Scout Leader

In Kevin Gilmartin’s classic book on how cops get fucked in the head(and how to try to mitigate it), Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement, he uses the Scout Leader scenario as an example of how the worldview of cops quickly becomes skewed negatively.

He starts by asking if the reader thinks their worldview has changed since they became a cop, and to illustrate this, he asks them to think of the first thing that comes into their head when they see the words “scout leader”.

I had the chance to do this live once. I was at this month-long law enforcement leadership training thing, which was attended by about 40 cops from various departments and specialties, with an assortment of experience and background. Among other topics, we had an hour-long block of instruction on wellness, of which the instructor pulled heavily from Gilmartin’s work. The instructor performed the same exercise as in the book. On his powerpoint, the words “scout leader” appeared, and he asked the class to volunteer what the first thing that came to their mind was when they read those words. A bunch of people raised their hands, and he got the same assortment of answers such as “pedophile”, “child molester” and “sex offender”. This is in line with the standard cop results listed after the exercise from the book. Hell, when I did the exercise for the first time, I thought the exact same thing. The instructor then went on to say that when he talks to people who aren’t cops at various community meetings and such, they usually associate “scout leader” with more positive things like “community leader” or “good dad”. To which my class responded that obviously these people weren’t living in reality.

What’s happening here isn’t really a question of reality, but rather the lens we view it through. Sure, as we’ve seen in the news obviously some scout leaders are sexual predators. But if you crunch the numbers, I’m betting the overwhelming majority of them are not. Most are probably good people just trying to help kids learn to weave baskets or whatever. Of the thousands mostly good ones out there, there’s also a few dozen who should spend the rest of their life locked away for the trust and innocence they betrayed. So neither party is incorrect. But we cops sort of are more incorrect than not. I would assume a non cop would allow that while most scout leaders are good dudes, there’s obviously been a few bad ones. From my experience, and from the responses I saw back at that wellness class, cops tend to believe that nearly all scout leaders are in fact pedophiles and should be regarded with scrutiny. Good is the exception, definitely not the rule. Skewed perception towards the negative. This is indicative of a deeper issue, which bears some explanation.

So you have to understand, especially if you’re not a cop, what it’s like being a cop before we go deeper. Despite what many think(hell, I used to think the same thing before getting hired), cops don’t just sit around donut shops and pull over people for speeding. That’s actually pretty rare. What most cops do is respond to 911 calls. In these calls, at least one person has dialed 911 and specifically requested a police officer to respond because they believe a crime has occurred or is occurring. This call gets routed to a dispatcher, who essentially screens and routes the calls. If it’s something clearly not criminal, the call will get sent to a social service that might be able to help. If it’s more of a medical thing, it gets sent to an ambulance service. Cat in tree or house on fire? Goes to firefighters. But if dispatch determines there’s a good chance a crime is going down, cops get sent.

When the cops show up, it’s usually to respond to someone’s worst day ever. Their house got broken into, or their spouse beat them. The victim is usually pretty distraught. Understandably, this is a significant emotional event for the victim, and they may be dealing with intense feelings they’ve never felt before. This can be kind of difficult for the cop as well, as the victim is legit losing their shit, and the cop has to try and sift through the screaming and crying to figure out what had actually happened there. Furthermore, it’s pretty normal for the victim to be pretty pissed that this happened, and it seems like subconsciously they get pissed at the world for letting this happen. Again, understandable. You go your whole life thinking most people are good, and though you abstractly know it’s not a perfect world, you don’t try to think about anything superbad happening to you. Because shit, that’s just depressing. Then BAM! Shit happens, big time. Some dude t-bones your brand new car, then leaves the scene. Somebody breaks into your house and steals your TV, laptop, and your childhood favorite stuffed donkey. Some dude pistol whips you while you’re walking home and takes your wallet, cellphone, and one shoe. What the fuck?

Quickly after such an incident, you may start to question the shaky ground that civilized society is built on. You call 911, and talk with someone who is paid and trained less than a telemarketer. While you wait for the cops, maybe you start thinking(again, probably subconsciously) whose fault this is. Sure isn’t yours, you didn’t ask for this shit. Definitely whoever did this to you, totally. But shouldn’t somebody have prevented this? What the hell are you paying all these taxes for? By the time the cops show up, you’re still pissed at the criminal that did this, but you’re also starting to get more than a little pissed at the system that has failed you. And oh look, here comes the living embodiment of that system now, wearing their uniform and badge identifying them as such. So cop shows up to try and figure out what went down, and is immediately met with hostility. During my rookie year as a street cop, we were required to keep track of how many 911 calls we went on, and write them down on a little worksheet. If memory serves me right, on average I’d respond to about 30 calls per 8.5 hour shift. About 20 of those were some variation of such situations where a crime had been committed and the suspect was gone, of which at least half would involve the victim losing their mind on me the minute I got out of my car. So that was nice.

If the person who did the crime is still there, things get even more difficult. Surprisingly, most criminals don’t immediately(or ever) admit to the crime they committed. I see woman with red hand marks around neck, bleeding nose, swollen eye. Between her screaming at me and crying, she states her husband, whom she indicates is the guy nonchalantly leaning against the fridge in the corner, is in fact the dude that caused such damage.

When questioned about this, said dude is super relaxed and very respectful “I don’t know what she’s talking about sir, I think she may be high and fell down. Hell she probably did it to herself on purpose so she could get custody. Crazy chick, huh sir?”. After dude calmly explains his viewpoint, I may point out that his knuckles are actively bleeding and the giant hand marks on his wife’s neck seem to be a closer match to his mitts rather than her petite paws. Now ever more chill “sir, I messed up my hands a few days ago working on my car(yet they’re still bleeding? rrrriight), and it was probably some other dude she’s banging that made those choke marks”. Pretty standard really. Doesn’t require some great psychological insight to understand the motivation behind criminals lying about what they done did.

Calls such as these make up the other 10 out of 30 I’d go to in a shift. And they can get pretty dodgy. About half the time, once the suspect realizes you’re going to arrest them, they go from chill to quite angry but only verbally expressive of such anger. The other half, they are also verbal about the perceived injustices, but they become physically expressive as well. This can range from either running away, to punching, biting, and kicking, to trying to retrieve a weapon. This is not enjoyable for anyone, and unfortunately quite common. I recall dealing with at least some form of physical fighting at least once every shift, and about a dozen times in my career it rose to someone no shit trying to legit kill me.

While my experience is anecdotal, from talks with coworkers, this seems to be about the standard distribution of the street cop workload in a larger city. To sum up, about 10 times a day a victim is losing their mind on you and blaming you for the failings of a free society, and another 10 of those calls involve at least a suspect outright lying to you, and at worst trying to hurt you.

How does one survive this, both physically and emotionally? I’ve only seen one way, of which Gilmartin describes as just plain cynicism. You know there’s a good possibility that someone might try to hurt you during your shift. It would be nice if the suspect told you ahead of time so you can get ready, maybe limber up and do some light stretching. But those inconsiderate assholes never do! Calm one second, sucker punch the second. Easy way to deal with this. Just assume that everyone is going to try to hurt you. That way you’re either pleasantly surprised, or prepared when it comes. Absent mind reading, this seems to be the only way to try and tip the scales towards physically surviving a career of this shit.

The people that don’t try to hurt you, but instead yell and scream at you? Yes, it would be nice to take a nuanced holistic view, reflect on the likelihood that such people are going through a once in a lifetime extreme emotional event, and realize that normally they’re probably much more rational and pleasant. But deal with it 10 times a day, everyday, throw in shift work, sleep deprivation, and a rotating schedule that severely limits interaction with people in their normal homeostatic state outside police incidents, and you start to arrive at “people are fucking crazy and occasionally try to kill me”.

After a few years on the job with associated crazy work schedules, your normal friends and family are rarely seen, and the only people it’s convenient to socialize with are other cops. What do you talk about with your new social group? How crazy everyone else seems to be, and how you’re constantly being physically assaulted while trying to protect these damn crazies. The forest of normal people is lost for that insane tree that tries to kill you with a fucking clothes iron. After a while, you view everyone through cynical suspicion, and think that most people have a darker motive behind whatever seemingly good thing they’re doing on the surface. And this is why, when you ask a room full of cops what the first thing they think of when they hear “scout leader”, they almost unanimously respond with “pedophile” or a variation of the same.

Obviously this isn’t a healthy worldview outside of police work, and admittedly not too great a mindset for that profession either. Cynicism can descend to apathy, and oh boy, I’ve been there…. Does any of it matter? Why the fuck am I doing this? Not fun.

If you want to have any sort of positive life outside policing, it’s an uphill slog constantly fighting the repeatedly at-work reinforced belief that everyone is nuts and maybe trying to get you. What does Gilmartin recommend in his book? To sum up, aggressively seek connection with the world outside policing. Get a hobby where you interact with people who are not cops, so you can see they are not nuts and don’t try to kill you. Socialize with friends who aren’t cops, maybe get involved with your community, church, LARPing guild, or whatever, again so you can see that normal people do in fact exist.

Man, I have tried this, and it is a bitch. I’ve had some positive progress with it, but frankly the few times in my career that I was able to do so was when I wasn’t on the standard crazy cop schedule because I was in an admin 9-5 gig with weekends off. It’s a hell of a lot easier to interact with normal people when you’re on a normal schedule too. I must say, when I’ve done this, my worldview was a little less skewed and I was noticeably happier. As soon as I got back to an operational job, working late shift with rotating days off, that shit nosedived like a mother. Volunteering and social interaction outside of work are all but nonexistent. I know it’s flawed, and definitely not helping, but I can feel “people are fucked and try to kill you…” percolating more and more in the back of my head.

So what to do? I know I don’t like this way of life, and frankly the juice is not worth the squeeze. The job used to be fun at times, but through pure repetition it just ain’t anymore. And I don’t need the money. Yeah, Gilmartin, you’re right, but I’ve got another idea to deal with this. I’m out. Will I ever not think in the back of my head that maybe someone will try to go Nakatomi towers whilst I’m out Krogering? No, probably not. But I’ll settle for somewhat more well adjusted and positive about some of the things, some of the time. Got to be better than the slow decent into nihilism.

Behind spending more time with my family, and paying back years of sleep debt, this is my number three reason for leaving the job. Look, I’m grateful that I no shit had the opportunity to save some people’s lives, and I feel like I served honorably and tried to make a difference when I could. But it’s time to save my own sanity now. Here’s to looking forward to being a good scout leader.