Lt. Sean Gerrity, commander of the
Valley Center Sheriff’s Substation, was recently interviewed by
college student John Fawkes. We thought our readers would be interested
in some of his answers to Fawkes’s questions.
This is Part III in the series.
Q: What are the biggest challenges and rewards
to being a Sherrif’s deputy?
A: Many criminal investigations are challenging,
especially in light of all of the laws and case decisions that apply.
My greatest rewards have involved consistently and successfully completing
crime investigations honestly, truthfully, within the constraints
imposed by law, where evidence and statements were properly elicited,
documented and admissible as evidence in court, resulting in proper
and just convictions (as well as proper and just acquittals or dismissals
– the object and challenge of investigation is, most of all,
to find the whole truth of a matter. It feels at least just as rewarding
to clear a truly innocent person as it does to convict a truly guilty
person).
Another challenge is public support and perception. Someone once told
me, “Perception is truth.” This is not a true statement;
if it were, there would be no need for these two separate words. Instead,
the challenge is to bring perception in line with the real truth –
not an easy thing to do, and frequently not actually possible. Public
perception of peace officers is mostly a result of media exposure
of relatively very few police incidents. The media, contrary to some
beliefs, are not so much the worthy protectors of the First Amendment
(free speech and press, etc.) that they might want us to believe.
The media, especially large corporate entities, are driven more so
by their own economic interests (they need money to survive, just
like the rest of us). They tend to publish that which is out of the
ordinary or sensational, simply because it “sells;” even
routine day-to-day police work is pretty “boring” insofar
as publication standards go. Peace officers must have a healthy perspective
regarding this, or else he or she can find themselves becoming quickly
disillusioned, self-protective and cynical.
In the United States, there are hundreds of thousands of peace officers
– federal, state and local. In San Diego County, there are thousands
(roughly 2,000 in the Sheriff’s Department alone). Locally,
peace officers handle hundreds of thousands of calls each year, and
generate hundreds of thousands more incidents/contacts each year –
reaching the million(s) mark. Locally, excluding federal peace officers,
our jail bookings usually exceed 100,000 per year. Nationally, it’s
in the millions yearly (just bookings), if not billions (including
all police contacts and incidents). Yet when there is one or even
a handful of incidents involving improper police conduct somewhere
in the nation, if not locally, such as the Rodney King incident (or
even perceived improper conduct, that may actually have been proper),
and it receives constant media attention, the press and many people
sometimes tend to impute the wrongful actions of one or more improperly
acting peace officers to the many, judging us all through so few incidents
– and we frequently and individually bear the brunt of it in
our day-to-day dealings with those we serve (sometimes for years or
even decades).
Watch what happens the next time a local peace officer uses lethal
force (which, most of the time, at least results in a lawsuit no matter
how justified or proper the action was). Frankly, in light of the
billions of police incidents that occur nationally, and millions locally,
it is a wonder that we don’t have to utilize lethal force more
frequently – it is actually, statistically pretty rare (so much
so, that the largest majority of us will never have to use lethal
force in an entire, 30-year career, and thankfully so. We spend our
careers protecting people, even the “bad guys;” it is
personally stressful and distressing when one takes a life, no matter
how right, proper and justified the action is).
Though comparatively rare, every once in a while one of our ranks
actually “goes bad” and gets arrested (typically by another
one or more of us). Watch again when this happens; it will almost
certainly make “headlines,” where it wouldn’t reach
that level of attention (if any) for the average person. Although
this behavior may well end up being wrongfully imputed to the rest
of us, it actually is a testament to two things: the media tends to
only publish that which is unusual or sensational (thus this actually
shows how rare and unusual such a thing is); and, because it is sensational
and unusual, it also tends to show that the media and those we serve
hold us to a higher standard, as it should be.
Another challenge involves the very real potential for cynicism and
disillusionment for each of us. We are actually in the business of
constantly striving to put ourselves out of work, with a goal of eliminating
all levels of crime and thus the need for our services. Yet at times
it seems as if one is trying to “push back the ocean tide with
a hand trowel;” we have never been able to achieve this goal,
though we have been able to reduce crime rates to some comparatively
“acceptable” level. Second, if one is looking for public
accolades, this is not the business to be in; one has to have the
self-confidence and self-security to know that he or she is doing
the right thing, and making a difference that is not always readily
apparent or sometimes even popular. If one wants consistent public
“hero” accolades for public service, then I would recommend
something like firefighting or paramedic work, where one usually doesn’t
have to deal with people in a capacity other than saving their lives
or their property (far more frequently from something other than the
criminal element). When firefighters or paramedics have to deal with
incidents involving the criminal element, there are usually one or
more peace officers there to take care of those aspects of an incident
(including protecting and ensuring the safety of the firefighters
or paramedics). As a whole, peace officers deal with the absolute
worst people our society has to offer, and are only called when people
are at their “worst” or victims of the “worst.”
A risk develops where, over time, many of us can tend to become disillusioned,
cynical, stressed-out and distrustful of other people (even the good
ones), because of this constant exposure to the “worst”
of our society and man’s inhumanity to man. We must constantly
be on guard. A healthy perspective must be maintained, or such stress
can even result in depression, alcoholism, “legal” prescription
drug abuse, illegal drug abuse, marital and family problems, corruption
of one’s ethics and ideals, actual corruption, and/or an early
death and/or short retirements. Because of these stressors, peace
officers statistically have a shorter life span than most other people
in our society (one reason why we can retire earlier than most –
otherwise too many of us would never reach retirement). A real or
perceived lack of public support only tends to exacerbate this very-real
risk to all peace officers.
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