Support, Please? And Accountability.

When someone asks me what my husband does, I always hesitate.

It’s not that I don’t know the answer. I very clearly know what my husband does for his job. He is a law enforcement officer. We are a law enforcement family. But before I answer that question, I have to stop. Assess the situation. And proceed with caution. I have to think about the person who is asking. Are they a friend? An acquaintance?

I have to process what their thoughts toward law enforcement may be. Are they supportive, or are they wary? Have they recently had an experience with a law enforcement officer? Maybe they were pulled over for speeding and still feel a bit sour that they had to pay the ticket. Maybe they have a friend or family member who was arrested and it still leaves a bitter taste in their mouth. Maybe they saw an officer use force and they just cannot understand how it was justified. Maybe their Facebook news feed is full of shares of the viral videos about police officers abusing their power or harming an innocent black man. Maybe they remember an officer peeling them from the arms of their mother and turning them into CPS custody. Maybe they remember the stomp of boots and the blue uniform in their house after they found the body of a loved one who had passed. And try as they might, they cannot stop associating those sights and sounds with the most traumatic moment of their lives.

Maybe they will tell me that they watch Live PD every night with their husband, and as a result, they feel like they have a pretty good grasp on the job. Maybe they have a close friend or family member who is a law enforcement officer and so they DO know the ins and outs of the job. Maybe they were in the Oregon District on August 4, 2019, and they know that they could have been dead if it wasn’t for those Dayton men in blue (and the bouncer, let’s give him all the credit that is due) stopping the shooter.

Some law enforcement families do not like to share what job they are in. Some are undercover or working for a federal agency and cannot disclose that information. They have practiced answers like “My husband works for the city/county/state” or “my husband works a blue-collar job”. I will admit that I have used these answers once or twice, although I am not entirely proud of the fact that at the moment I felt like I had to cover up something. I used this answer when meeting new neighbors for the first time or when I’m meeting someone that I don’t know and will likely not meet again (ei a friend of a friend or a random Mom who starts talking to me at the playground).

Last week, Theo was assaulted. The crazy thing is that he is fine, and this was just another normal day on the job. He was bitten twice – once on each hand. The bite was hard enough to draw blood, leave bite marks and result in some bruising and pain- and believe it or not, Theo had thick gloves on during the bite! Oh, did I mention that this bite came from a person, not an animal?

Did you know that the law enforcement officers in Theo’s department are told to never go to a restaurant in uniform? They are told to not use drive-throughs and to only get food that is pre-packaged OR that is made directly in front of them (ei Subway, Chipotle, Pizza). The reason? To protect themselves against something being put into their food. Like spit. Or a piece of glass/metal. Or a laxative. I know this sounds extreme, but it’s actually not.

In what world is this ok? In what world is this “part of the job?”. C’mon! If that happened to anyone else in any other job, people would raise up an outcry of injustice!

Theo’s response to the assault and the food issue? It’s normal. Totally part of the job. Surprised it hasn’t happened before.

I am usually an open book with friends, family and on my social media account. Anyone who follows me on Instastories knows that I share the nitty-gritty and “real” parts of our lives. But I couldn’t share this. I knew that if I shared the story, I would get messages in response. Many messages would be say something supportive, but I would also receive messages asking “what he did to get bit?”, “why did this happen?”, and, of course, the typical “well, you did sign up for this, you know!”

(Now, granted…the situation that resulted in the bite was indeed “part of the job”. A man was wandering around pounding on people’s windows and doors. When taken into custody he was so intoxicated he didn’t know his own address, so he was taken to the psych ward at the hospital. Policy in the psych ward is that all clothing must be removed, which the man refused. Of course, the officers had to force him, and in the scuffle the biting happened. Honestly, if I were being forced to take off my clothes, I might bite, too. But do I want officers to remove a random drunk man who is banging on my windows and doors? Heck, yes, I do. All in all, it was a less than ideal situation…which really is “part of the job”)

I always have to think twice about sharing anything law enforcement related. I have to think through the fact that someone might be offended by the fact that my husband is a white male working in a law enforcement job.

But they don’t see what I get to see everyday. They don’t see him come home with the brightest spark in his eye because he took 2 pounds of cocaine off the streets of Dayton today. They don’t hear the laughter as he recounts the story of walking up to a group of kids and playing with them. They don’t wash the mud off his pants that he got from kneeling down to change a tire on someone’s car. They don’t scrub the blood off his shirt from domestic violence call that he insisted the man be arrested and the woman be taken to a safe place. They don’t hold their grown husband in their arms as he sobs and explains that he went on three suicide calls in one day. They don’t see him go directly upstairs to his babies bedrooms and hug them because he was the first one on a call for a baby that didn’t make it. They don’t hold his trembling muscles weary from performing CPR before the ambulance got there. They don’t know that he is threatened and cussed at each day at work, that his wife and children are often threatened as well.

I know that all of these examples sound extreme. But the truth is that they aren’t. The truth is that all of these things happen on a daily basis. But I don’t feel like I am allowed to share them because it humanizes the men who are in uniform. And right now in our media and our culture we like to see our men in uniform as tough, unfair, and the privileged powerful.

You might be surprised to find that I am not a die-hard police supporter. I don’t believe that a police officer is always in the right. I believe that there are many police officers out there who are selfish, inappropriate, driven by power and abusive.

But, oh, how I wish that I didn’t have to bear the burden of supporting my husband alone. I wish that I was not the only one he feels that he can share these stories with.

There is another reason I wish I wasn’t the only one who is hearing his stories and perspectives. I wish that there were more people stepping up to listen and to provide accountability to our men in blue. I wish that there were more people to ask the hard questions- “Why did that happen that way?”, “What do you wish had gone differently?” “Was there any other way to avoid this situation?”, “How do you feel you can follow the Bible and give respect to God’s created man, while also enforcing the laws that keep us all safe?”. You see, when we feel like we have to keep so many parts of law enforcement life a secret we are doing a huge disservice to everyone. It creates an “us against them” mentality, where we have to support our side while everyone else fights against it. Instead of listening and supporting and keeping one another accountable, we are fighting and creating this huge division. I love my husband and I support him daily. But I cannot keep him “in line“. I cannot keep him accountable. And neither can we rely only on law enforcement officers to keep one another accountable. We need help to do that. We all need help. We need people to hear our stories. To say thank you. To think twice about posting that viral video. Get to know a law enforcement officer in real life. We need people to ask us the questions and pray for us. We need you.

I wish that I didn’t have to hold these stories and these instances close to my heart. I wish that I could share them and let you in on the amazing privilege that it is to be a law enforcement family, without feeling like someone might target our family or dislike us just because of the job my husband is in. I wish that I didn’t have to think twice about answering the question “what does your husband do?” Let’s do better. Support. And accountability.