOTING SICK BILLY, AT: wHOSE, AT: gOAT IS THAT, hE ASKS, wHILE HE STOPS TO THUNK AT: aBOUT IT, aND i'S JUST SAY IT'S DAVE'S, yOU SILLY AT: gOOSE, AT: bUT THE MAN SAYS, gOOSE! wHERE, lET ME SEE YOUR HANDS, AT: aND i SAY SHIT SORRY, i DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS HONKTRABAND, AT: wOW, oK, AT: i AM GETTING OFF THE POINT, wHICH WAS, AT: aBOUT THIS HOT MESS DAVE, tHAT YOU GOT LANDED IN, AT: lIKE THE COP i MENTIONED, bUT INSTEAD OF YOUR BADGE, AT: aND YOUR GUN, IT'S YOUR ASS THAT YOU HANDED IN, AT: (aND THEN GOT HANDED BACK TO YOU,) AT: cAUSE THAT'S HOW HUMANS GET SERVED, AT: aND GUYS LIKE YOU DESERVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT iT'S, AT: a CIRCLE AND HORNS IN YOUR BUTT THAT GOT BRANDED IN, AT: (uMM, bEFORE i GAVE YOUR ASS BACK TO YOU, i DID THAT, iS WHAT i MEAN,) AT: bUT i MEAN, gETTING BACK TO THE POINT, oR MAYBE TWO ACTUALLY, AT: tHE FIRST IS YOU SUCK, aND THE SECOND IS HOW i SMACKEDYOUFULLY, AT: (oH YEAH, tHAT RHYME WAS SO ILLLLLLLLL,) AT: bUT NO, jUST JOKING, lET'S SEE, hOW CAN i PUT THIS TACTFULLULLY, AT: i MEAN THE POINTS ON THE HORNS ON MY HEAD, AT: cOMING AT YOU THROUGH TRAFFIC, AT: aIMED AT THE TARGET ON YOUR SHIRT THAT IS RED, AT: wE'RE ABOUT TO GET MAD HORNOGRAPHIC, AT: (i MEAN SORT OF LIKE A GRAPHIC CRIME SCENE, nOT LIKE,) AT: (aNYTHING SEXUAL,) AT: (eRR, wHOAAAAA,) AT: (nEVERMIND,) AT: oK, gETTING BACK TO THE ACTUAL, tACTICAL, vERNACULAR SMACKCICLE, AT: i'M FORCING YOU TO BE LICKING, (aND lIKING,) AT: gRAB MY HORNS AND START KICKING, lIKE YOU'RE RIDING A VIKING, AT: cAUSE i'M YOUR BULLY, aND YOU'RE NOT IN CHARGE, AT: yOU THINK YOU'RE IN CHARGE BUT YOU'RE NOT IN CHARGE, AT: i'M IN CHARGE, cAUSE i'M CHARGING IN, AT: yOUR CHINASHOP, AT: bREAKING, uH, yOUR PLATES AND STUFF, WHICH i DON'T REALLY KNOW, AT: wHAT THE PLATES ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT, bUT, AT: (fUCK,) AT: iT'S JUST THAT YOU THINK YOU ARE THE COCK OF THE WALK'S HOT SHIT AT: bUT WHEN IN FACT YOU ARE NOT, mORE LIKE YOU ARE, AT: sOMETHING THAT RHYMES WITH THE COCK OF THE WALK'S HOT SHIT, AT: bUT IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE COCK'S SHIT, AT: sO, gIVEN THAT, lET ME BE THE FIRST, AT: tO SAY YOU ACT LIKE YOU'RE GOLD FROM PROSPIT, AT: wHEN YOU'RE REALLY COLD SHIT FLUSHED FROM DERSE,

It is obvious that such an interrogation environment is created for no purpose other than to subjugate the individual to the will of his examiner. This atmosphere carries its own badge of intimidation. To be sure, this is not physical intimidation, but it is equally destructive of human dignity.

Communities that offer their members protection must themselves be protected. Norms play that role. If you visit the homes of those high in conscientiousness, for example, you are likely to find lawns well kept and flower beds free of weeds. These people mostly go to church, as churches serve as centers of communities and purveyors of traditional values that have stood the test of time. What might seem to those who lack conscientiousness to be small details make the community a better place. Neighbors care what other community members do, in essence policing community standards. If you live in a suburban area, which is likely to be heavily populated by people high in conscientiousness, see what happens if you don’t mow your lawn for a couple of weeks or fail to replace a broken mailbox in a timely fashion. Count how many of your neighbors take it upon themselves to comment on your yard and your mailbox. Among people who are lower in conscientiousness, individual expression, not hewing to community standards, is a badge of honor. People who are low in conscientiousness might take notice of norm violators, just as people who are high in conscientious do—but they might embrace them rather than shun them, as people who are high in conscientiousness might do.

Meredith threw up her hands in frustration. “That’s ridiculous. Ugh! They make me so mad with their uselessness. Do they even have to do an entrance exam? Or do they just accept those plastic badges you get in the cereal box?” I couldn’t agree more. The police in our town had never had a reputation for being particularly adept.

They can take your gun and they can take your badge. They can never take away the fact that you are a cop. You just chose to police the police.

On our trip from Atlanta to San Diego we had a stopover in Dallas at Love Field. There’s a huge statue of a Texas Ranger in the terminal and it’s inscribed: “One Riot, One Ranger.” It reminded me of an incident when I was playing baseball in Amarillo. There were about five or six players having a drink at a table in the middle of this large, well-lit bar, all of us over twenty-one. Suddenly, through the swinging doors—Old West fashion—come these four big Texans, ten-gallon hats, boots, spurs, six-shooters holstered at their sides, the works. They stopped and looked around and all of a sudden everybody in the place stopped talking. I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them said, “All right, draw!” They spotted us ballplayers and sauntered over, all four of them, spurs jangling, boots creaking, all eyes on them. “Let me see your IDs, boys,” one of them says. I don’t know what got into me, but I had to say—I had to after that entrance—to these obvious Texas Rangers, “First I’d like to see your identification.” I said it loud. He rolled his eyes up into his head in exasperation and very slowly and reluctantly he reached for his wallet, opened it and showed me his badge and identification card. I gave them a good going over. I mean a 20-second check, looking at the photo and then up at him. Then I said, “He’s okay, men.” Then, of course, we all whipped out our IDs, which showed we were all over twenty-one, and the Texas Rangers turned around and walked out, creaking and jangling. We laughed about that for weeks. I find it curious that of all the things Dallas could have chosen to glorify in the airport, it chose law enforcement. The only thing I know about Dallas law enforcement is that its police department allowed a lynching to occur on national television. Maybe the statue should have been of a group of policemen at headquarters, with an inscription that read: “One Police Department, One Lynching.

The vertical viewing slot in the door was thrown back, and a pair of eyes filled it for a moment before it was closed again. There was the sharp report of a bolt being thrown, metal on metal. Then the door opened inward and there was a flood of light silhouetting two figures. Not two, she thought. Three of them. One after the other. Their bodies melded together into a single wide mass but three heads stuck out at the top. The first one wore a cowboy hat with the side brims bent up sharply. The middle one wore a peaked cap of some kind. The last man to enter was hatless but the blocky shape of his head was familiar. He was the trucker who’d brought them here and the man who’d pulled Krystyl out of the room by her hair. Gracie saw the glint of a badge on the second man, and for a brief electric moment her heart soared. The police had come to rescue them. Then she realized the man with the badge was in the middle of the three, not in back where he should be. He wasn’t prodding the men into the room—he was one of them. A voice she’d not heard before, high and twangy, said, “Hello, girls.” Then: “Gimme that flashlight.” A few seconds later Gracie was blinded by a beam. He’d shined it directly into her eyes. She raised her hands up and covered her face. Even through her closed eyelids she knew the bright light was still on her.

Dear officers of the law, if you find it difficult to maintain order without being a badge-bearing barbarian, seek professional help, for you are ill, terribly ill, and the cure for your illness is education.

Nonviolence is nonsense – or to be more accurate – bookish nonviolence is nonsense. Nonviolence is to injustice, what homeopathy is to illness – it claims all the credit without any of the responsibility. Placebo brings comfort, not change. Does that mean, violence is the solution? That’s the problem, you see. This prehistoric world has an instinctual affinity to black and white concepts – to binary concepts – and a gigantic blind spot for grey areas. Justice is too grand an exercise to be contained by the primitive dualistic nonsense of violence and nonviolence. Let me put this into perspective with an example. Bullets are an act of violence, silence is an act of nonviolence – but there is a third option – the option of the slipper. Slippers are more effective in fighting bugs, than bullets – bullets make martyr of the bugs, slippers put them in their place. When the slippers of a nation’s civilians combine, even the mightiest of tyrant is bound to fall – be it a state head, court judge or law enforcement officer. Whenever a bunch of bugs turn the courts into a cradle of animal masculinity – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the parliament into a cradle of fundamentalism and bigotry – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the police stations into a cradle of badge-bearing barbarism – grab hold of that household bug-repellent you wear on your feet, and put them to some good, wholesome use. Treat the corrupt and bigoted like your children, and do with them as you would your own child when they go astray. When your child starts to bully other kids, if you adopt pacifism and pamper them further in the name of nonviolence, instead of taking stringent steps to nip their megalomania in the bud, it’s very much possible, they might grow up to be the next orange-haired terrorist to roam the oval office or the next musky moron who takes pleasure in destroying people’s livelihoods and providing safe haven to hate speech and disinformation to satisfy their giant ego and puny mind. So, I repeat – pick up the democratic superweapon from under your feet and put it to good use – treat the privileged orangutans like your children and put them in their rightful place, without actually harming them. Your world, your rules – remember that. Slippers are democracy’s first line of defense, bullets it’s last.

Driver's license, insurance and registration? Certainly officer...and I will need your name, badge number and business card.

If a police officer refuses to give me their name and badge number that I am interacting with, I will obtain it through a 911 call reporting a suspected police officer impersonator.

Nine-year-old me dressed as a homeless person, but I had a badge, fake mustache, and aviators. I was HoboCop, naturally.

He was kissing the bottle at that time. We went for a drive in the desert and a little woo-poo. We really tied one on. We started shooting up a little town – Indio, I think it was; I don’t know where the hell we were – with a couple of .38s Frank kept in the vanity (glove) compartment. We were both cockeyed. We shot out streetlights, store windows. God knows how we got away with it. I guess Frank knew somebody! Somebody with a badge. He usually did.’ That would be the Riverside Police who wrote the incident up as ‘a domestic disturbance’ although what Ava Gardner recalled wasn’t the whole story; a passer-by was shot and suffered a flesh wound. All involved and the incident were kept quiet after a chartered light aircraft landed with a suitcase of cash in the early hours of the morning. The incident was not reported to the judiciary or in the newspapers.

He had once looked up to police officers, once wanted to become one himself—after all, who wouldn't want to carry a gun around, along with a badge and a uniform, that let him do what he pleased? I used to think they were so powerful, he mused. But now I see they're all just lemmings. They do what they're told, and that's it. They don't think for themselves—which is why they'll never get their hands on me.

To look out the window, it might be the 1980s still, the height of the heroin plague, the police doing nothing, the politicians doing nothing. The same faces loitering in the forecourt of the boarded-up garage, proud of their intractability, the notoriety of their home. Wearing their failure like a badge of honour, generation after generation, parent and child.

Another thing etched into my memory, was that someone stole my swimming suit from the wash line that ran from an upstairs window to a rickety wooden pole behind the house. That someone would steal clothing from a clothesline puts the desperation of people during the depression years into focus. Discovering this, I ran to tell Charlie the Cop…. Charlie was a mounted policeman who sat tall in the saddle, and he was my idol. He cut quite an impressive figure of authority in his blue uniform, badge, and highly shined, black riding boots. Charlie, Jersey City’s finest, carefully listened to my tale of woe and promised to get to the bottom of this serious criminal matter. I believed what he said and trusted him to get my itchy two- piece, woolen, swimsuit back. Years went by and he never did apprehend the culprits, but in my heart I know that this is still an open case with the Jersey City Police Department and Charlie is still out there looking! We respected the police and thought of them as friends. Charlie on his horse patrolled our area and was known and trusted by everyone. I wish that the police were thought of in the same way today.

A badge (police badge) isnt a hallmark of impunity, its a trademark of justice!

Rule o’ thumb, the motorcycle police consider the “normal flow of traffic” in judging speed.

In his annual report to the board for the year 1890, Police Chief J. M. Glass plainly put it up to them that something should be done in a city which boasted: “Nineteen hotels; 212 lodging houses, of which twenty-seven have a doubtful reputation; seventeen pawnbrokers, four of whom are Chinese; twenty-seven second-hand dealers; 171 saloons; sixty-five poker games, exclusive of those places where an occasional game is allowed; ten houses of prostitution; eighty-nine cribs; 104 prostitutes known to police; twenty-five maquereaux (French pimps better known as ‘Macks’).

We humans lost our freedom the first time we hung a badge on a machine.

The crowd was getting hysterical, so I reached into my back pocket and flippe open my wallet to reveal my badge. "Official business," I announced. "Please leave the area." This had the desired effect; it deescalated the mood and prompted most of the crowd to disperse. It's funny what a plastic badge and a meaningless phrase can do. The authority of the police is anothe mass delusion that can be useful at times. I hadn't even needed to claim I was a cop; all it took was a couple of simple cues to invoke the delusion.

Please remember that law enforcement officers are human just like you. We just put on a different uniform each day. The vast majority of police officers love to help and protect everyone.' -Captain Charles Newlin (Chapter Five) Behind and Beyond the Badge

had met his kind of policeman before. They were the sort who saw no problem with planting evidence, writing false reports, employing deceitful witnesses, using force in their interrogations of suspects. They existed on every police force in every country. And the problem was that they knew how to work the system. They knew how to talk in court, how to present their evidence in a way that was hard to refute. They hid behind their immaculate uniform and badge and misused their power. And judges tended to believe every word that came out of their dirty, corrupted mouths.

The most successful Facebook ad that Russian trolls purchased in 2016 reached well over a million people. It was called “Back the Badge,” described as a “Community of people who support our brave Police Officers.” The Internet Research Agency, a troll farm in Saint Petersburg, Russia, paid eighteen hundred dollars for it. The most popular Texas secession page on Facebook, which had more followers than the official Texas Democratic and Republican Facebook pages combined, was a Russian front. It was called Heart of Texas, and by the time Facebook took it down, it had a quarter million followers.

He picked up his badge and handcuffs and held them to himself; he unholstered his .45 revolver and aimed it at the world.