WHAT HOLIDAYS MEAN TO COPS
Most are familiar with the burden cops and their families bear as they work on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Cops’ absence when the rest of the world is enjoying holidays at home is heart-wrenching in itself. But working a holiday is not just another day at the office.
If a cop is lucky, he gets to perform his duty in quiet streets with most businesses closed while everyone else sits at home. That can be a relief and it can be lonely.
But just as often, cops are thrust into dealing with the rotten fruits of family get-togethers. Holidays not only bring out the best in families, but they also bring out the worst, often providing the spark to ignite the tinder of old simmering quarrels.
Getting between feuding siblings or spouses may be one of the most dangerous things a cop does. These combatants may rage against one another, but as soon as a cop lays a hand on one of them, it’s as if magic superglue bonds them back together, and the fight is on against their common enemy—the cop.
Drinkers and users of the cornucopia of mood-altering substances all commonly want to celebrate holidays enjoying their drug of choice. Christmas always seems to bring out the mean drunk or mentally ill parent who smashes his kids’ new toys, tosses everyone out of the house and barricades himself inside.
And it throws cops into working overtime in cold environments and enduring families under extreme duress with horrified, traumatized children. If a situation spirals into a worst-case scenario where a cop is forced to kill someone, it may haunt the cop for every Christmas to come, like a Dickens’ ghost.
And then there is New Year’s. Crowds, copious alcohol consumption, late-night celebration; what could go wrong?
Some cops struggle with alcoholism, themselves. Those loose cannons may be unable to resist the temptation to party right along with the crowds—the drunks in the street can’t tell the difference—often to disastrous consequences. In large police agencies, one or two cops always seem to hit rock bottom over the holidays and end up in an alcohol rehab facility or jail.
But most cops on New Year’s simply endure working sober in a tsunami of drunks and do the best job they can do. You’ll find that as a result of repeatedly suffering throngs of fools, most cops avoid large crowds in their private lives.
On the upside, cops get an esoteric birds-eye view of events. At New Year’s extravaganzas they have access to backstage or other areas of limited access. They may be as much a part of Christmas parades as any float. At sporting events, you often find them on the field. And modestly paid cops can always pad their paychecks with lots of available overtime.
In spite of the challenges, cops take pride in keeping the peace so that others can enjoy their holidays.
The Jinx by Ernest Lancaster
Series: Memphis M.O.
Suspense
July 2018
Disaster strikes and innocents die as police sniper Rick Munro is plagued by a first-call jinx. As his career takes off, he must overcome his rookie mistakes, and keep his team members safe.
When Munro returns to TACT as a newly promoted lieutenant, the jinx torments him still. He must contend with team members’ rival agendas around every turn. Munro finds himself in a battle he can’t escape as corruption and death unfold around him.
About the Author:
Ernest Lancaster retired from the Memphis Police Department as a captain after serving as a cop for thirty-three years.
In the early seventies Lancaster spent two years walking a night beat in downtown Memphis, when The Peabody and Beale Street lay boarded up and crumbling and the center city became a dystopian ghost town after dark. He patrolled in ward cars, trooped for three days through a sea of pilgrims to Elvis’s funeral, edited the Memphis Police Association’s newspaper and acted as the association’s vice-president. For twenty-six years he held positions on the TACT Squad.
Lancaster now resides with his wife and Yorkie in the Smoky Mountains, where they love to hike and camp.
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