A few days ago, the Holman Police Department in Wisconsin
posted a reasonable guideline on their open Facebook page stating, “posts made
to this page that contain profanity will be deleted. We promote this page as
family friendly. Thank you.”
Public Facebook pages representing and administered by law
enforcement entities are unfortunately often the targets of trolls and other
foul-mouthed and derogatory individuals. Usually, it is best not to reply to
these comments as it often makes the situation worse. However, when someone
replied to the Holman PD’s statement about promoting their page as family friendly with a snide comment, the administrator of the Holman PD page
responded in a manner that has gone viral over social networking. It is
reproduced in its entirety below...
HOLMAN PD
“Recently we posted a request that comments on our Facebook
page not contain profanity as we try to promote our page as “family friendly.”
Our post received a comment “Yet police aren’t typically
family friendly.”
While our department usually refrains from online squabbles
with posters, that comment hit home and deserves a response.
I ask myself why the Holmen Police Department aren’t
considered family friendly, but I realize it’s possibly a general perception of
police altogether? Either way…
I can understand why you don’t see us as family friendly
when someone in a family calls 911 because of a domestic disturbance and
someone goes to jail. Maybe that caller was the child watching their parent
beaten for the last time and was terrified for that parent’s life. Maybe that
caller was the spouse who was scared if they didn’t call that they wouldn’t
wake up in the morning. Maybe an outcome of that call was that children had to
be removed out of the house, not because it’s something we enjoy doing, but we
felt it was our only option at that point because children cannot protect
themselves and we had no other alternative. Every officer I know tries
everything they can do to NOT to arrest a parent in front of their children,
because no matter how reprehensible that parents’ actions were they still have
children who look at them through loving eyes that only an innocent child has.
I suppose we’re not family friendly when we arrest someone
and remove their children when they’re cooking meth in their home or dealing
drugs out of their home while their children play in the next room. I wonder
how family friendly the guests are who
come into that household to buy the drugs or family focused their parents are
when they’re passed out, strung out or paranoid from their drug binges.
The police aren’t family friendly when they have to arrest a
parent or other caregiver for abusing a child. At that point it isn’t our job
to worry about what the public will think or if the children will hate us
because we have to protect the children when those that brought them into this
world can’t or aren’t doing their jobs.
We aren’t family friendly when we execute a search warrant
on a house where we know someone is possessing child pornography or let’s call
it what it really is, children being recorded for gratification while they’re
abused, because we need to find out if that suspect is hurting any children in
our community.
When we stop someone for speeding or an equipment violation
and your children are in the car maybe that “not family friendly” ticket or
warning will make you rethink your driving behavior the next time you’re on the
road so we don’t see you in a crash with your children in an ambulance or
worse.
We try to be compassionate and family friendly as best we
can when have to knock on your door to tell you that your loved one has died
and try to help you through those first few moments of horrendous grief. It is
one of the worst things we have to do as law enforcement officers.
When you call 911 because someone in your family is hurt it
is the police who are usually there first trying to calm you and help you. We
help call a relative, secure your house or do whatever we can so you can
concentrate on your loved one.
If someone is threatening you or your family you call us to
protect you and your loved ones. How more family friendly do you expect us to
be?
We buy hundreds of pieces of candy for Halloween night handing
out to as many kids as we can. In fact we usually have to go hide out once we
run out because our community knows our tradition and we are family friendly,
well at least on Halloween we are.
Every officer has sacrificed Thanksgivings, Christmases,
birthdays and countless other important family events of our own so that we are
on duty in case YOU need us to NOT be family friendly on a holiday.
We’ve stopped at daycares for visits, given presentations at
schools, given tours of our squads and PD, handed out countless stickers in an
effort for children to see that we are family friendly and they should know
that we are here to protect them and NOT to fear us. It’s sad your children are
probably among the ones that fear us, instead of knowing we’re here to help
them. We have people threaten their children in restaurants where we’re eating
saying we’ll take them away if they don’t behave. I personally will call you
out if you say that and I hear it. Don’t make your children afraid of us, who
will be at their door when they call 911 for something and need help? Not you,
us.
Most of us have children of our own who we kiss goodbye each
day to wear a badge and be a part of a profession that has become so dangerous
and hated in the last few years that we wonder why we choose to make that
sacrifice for your families, especially since we’re NOT family friendly.
We’ve seen things, horrible things that the general public
can’t even begin to wrap their minds around…and we see the outcome of
situations that are NOT family friendly. So we’re sorry if your perception of
us isn’t that we’re not family friendly, but in my eyes we do a job that is
very family friendly and our officers’ care about the community that they
serve, especially the children and families.
I have a simple fix to your perception of how we’re NOT
family friendly...How about people stop doing things that put us, the police,
in situations that aren’t family friendly?”
As the LEO AFFAIRS blog stated: Boom. Mic Drop. Elvis has left the building. Congratulations to Holmen PD speaking out...