Susan Maricle wrote: >When we first moved to Mpls. in 1989, we considered >buying a charming house at 38th and Chicago. We knew >nothing about the neighborhood, so a friend suggested >we contact the nearby police department to get an >opinion from them. I still remember the officer's >words: "It's awful. You couldn't pay me to live >here." > I live at Lake and Oakland, but you couldn't pay me to live at 38th and Chicago. There's an SA station on that corner which means traffic is going day and night. Lake St. goes all night too, but without a convenience store/gas station, it's very mellow at 2, 3, and 4 am.
>Now, maybe I caught the officer at a bad time on a bad >day. But if that's the attitude he carries around with >him, how does it affect his performance? Why does he >stay in a job if he hates where he works? >If I were an employer and that cop were my employee, >how long would I keep him around if he continued to >badmouth me to potential clients? > This issue is a lot more complex than most of us credit. Nobody asks a judge whether living at Christmas Lake and working at Henn. Co. Courthouse (a.k.a. "the toaster") means he/she can't do a good job. Nobody asks my boss, head of Hosmer Library if living around 44th and France means he cannot do his job well. He does excellently at some things and not so splendidly at others, just like everybody else's boss. There's a lieutenant at the 3rd precinct who lives somewhere in Minnetonka, but I wouldn't trade her for anything you'd care to offer. I used to work at Lake and Chicago, right in the middle of the biggest mess I hope to ever see. During that period, my attitude toward cops and criminals was pretty sour. My attitude toward complacent and/or frightened citizen's got off the rails too. I don't have the kind of personality to spend so many concentrated hours right in the thick of the yuck. The test for the personality of a police officer, as I understand it, is the MMPI. I'm fairly sure the MMPI is not a toolfor fine measurements. It can measure perhaps, some gross things, some general categories, but that's all. I divide it up this way. Some people--police officers included--have a bunker mentality about life. They think they will be safe if the wear a turtle shell, have lots of alarm systems, and close in on themselves, defining their ecological niche very narrowly so that everyone they know is just like them. (Personally, I think those type of folks are unfair to themselves and other hominids, but....) Some folks let their curiosity out on a long kite string and explore here and there. They attempt to 'meet and greet' the world. They're bored stiff when everybody's just like them. They don't think they would be any safer closed in than out in the mix. I think of it as a continuum with the bunkerers on one end and the totally free spirits on the other with the rest of us sprinkled along the string between them. Where, between the two extremes, are the best cops huddled? Are they all together? Do you need a mix? If you can identify that spot(s), then we can do a better job of choosing which people are best for which kinds of work and, theoretically at least, we would have better police departments all round. 1989 was a year when, for the first time in a couple of generations, Minneapolis police and citizens were hit with a massive open street drug trade. The police dept. didn't really have a clue about how to tackle the situation. Neither did anybody else. A lot of cops had bunker mentality to the 9th power at the time, citizen's were developing it likewise. Some still do. Some always will because they don't have enough roughage in their diets. I don't intend to defend the cops or disparage them (usually), but living where I do, I wind up having a lot of interaction with them. I have to say, though, I don't care where they live. If they want to commute from Outer East Somewhere Else, that's their lookout. It they want to live up a flagpole, I'm OK with it. What I want to know is whether or not they have the good sense to make friends in their sectors so they have a few folks watching their backs and those same folks ready and able to challenge them when their behavior goes South. WizardMarks, Central > > > > > > > > > >__________________________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More >http://faith.yahoo.com >_______________________________________ >Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy >Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: >http://e-democracy.org/mpls > _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
