Without a doubt, we’ve got stereotypical cops with the high and tight haircuts and robotic demeanor who carry their handcuffs off-duty and sleep with aviators on just like people imagine, but that caricature sells us short. Alpha and beta personalities inhabit each and every one of these cops categories, although being an alpha definitely helps in Copland. Here are just a few types of cops that I know.
Brass Chasers
Some cops are made to wear the brass. These guys are ambitious as the day is long and generally believe they’re the smartest person in the room at all times. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes not so much. They’re politicians, company men, and managers more than they are crime fighters or street cops in general, but that doesn’t go to say there aren’t exceptions. I won’t say brass chasers aren’t natural protectors like any good cop should be, because they’re better at protecting the reputation of the agency than anyone, but sometimes they’re not so good at protecting their own officers.
Brass chasers make it to sergeant and keep on climbing. Making that next rank is their number-one priority for better or worse. As managers, you can expect them to almost always put the needs of the department before the best interest of any individual officer, even if they’ve known them for years and danced at their wedding. They say things like, “You can’t have morale without accountability,” and their loyalty will always lie with themselves and the agency’s command staff. Rank-and-file guys look at this as their department throwing other officers under the bus, and sometimes they’re right about that, but it is what it is. No individual officer is more important than the success of the agency.
The best supervisors are the ones who don’t forget where they came from and have loyalty to the guys they supervise. These guys are worth their own weight in gold, and a healthy agency promotes officers that are more than just “yes men,” though I wouldn’t exactly say the sky’s the limit.
Slugs
Every department has its slugs. A slug will sit in parking lots for hours on end, drive their patrol car into your beat to grab a bite, then ignore the car accident pulled over on the side of the road on their way back out as they say “that’s not my beat” to themselves. Of course, you’ll pick that call up as soon as you get done with the call you’re already on and they know it. Slugs are lazy, self-serving, and unreliable. If your shift has one, everyone knows about it.
Some slugs were born slimy out of the academy while others slowly devolve into the role over time due to personal issues, being worn out all the time from working too many off-duty jobs, or after having become disgruntled with the department. The best slugs are the ones that you can at least count on to back you up should you find yourself in a hairy situation. It just might happen that a slug saves your life on their best day. Many eventually find other jobs or get themselves booted, which hopefully makes room on the shift roster for more of a team player.
Cops’ Cops
A cops’ cop isn’t really concerned with ladder climbing, but he’s usually a mid- to high-performance stats guy. He doesn’t have to write the most tickets or make the most arrests because he’s about quality over quantity. The cops’ cop is Joe Cool under pressure and has proven it time and time again over the course of a career. His reputation speaks for itself.
If a hot and heavy call was a game of pickup football, that cops’ cop on your shift would be your first pick—not that you’d have to worry about that, though. The cops’ cop will come flying from halfway across the city to back you up because he legitimately cares about you going home and is an adrenaline junkie anyway. He’s loving every minute of being a cop, and he’s loyal to his friends almost to a fault.
The cops’ cop has an infectious personality, can tell a joke, and is always trying to unify the shift by bringing everyone together for a “59” (meetup) in the middle of the night or to get everyone drunk together at a “choir practice” on their off day. Good shift camaraderie depends on at least one cops’ cop holding it all together, but he’s going to bust your balls like there’s no tomorrow. Bust his balls back.
It’s never a bad move to strive to be the cops’ cop—though it might hurt your chances for promotion. Most agencies tend to prefer their supervisors to be loyal up the chain of command rather than down. A cops’ cop can really struggle with this concept.
Gypsy Cops
Gypsy cops are popular in regions of the country such as the southeast where there are often no unions, no pensions, and low pay. They’re carpetbaggers, transplants, and men without roots. It’s not incredibly rare to meet a gypsy cop who is on his third or fourth agency in eight years, leaving one department after the other for a menial pay raise that he wouldn’t have otherwise gotten by staying put.
A good gypsy cop is one that’s tired of moving around and ready to settle down. I can’t tell you how many great friends I’ve made over the years from people all over the country who were here today, gone tomorrow—but that’s Atlanta for you.
Femme Fatales
How many women do you know who have killed people? I know three. How many other people outside of this profession can say that? I realize that sounds crazy and maybe even a little bit shocking, but the world of policing is a unique and crazy place that puts women in positions that no other job does daily. There’s really nothing else like it.
It can’t be easy for women to fit in harmoniously in a gritty, male-dominated profession like law enforcement, so they deserve credit. Those who have trouble navigating the terrain usually wind up turning in the gun and badge or ride out their careers as a desk jockey at the precinct, but the ones who can handle themselves in the street along with the best of their male counterparts are a national treasure. Want to get behind a version of feminism you can be proud of? Go talk to a female street cop who’s been through it all.
“I Can’t Believe That’s a Cop” Cops
These guys are more common in large agencies with year-round hiring and a limited applicant pool, where you wind up having all kinds of strange birds slipping through the cracks as a result. I knew a guy from the police academy who was obviously on the Asperger’s spectrum, picked his nose and ate it, and couldn’t help himself from smelling his own body constantly in public. He was just a walking meme with no self-awareness, but he was also a savant when it came to firearms. It was uncanny watching him piss perfect scores like it was nothing. We’d just scratch our heads and fear for our lives a little bit. He was our black sheep. I don’t know where he is today, but I hope he’s doing OK regardless of being such a squirrel.
Atlanta PD has had some legends over the years. One robbed a bank after shift-change with his city-issued handgun and black tee tucked into his uniform pants still around his waist. He might as well have been wearing bells on his duty boots while he was at it. Then there’s the guy who put his taser in the microwave because he wanted to disable its camera. I think he just got fired from his third department.
We had one psychopath who was caught at the airport trying to flee the country after burning a dead prostitute he met on Craigslist in the trunk of a car. Legend has it, he called his sergeant to let him know he wouldn’t be seeing him anymore after the story broke the news. His sergeant immediately called Homeland Security and they nabbed him before he could board a plane to Pakistan.
A buddy of mine who came from a different agency tells me there was a “real-life vampire” detective working cases over there. The guy would dress up in goth, wear fangs, and drink blood on the weekends for a good time. Eventually he got canned for wearing his badge on a television show highlighting folks with—ahem—alternative lifestyles. Anti-American types in blue, drug addicts, you name it. Big city PDs have got what you’re looking for.
Go ahead, connect the dots in your minds with your own shift personnel and command staff. Tell me where I’m wrong or who I left out.
Which kind of cop are you?
