Police Professional Courtesy

By: Trevor Waters

CJ 1010 Introduction to Criminal Justice
Instructor: Chris Bertram
Im sure all of us have watched the TV show COPS, and have watched
as the many different types of criminal activity like speeding, DUIs, grand
theft auto, larceny, and assault have been taken care of by the police. But a
question that I have wondered for a while, and most likely a lot of others
would like to know the answer to is What happens when a cop does
something wrong and breaks the law? Lately there have been multiple
stories on the news of cops going too far and abusing their authority, and of
their punishments. But other than crazy instances like these you pretty much
never hear about a cop who has received a DUI or even a speeding ticket (at
least I havent). Even though this might not be a big deal, there is still a
question that I think needs to be answered: Since cops are cops, are they
immune from the law? But besides asking this type of question I feel like we
should all realize that there is an active and very powerful force in todays
world of police, and many other fields of world, called a Professional
Courtesy.
If you have never experienced professional courtesy firsthand or cant
think of an example, here is something that happened to me. The other day
on my way to school, on my normal route of hopping onto I15, I was going

the normal leisurely speed of 65 mph. As so normally happens, as I am

getting onto I15 from the onramp I notice in my rear view mirror a High Way
patrol car not far back and a couple of lanes over. In normal response I make
myself drive as perfectly as possible, scared of being pulled over because of
the obvious presence of the officer. As I am in the process of regaining my
composure I noticed a normal cop car, from another city, driving past me as
if I were driving at the speed of a grandma. Then I remembered the High Way
patrol car not far back from me and thought for sure that I would be
experiencing the awkward moment of one cop pulling over another cop. But
no, thats not even close to what happened. The Highway patrol car didnt
even respond, also out of the small view from my rearview Im pretty sure
that I saw the 2 cops even wave at each other! Both cops obviously saw each
other and even though one of the cops was no doubt breaking the law
nothing happened, he just drove on with no worries and doing as he liked.
This kind of bothered me to be totally honest. But would this be considered
as a professional courtesy? I guess we should probably know what
professional courtesy actually means.
So: What exactly is a professional courtesy? Defined by
{urbandictionary.com} as: A form of mutual respect among people in the
same line of work. Also, in a {medical dictionary} a professional courtesy is
defined as: The practice by a physician of waiving all or a part of the fee for
services provided to a physicians office staff, other physicians and/or their
families. So what I have learned from these definitions is pretty much that a

professional courtesy is an attitude that is held mutually between those who

are in the same sort of job. And apparently from what it says in the medical
dictionary it can even go as far as helping someone out financially and/or
giving them free services. It might seem kind of unfair, but it makes total
sense. Just use the example of neighbors. If your neighbor is moving or
needs help planting trees etc., you will most likely go over and help them out
and not expect anything in return except for them to help you when you are
in the same situation. The example can even go to things as small as siblings
helping each other out. If you catch/see a sibling doing something wrong
(unless you dont get along with that sibling) you will most likely just let it
slide and expect the same thing in return. This is totally a personal thought,
but I feel like this should be something that is expected. If you are a cop and
spending a majority of your time at work you are bound to make friends and
create relationships with people, and friends are there to help each other out
right? There are obvious boundaries to how far the cops can go but as far as
speeding, I feel like it is acceptable.
A question that you might have is Should professional courtesy be
eliminated? An article that I came across on {The Washington Post} titled A
plague of professional courtesy shows exactly what happens when someone
tries to cross the boundaries of professional courtesy in the police world. In
this article it talks about an event that took place in Florida in October 2011.
A Florida Highway patrol trooper, Donna Jane Watts, pulled over a fellow
officer who was going over 120 mph. The officer, who was being pulled over,

Fausto Lopez, apparently kept driving for around 7 minutes before he finally
pulled over. Instead of offering the normal professional courtesy that is
shared between the police, trooper Watts arrested Officer Lopez. This led to
Officer Lopez being fired. News of this event got out to the rest of the police
force and their response was not nice towards trooper Watts. From what I
understood they pretty much took it as an act of betrayal. They openly
threatened and harassed trooper Watts with things like prank calls, random
pizza deliveries and parking random cars in front of her house to scare her.
The point of this retaliation from the police towards trooper Watts just shows
that if officers decide to betray the professional courtesy, known in the police
world as the blue wall of silence, they will pretty much be disowned from
the police force brotherhood. Eventually the superiors of trooper Watts
claimed that she might not ever be able to return to duty because if she
were to be in a situation where she needed back up they didnt believe she
would receive it. I do not feel that the way that these officers reacted to
being betrayed is correct. It just shows how deeply rooted the ideology of
professional courtesy is in this community.
To really decide if a professional courtesy should be acceptable, I feel
like we all need to know if it affects the safety of the public. In the same
article that I talked about earlier, I found some scary evidence that is very
negative towards professional courtesies. Toll records were examined and it
was found that over 800 cops were found speeding at more than 90-130
mph. It was also found that there were 21 times that people were either

killed or injured by these speeding cops. One of the people who were hit by a
speeding cop was an 18 year old who was in a coma for 6 months and
physically impaired for life. The part that bothered me the most was to find
out that from those cops who were speeding and causing deaths, the most
punishment that any of them received was 60 days in jail. For what a normal
civilian would be charged with, probably man slaughter and probably life in
prison, this is very disturbing. Another event from this article is about
multiple incidents where an officer in Chicago who has more than once ran
into parked cars while drunk. One of the times he wrecked he killed two
people. Even though this cop was drunk and also killed people, he was never
convicted, given a ticket or tested to see if he was drunk. There are many
more stories like the ones I have talked about, but just from what I have
talked about so far I feel like there is an obvious answer to the question
Does professional courtesy help the practice of law enforcement and public
safety? If cops have the ability to essentially do what they want while
driving and not have any consequences, especially if they have killed people
and are drunk, I feel like there is absolutely no way that professional
courtesy helps. Maybe in the world of medicine and neighbors and children
something like a professional courtesy is a good thing. But we have to face
the truth. Those in the profession of law enforcement are human. They have
flaws just like everyone else which means that they make mistakes. If a
normal citizen drives drunk and has to pay $10,000 then the same should go

for a cop. If a normal citizen hits someone with their car and kills them and
gets charged with murder and has to go to prison, so should a cop.
I saved the most important question for last. Should professional
courtesy be eliminated? After the things that I was able to read involving
incidences where police have been let off of DUI charges and murder charges
there is no doubt in my mind that professional courtesies should be done
away with. If speeding was the only act that cops were lenient with each
other on I feel like I would have different thoughts towards this, but there is
always going to be those certain people who take advantage of what they
have, and push the envelope. If there was any way to ensure that
professional courtesy could be done away with, and it was my choice, I would
say that it would be better for everyone if it was eliminated completely.

Bibliography:
-"Professional Courtesy." Urban Dictionary. Web. 2 May 2015.
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=professional courtesy>.

-Web. 2 May 2015. <http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/professional

courtesy>.
-"A Plague of professional Courtesy." Washington Post. The Washington Post. Web.
2 May 2015. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/02/18/aplague-of-professional-courtesy/>.
-"Professional Courtesy." Professional Courtesy. Web. 2 May 2015.
<http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/Articles/Professional_Courtesy.html>.
-Web. 2 May 2015. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blue wall of silence>.

Link to eportfolio website:

http://waters199.weebly.com/index.html
*****CJ 1010 under the MORE tab******