I was walking down some quiet residential roads the other day with Jimmy the Bollix and towards us came a fresh faced young Garda. As ginger as the day was long, with ruddy cheeks and a farmer’s gait. He couldn’t have been any more than 23 or 24.
As we approached he gave us a bit of a nod and said ‘Howya’.
I nodded back, mostly in surprise. Normally my dealings with the Gardai are a lot louder and there’s much more getting away involved.
Thinking about it though he must have been a bit nervous. Naturally I’m a very respectable looking member of society but Jimmy is a bit intimidating. He’s around 6’1, very tight hair, broad shouldered, stubbly, generally wears some kind of sunglasses and looks like he’d bite the head off a puppy just for larks. Of course he wouldn’t, he’s very kind to animals (except travellers).
We were in a quiet area, the sort of road where a young Garda could get a pounding from a couple of reprobates if he had the misfortune to encounter them, and he’d probably been in Dublin about 3 days before they sent him off on his johnny to walk around ‘on the beat’.
It got me thinking. I’d fucking hate to do their job. There are jobs that you’d naturally never do because they’re too disgusting like nurse in an old people’s home or bin man or writing PD press releases but the cops is a step above again.
You’d spend 75% of your time dealing with the scummiest scum of society and the other 25% dealing with generally decent people who had lost all sense of decency because of their run in with the scum. Scum on scum shennanigans would be much higher than scum v decent, see.
Drunks vomiting on you, junkies trying to bite you, battered girlfriends turning on you when you give the bloke who’s been slapping them around a good truncheon in the bollocks, petty thieves, dealers, basically every undesirable member of society.
And everyone hates you. It’s just natural suspicion of the police, isn’t it? When you grow up you become bitter and twisted, understandably, because you’ve spent years having to cope with the worst that the world can offer you. It makes you immune to emotion because that’s the only way to survive and your live becomes loveless, meaningless and filled only with drink and worrying about meteorites on the line when you make a phone call.
Then there’s the pay. You’d want to be paying me a lot more than that to have anything to do with those kinds of people even once let alone every day. So why do people do it?
Don’t we, as a society, have a responsibility to the people considering a career in the police to dissuade them from it? I mean, they don’t even get to shoot people or beat up random blacks like they do in America. Where is the upside?
Anyone?
The upside is that you get to own thirty houses before you’re thirty.
untrue twenty. they do get to shoot people, and the people they shoot are usually unarmed, and possibly, unhinged. as for random balck people, we have loads of them here. there is also the “get out of jail free” card (aka warrant card) for drink or any driving related offences, and they also get to act like a cunt all day every day to every one without having to apologise. you can meet any (or all) of the sumbags you mentioned on any nitelink home most nights and have to pay for it, and as bock said, operation overtime (sorry, freeflow etc.) means you can retire early and go (fulltime) into the “security” business. downside, anyone?
drink is good but doesn’t help spelling
I’m inclined to agree with Twenty. Perhaps we could set up a support group or a task force like the suicide prevention one. Get parents and teachers to spot the signs and head them off before they end up another casualty of Operation Freeflow. Things like a previous history of citizen’s arrests,dressing only in dark blue or a morbid fear of eye-brow piercing. In a civilized society nobody should have to face a future with this state of mind.
I had always thought our cops in America were underpaid. Now, I realize that they have various “intangible” benefits to their job (i.e. beating blacks and shooting rednecks). You have an uncanny knack for noticing what many of us miss. Wisdom like this, however, is lost during the police recruitment process…
song for ronan king.
Who’d be a cop? There are two kinds per each sex. Males: A) got picked on daily in high school; B) was the class asshole or bully and just had to keep the good times rolling after graduation. Females: A) got knocked around by her step-father (or otherwise assaulted) as a pre-teen and needs her revenge; or B) lesbian and needs to take out her aggression on the unwitting public.
In any of the above cases, I believe therapy and strong anti-psychotic medications could do the trick.
Just as some people come out of their mammies fully prepared internally for careers as crocodile-hunters or traffic-wardens (look at your average pre-school class – you can usually identify the proto-librarians or the male hairdressers or the wee musician whose dreams will be dashed by a cruel world and who’ll eventually take a job in insurance just to help with bills, ya know, until Nashville calls), so some people will be born holding their own truncheons and might never let go. I’m not suggesting by this that all police are wankers. On the contrary, some of them seem in dire need of a bit of sexual release. But, you know, God bless them, it’s a tough job and all that. You’re right and I wouldn’t want it either, but I reckon some people are born to be policepeople.
They should join the London Met, where they can whole Braizilian!!!!!
As it turns out Twenty nobody would. Given the very poor take up in the reserve’s..
I guess most people want to let others make the country a safer place. Hence it is left to
farmers that have only being dealing with animals all there lives and so it is not much
of an adjustment having to deal with drug dealing scum.
Of course I am not suggesting animals are not a lot nicer than Criminal scum.
My dad was a speed cop for 35 years. It was a terrible job, first to traffic accidents to help save kids in mangled cars, constant abuse and verbals from motorists and shite pay. But he brought me up to be a law abiding citizen and gave a lot of good to society – bless him.
Any cops I’ve met here or in the UK were decent people but I suppose you can be brutalised by having to deal with feral skanger vermin day in day out
My father and his brother were cops for most of their lives. They treated everyone fairly. Like Sid I was bought up to know what was right and what was wrong and to also treat people fairly. I feel he did a good job and gave a lot back to the community as well as his close family. He’s now pushing up daisies, sadly.
My Grandfather was a Chief Inspector and a bollicks ….
Come on Twenty, Ireland needs its Guards. Who else would be stupid enough to actually marry our country’s frigid schoolteachers and nymphomaniac nurses.
Fair point, Lung. Not saying we don’t need them. You must be just mad to do it.
And why don’t we get nymphomaniac schoolteachers?
We did when I was at school.
you got a nymphomanica schoolteacher to do what?
If you think its bad now with the Guards – just think back to the sixties and even earlier seventies whenthe Gardai were ALLOWED to do their job without the asswipe Scocial Workers and Professional Victims Arselicks and bleeding ‘OOOOOH its a terrible world – YOU should do something NAAIIICCCEEE about the poor
scumbags who won’t work for anything – they want it, they TAKE it and prolly kick your grannys head in whille they are at it.
BRING BACK THE ROPE AND THE BIRCH for those young and old thugs who hold the rest of us to transom!
And…have a nice day…
A happy cop is one with his hands in every pocket but his own.
I think it’s either “Doing some good for society” or those with a uniform fetish.
On they the other hand, they do get time to sit down and write the history of their childhood in the Gaelteacht or tales
of setting off in the wee hours with the old ones for mass in Citycowtitty…
The hidden incentives help: easy access to contraband, immunity from penalty points and lifetime scoring privileges in Coppers.
Y’know I’ve been a bit worried that my post about the kangaroo that the WA coppers got twisted with, would offend people – but now my bad humour will pale in offensiveness next to yours, thanks Twenty.
Over here the type of people drawn to the police service, tend to be very entrepreneurial.
My brother is a Garda man, 1 yr out of Templemore he was on foot patrol somewhere in the Bridewell district when his attention was called to an attempted breakin by a suspucious neighbour.
My brother, being a stupid smart f’er that he is, lay in wait for the burglers in the neighbours garden all alone, I might add (dont know if charlie 24 was on the air or not). Out came two gurriers and to their surprise they were accosted by the fuzz.
A scuffle ensued and one escaped whilst the other was wrestled to the ground. Whilst on the ground gurrier one, (lets call him), laid his hand upon a hatchet (owner was cutting wood earlier in the day) and let a swipe at the garda who was trying to prevent his escape.
Hatchet connected to garda’s head but only with a glancing blow, stunning said garda as it would. Gurrier makes good on the demise of his would be captor and proceeds to leg it. A quick recovery from garda and gurrier then proceeded to get the holy crap kicked out of him. Special branch arrived and needed a tractor to seperate garda from gurrier – result gurrier glad he was going to prision no plea bargains just plain guilty. Gurrier 2 who had absconded earlier gave himself up once he heard all of Bridewell were gunning for him.
Being a garda is a tough job dealing with gurriers, nigerians ,polacks and stupid NYPD twats on holiday in Ireland.
the gardai are just pure scum. if u wear any clothes out of lifestyle sports,jd,champion etc or hav a celtic jersey on u are immediately pulled in by them. they hassle people all day cos they hav fuck all else to do. i seen a gardai stop an 11 year old child before and i seen him take his name. they are the scum of ireland and are hated by fuckin everyone
nothin puts a smile on my face like a pig wit a brick in his. Cunts, i hope yis die screamin.