Having had the pleasure writing and administering a fairly successful Facebook page sometimes brings me to read between 10 and 100 messages a day.
I try to answer them all, at least with that little blue thumb that indicates to the sender that the message has been read.
Over the last week, I have been asked to ante up and put a bunch of our “hot cops” on the page as a nod to the successful post that our friends at the Gainesville Police Department pulled off. It was great. Florida needed a respite from Irma, cops were doing good work and having some fun.
The ladies loved it, or at least indicated they loved the handsome lads shown in the viral selfie. It was funny and timed perfectly. Everyone loves it when a plan comes together.
After answering untold numbers of requests for the Bangor Police Department to do the same thing, my answer was always the same. Nope. Not gonna do it (I sounded more like Dana Carvey than I did George Bush).
Not because I found the comments of some of the page followers offensive, but I did. Not because we don’t like to have some fun, because we do, and not because I am a stick in the mud and don’t like to have some laughs.
Those who know me well can tell you I like to laugh, have fun, and push back against accepted norms when I have the opportunity.
Some of you received my messages back and my answer (depending on the amount of time I had to write it) sounded something like this. “I’m sorry, we won’t be accepting the handsome cop challenge. Mainly because we don’t think good police work is only done by those who are perceived to be more attractive than all of the others who do the same good work every day”-TC
I have been saved from a fairly good pummeling on an icy driveway on a Maine February night by a cop that really wasn’t all that good looking.
Oh, I did get pummeled when I was attacked by a mentally ill individual, but the pummeling was far less painful due to the ugly cuss that pulled up in a cruiser and dragged the man off me before I was more seriously made “uglier” by his fat fists. He went to jail. Thanks to a cop that is as homely as I am. He knows who he is.
Ugly cops have backed me up for years, and I returned the favor by being ugly and quick to show up to back up fellow cops on domestics, drunken brawls, and the precarious situations that we all deal with.
Handsome or ugly, I’ll take any Bangor Police officer anytime I need help.
If they have on too much hair gel, cheap cologne, or God forbid- Axe body spray – I will still take them and will save the ridicule for later. We are a brutal lot when it comes to making comments to each other.
The other thing that came to my mind when offered an opportunity to slap some handsome hunks on the page in order to get a few extra “likes” was that if I did that with our female officers and the comments came across as rude and distasteful as the many I saw on other pages, I would spend the day hiding and deleting sexist comments so that the ladies husbands and families would not have to see it. I am not a glutton for punishment.
I took over this page three years ago, in a time when cops were on the defensive (and to some extent and situations, should have been) because from time to time we all lose our way and the public always deserves to get professional, competent, ethical police officers when they call for help. I wanted to showcase the positive things that cops do every day. The things you might not know about. The things that people choose to overlook because it is far easier to notice and speak about the bad things.
None of this centered on their outward appearance.
There is no doubt that some cops have been blessed with being very attractive. We also have some not so handsome, beautiful, or aesthetically pleasing cops. They do the same work, answer the same calls, do the good things that you don’t see.
We recruit from the human race, and we are not all attractive. What fun would that be?
When you need help, you want a cop. Competent, ethical, and quick to react and respond to your issue, dangers, or problems.
You can get by the ugly part when you notice the heart.
Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people’s things alone, and be kind to one another.
Need us? Call us.
We will be here.
TC
This post was originally published on September 16, 2017 on Bangor Maine Police Department Facebook page.
