Maybe seeing and experiencing what I have has affected me. Maybe if you walked in my shoes, you would feel differently. My heart still bleeds for the innocent people that are victims of this mess. I try my best to help them. I still care.
You are 100% right about that!
Brother, this shit will NEVER be fixed in our lifetime. Baltimore City is becoming ”no man’s land.” If all law enforcement walked away tomorrow, life there would be complete chaos. It would truly be every man for himself. It may come to that because no one wants to do the job anymore. I can’t say I blame them because it is getting way too dangerous for the amount you are paid. People actually cheer when police officers are killed there. I am starting to believe the majority don’t care. I could never recommend, in good conscience, anyone taking this job. I worry about the future. It is getting worse by the year.
I have lived in a major crime ridden drug infested American city, hell I’ve lived with both addicts and dealers in my own house, spent most of my childhood and adolescence that way, and I can tell you, YOUR life experiences AS A POLICE OFFICER have led you to the absolute worst of the bunch, you took a career that called upon you to deal with scum of the earth type people, and you have seen drugs through a microscope rather than through a broad lens, MANY drug addicts are not like that in the slightest, in fact you’d be absolutely shocked at how many drug addicts you know but had no idea they were addicts, people who work every day and are struggling with their mental health to the point that they feel suicidal and yeah they’re on drugs, but the only ones they harm are themselves, should they be arrested for illegally using drugs? Or should they be helped?
Anyone that can be helped, I truly want to see helped. Honestly, heroin addiction is just too hard for most addicts to overcome. In Baltimore City, heroin is king.
Okay, maybe if I was a drug addiction counselor, I would be more of a friend to addicts. Maybe if you were a police officer in the housing projects of Baltimore City, you’d have a very different world view.
Never a doubt in my mind. We lost a good one.
Safe products? Yea ok guy. Meanwhile the real drug crisis is from legally/over-prescribed opioids. Over 1500 a week dying in the US alone from ODs….. Off you go back to your theoretical utopia.
I care about people, but if I see them buying heroin, am I supposed to neglect my duties and just turn a blind eye? I think a lot of good people in Baltimore City would be pissed if they saw me doing that. Suppose the person I let go, is the person that is going to bash an old lady over the head with that hammer later on tonight, so they can shoot that shit in their arm one more time? Am I not serving and protecting her by enforcing the law and making an arrest? You seem to be so judgemental, but I can’t just look at everyone as “neighbors.” If I pull a drunk driver over, do I tell them to park their car on the side of the road and give him a taxi ride home to the county or arrest him? Not everything I do is black and white. If I let a drunk driver wait for a ride home and I leave to backup an officer on a domestic call and that driver decides to get back into their car and kills someone, I have to live with that. You don’t.
Don’t stress it man . I know plenty of Marines who became cops and they tell some crazy stories about drugs destroying families . They look at drug enforcement as saving someone’s life. Serious drugs that is, don’t know a single one that waste time on small things like weed.
Thanks! I certainly don’t need to add a fifth blood pressure medicine, four is plenty! Yeah, small amounts of marihuana is not even enforced anymore. They would just throw it out. Many judges do it. They are not tested like we are.
Addicts have been “othered” by the police and an entire career of indoctrination is hard to turn around.
Forgive me for thinking otherwise, you led me to believe you think addicts need to be “taken off the street” so to speak
You’re wrong though. You don’t even know the point we’re trying to make, or at least mine.
I remember when my son was in elementary and middle school, I had a similar conversation with my son fessing up to him about the mistakes I had made. I told him simply that he had a choice to make. One choice led him to great things and the other had a chance of disrupting his life. Thankfully, he seemed to have chosen right.
