Midgets and Lesbians

This post might anger you. It, like 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', has little or nothing to do with either midgets or lesbians.

I was just watching a video on Spike TV of a police officer conducting a nighttime traffic stop and was reminded of a comment made to me once, "Things were better before they started hiring midgets and lesbians.".

The comment was made while we were watching a bar fight that had gotten out of hand and spilled into the street. A crowd had gathered, the police had been called and when we arrived the two officers needed assistance themselves. They did not have control of the two individuals engaged in the brawl, who were both quite a bit physically larger than the two uniformed officers dispatched to officiate. Bystanders stepped in to help.

In the video, a female officer of approximately 5'3" and 140lbs had stopped a man who would have been 6'2" and tipped the scales at maybe 280 or more. I may be wrong on my numbers but you get the idea of the imbalance.

The officer was attempting to get the man out of the car and into handcuffs. He was uncooperative, wouldn't be talked out and she was physically unable to pull him out so she introduced a taser into the situation.

A passerby, a big strapping young lad, offered the officer assistance, was told to step back and did. The man in the car wrestled away the taser and used it on the cop, twice. As more police arrived the passerby had already subdued the man, was himself wrestled to the ground by incoming officers.

Before you get all out of joint and label me sexist or start quoting Mark Twain about the size of the fight in the dog, I know "miniature" cops and girls in uniform too and respect them greatly.

They do a good job. This is simply an observation.

There was a time when the "Uniform" part of a police officer included being a male over 5'8" tall. I think at some time or in some places even facial hair was prohibited. When you called the police you knew exactly what to expect. You got the Officer in the picture. The Officer that could "beat up the bad guy" if he needed to and the bad guy knew it by just looking. Your minimum uniform expectation of service was met and the bad guy was intimidated.

There were no tasers, police were intimidating enough. Escalation of force was perceived as; cooperate or receive a beat down which you knew you would get. I was in my twenties before I had first hand knowledge of an officer drawing a gun. Any time a weapon be it stick, taser or gun is introduced into the situation it is available to all.

I am not advocating the reinstatement of archaic hiring policies but just like a stick-handler need an enforcer or a running back needs an offensive line, our Police are a team too. Maybe if the smaller officer in the video had a larger partner (or a partner at all) a taser would not have been drawn. Maybe if one (or both) of the first officers dispatched to a street fight at 3am had been selected from the team's "goon squad" it would have been different.

Who knows, but for the record..I love midgets..and lesbians too.

"The secret is to work less as individuals and more as a team. As a coach, I play not my eleven best, but my best eleven."
Knute Rockne