By Scott Ziegler
I have no idea what it is like to be a cop. I’ve never been one. I am a firefighter. Everyone loves when we show up. We get all the girls, and cops wish they’d taken our test rather than the one they went with. So I’ve never walked in shoes quite like the shoes of a cop.
I try not to speak much on matters that I don’t have much experience in. But I can imagine. I can’t imagine what it is like to be a police officer in this world we are all living in right now. This climate. This seemingly anti-police atmosphere.
I imagine it’s a tough one. My imagination comes from stories I hear from friends who are in law enforcement. Things I see on TV and social media. Having been a firefighter for the past 12 years, I have come to know many law enforcement officers. Some of them are extremely close friends. We work closely with them. Sometimes we work right alongside them. Sometimes we even rely on them to keep us safe. Because despite what I said earlier, we are not always welcomed by the public.
In my opinion, police, fire, and EMS are all in the same world. We are all essentially doing different things, but for the same mission. To keep our cities safe. None of us wake up in the morning and think to ourselves that we want to bring harm or disruption to the communities we serve. That’s not why we signed up. I think I can relate to most police officers on this level. We probably got into our professions for similar reasons.
We are both tasked with risking our asses to keep citizens safe. It doesn’t put us above anyone on the social scale. But it sets us aside from the rest because we are all held up to a higher standard. A standard that I think sometimes is unreasonable. Your job, the job of policing our cities, is not one that I would want. Not today. We are all human. People forget that.
I know that it is in the nature of our jobs. I know that it is to be expected from time to time. But when I see police officers being ambushed and killed on the news, I wholeheartedly relate as if it were a firefighter or a medic, and I hate it. And I think I can speak for most firefighters when saying that. We are part of the same family. You guys are just kind of like our ugly cousins that we don’t always want to hang out with.
It’s not OK. No matter what side of things you stand on. No matter where you are with other social and political views. Innocent cops being gunned down is not OK. And it is not going to fix any problems that our society has.
So from one firefighter (or probably most) to all LEO’s, my heart goes out to you. I hope for better days. I hope we can all come to some sort of peaceful end to this current turbulence. And I hope I don’t see another dead cop’s name plastered on the news for a really long time.
