What would be some of the less obvious fears of a cop?

I suppose the obvious ones is fearing that criminals would come after their friends and family.

I think less obvious ones would be slowly abandoning one's duty to up hold the law and be consumed by greed or hatred.

Fear of friends and family doing criminal acts IMO might be in the middle of the spectrum.

Of course, this is all hypothesis. I would like to know some works that explore what would a cop fear would happen to their loved ones and to themselves (that don't necessarily involve death or injury).

A fear of being Wrongly Accused (of a crime or misconduct) or maybe of arresting an innocent man.

I've seen examples of all three in Police Procedurals.

edited 16th Oct '13 11:32:05 AM by Bisected8

Less obvious fears of a cop? Let's try and come up with a few examples.

• The stress of a particular case or how confronting one, say a serious crash, might be.

• Having to arrest someone you know.

• Linked to that is having to deliver a death notice to a friend, or delivering a death notice in general.

• How the job can affect your personal or family life.

• How the community would react to the police not being able to do their job, even if by rights they cannot arrest someone who the community had already passed judgment on.

• Similar to that is how the police is portrayed in the news.

• Budget cuts meaning jobs are going to be put on the line, or resources are not going to be there when needed.

• Social working for the victim or even the criminal, trying to deter a youth from a life of crime for example.

That should be enough, if more than half of these are used in any one story then, assuming you want to be realistic by looking at such fears, it can become a little farfetched. It wouldn't be 24 in that terrorists wouldn't kidnap a cop's wife and daughter and force them to kill a president, then have to clear their name, then become obsessed with the case to the point the cop drives their family away to end up finding out one of the terrorists is a mole, a friend, even a lover, and in trying to apprehend them they are killed and the cop has to inform the terrorist's family, who want revenge.

Also worthy of note is in the book Leadbelly which looked at the Melbourne gangland war and other serious incidents the reason why the Victoria police became so deadly (the armed robbery squad for example were supposedly a police hit team for example) was because of the very real fear they were being specifically targeted, Russell Street and the bombing of police and emergency crews, Hoddle Street and the specific targeting of police by several criminals. On the other hand most criminals do not want that confrontation, those who set out specifically to be cop killers are ferals even by the criminal standards, and self destructive in that they draw so much heat on them that other than infamy to specifically target police is counterproductive.

Fear of telling anyone you have one week before retirement.

It's not like I know anything about police work, but isn't it against procedure to make a cop deliver a death notice to or about a person they know?

Here is a relevant thread.

Sorry for not getting to this before. My understanding is officers are typically not stationed where they live to prevent this sort of thing from happening. A death notice would be bad enough but having to do so for a friend, in the case of a friend having to be informed the officer might want to do it because it is a friend, not being outside the realm of possibility to make new friends in the district. Rule of Drama and all that.

Becoming a Corrupt Cop

Losing your weapon. If I were a cop, that would be my number one fear.

You are walking point, every day, all day, on the job. You could walk into anything. Every car you stop could be driven by the next Ted Bundy. The people behind the door could be playing cards or have AKs. The only way you'll know which is to kick the door in.

Being a cop is basically a Rorschach test on fear.

edited 26th Dec '13 2:26:20 PM by Night

Absolutely, as I addressed above in light of the attacks on Victoria police the blue surge had changed from a shield to a target. I know I keep referring to Underbelly but this was real, the movie Tell Them Lucifer Was Here was on the real life Silk/Miller murders and how there are those out there who want to kill, they want to kill cops, they are who crims refer to when discussing Even Evil Has Standards and they are not going to take no for an answer. You just don't know if you are going to come up against a monster. Try driving out and around your local trouble area, every night. See if something happens. Now try it when some would have reason to pick a fight. You'd better believe it's scary.

I would address this as perhaps a more obvious fear of being a cop but it is well worth addressing...for argument's sake being a white cop in Redfern, Sydney, or having to deal with the race wars in Cronulla. Such real life or true to life incidents are every bit as scary as their American counterparts (every black man, with utmost respect, could not be blamed for targeting police after Rodney King for example) or their fictional counterparts of the one good cop dealing with a Wretched Hive.

edited 29th Dec '13 4:45:14 PM by tsstevens