Read Online Arrest-Proof Yourself by Dale C. Carson, Wes Denham - Free Book Online Page A

got to understand is this: cops like to hunt and pursue. They enjoy arresting people. I refer to good cops, not time servers trudging toward retirement or social worker types who decide, after a few bloody scuffles with angel dust-crazed psychotics, that maybe it’s time to get that teaching certificate after all. The animal cops hunt is that prince of prey, the two-legged beast. Human quarry are smart and wily. Often they draw guns and knives, or ambush you from inside their cars and their houses. From a cop’s point of view, that’s real sport.
    The above paragraph is one of the most important in this book . Cops are hunters—period. Once you understand this, police tactics will make sense. Cops are the hunters; you are the prey. Avoiding these hunters, hiding from them, and not antagonizing them are the essentials of arrest proofing. As I noted in the introduction, the fact that cops are hunters is not a bad thing. Without intensive policing, our cities would be uninhabitable.
    The important thing to understand is that almost all police effort is put into hunting and arresting people. Everything else—serving and protecting, fostering community—is way, way down on the list. To street cops, law and order, peace and quiet, and community understanding are byproducts of hunting and arresting people.
    The way cops think about it is this: toss enough bad guys into the can and—bingo—law and order happen. Peace and quiet break out like roses on a vine. As for community understanding, the community can understand that if they start breaking laws and getting into it with cops, they’re going to get hammered. This, ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, is the cop’s point of view.
    Confusion results because city police departments and municipal governments are administered by elected sheriffs and mayors. Understandably, politicians downplay the hunt-and-arrest activity and play up the serve-and-protect angles. It’s the mayors and police chiefs who show up at community meetings to soothe aggravated and overarrested minorities. The patrol guys, of course, are generally too busy to attend community meetings since they’re out on the street arresting people.
    Think this isn’t so? Here’s a reality test. In most big cities, police headquarters have public displays of things cops think are interesting. If you stroll down the display hall in my city and look into the glass cases, will you see photos of black, brown, yellow, and white people standing together in smiling, interracial harmony fostered by sensitive, empathic law enforcement? Nope. How about noble sculptures of little old ladies serving cupcakes to the officers who serve and protect? Nah! What you will see are
machine guns
revolvers and automatic pistols
sniper rifles
car bombs
gas masks
surveillance cameras
tear gas grenades
switchblades
     
    All this is equipment used to arrest people or weapons captured from serious bad guys in big operations of which the force is justifiably proud. This is not criticism. Cops are all about arresting people, that’s all.
    When I was a cop, I didn’t just like arresting people, I loved it! My favorite activity, and the only thing I’ve ever considered as good as sex, was breaking down doors. Here’s the scenario: You sneak up on a drug house in the dead of night with your partners. In front of you is a steel door studded with locks and barred from the inside. Behind it are bad guys.
    Silently two or more cops swing a gigantic iron ram. One, two, three, then whammo! The locks explode, and fragments ping off the floor and walls. The door slams down. People scream. Bad guys reach for weapons, stuff narcotics into toilets, and dive out windows. It’s like turning on the lights and watching cockroaches run. Best of all, there are so many guys to arrest! When I was a cop I even stopped smoking. Was this because of health concerns? Heck no! I stopped because cigarettes made me short of breath. I stopped so I could run