Policeman Quotes

“If you want to find Cherry-Tree Lane all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the cross-roads.”
― P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins

“It is the common peoples duty to police the police.”
― Steven Magee

“Do you know where 'policeman' comes from, sir? ... 'Polis' used to mean 'city', said Carrot. That's what policeman means: 'a man for the city'. Not many people knew that. The word 'polite' comes from 'polis', too. It used to mean the proper behaviour from someone living in a city.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“The police have lost sight of the fact that they are public servants.”
― Steven Magee

“Power that doesn't help the people, is not power but pandemic.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Boldly Comes Justice: Sentient Not Silent

“Police officers are among the most corrupt people that I have encountered in life.”
― Steven Magee

“You know that when a police officer refuses to produce formal identification on request, they are probably engaging in some form of corruption.”
― Steven Magee

“Friend I can deal with. Friend. Girlfriend. Sweetheart. Fiancée. (...) Wife, even. I think I can deal with wife. Wives are at home, that's the good thing about them. They're at home, they're silent (...) Lover, I cannot deal with. Lover is different.”
― Bethan Roberts, My Policeman

“The Democratic Party would like to be re-elected so that they can continue to uphold almost no Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) whistle-blower complaints, enforce hardly any police internal affairs allegations, and corrupt corporations with lobbyists can continue operating outside of the law.”
― Steven Magee

“I don't know why you decided to wear that costume, but it makes you a symbol. Just as Robin was a symbol. Or Superman, or Nightwing, or the policeman who wears his uniform. And this isn't just a symbol of the law, it's a symbol of justice. When one policeman is killed, others take his place because justice can't be stopped.”
― Marv Wolfman, Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

“If you have bought the law enforcement department, then you have done nothing wrong when you willfully break multiple laws.”
― Steven Magee

“There is no shortage of despicable law enforcement departments in the USA.”
― Steven Magee

“While police officers who blatantly shaft the common people believe that they are God, they are the Devil to those that they wrong.”
― Steven Magee

“No amount of community policing will cause the common people to accept a known corrupt police department.”
― Steven Magee

“When you realize that incompetent police officers are harassing you, you need to call 911 and demand that a police supervisor be immediately dispatched to the scene. In the mean time you need to be video recording everything, as police officers are known for their blatant lies and fabrications.”
― Steven Magee

“Letter to Law Enforcement

Every field of human endeavor has its own unique problem. The problem with science is lack of warmth. The problem with philosophy is lack of empathy. The problem with religion is lack of reason. The problem with politics is lack of expertise. And the problem with law enforcement is not corruption, but an absolute denial of that corruption, and until you acknowledge that many of your officers are corrupt and prejudiced to the neck, you can never in a million years build a healthy relationship with the people.

Prejudices thrive on biases, and biases are a part of our psyche - of the human psyche, and no matter what we do, we cannot erase them from our mind - but we do have the ability to be aware of them, and only when we are aware of them, can we choose whether or not to be driven by them. However, when you don't even acknowledge that you have biases, that you are filled with prejudice, then you are inadvertently choosing not to accept the root of all the mistakes committed by you and your fellow officers in the line of duty.

A civilian may choose to stay biased and prejudiced all their life, but you as a defender of the people - as a defender of their rights, their security, their serenity - do not have the luxury to let your biases, to let your prejudices come in the way of your duty, for the moment they do, you the keeper of law and order, turn into the very cause of disorder.

Therefore, it's not enough for an officer of the law to have combat training and legal knowledge, it is also imperative that you learn about biases, that you learn about the fears, insecurities and instinctual tendencies of the human mind. An officer of the law without an understanding of biases, is like a ten year old with a knife - they may feel that they have power, but they have no clue as to the real life implications of that power. Remember my friend, power that doesn't help the people, is not power but pandemic.

Your combat training doesn't make you a police officer, for when enraged even an ordinary civilian can take down ten police officers - your knowledge of law doesn't make you an officer of the law, for when pushed even a mediocre college student can defeat an army of elite legal minds - what makes you a police officer is your absolute acceptance of your role in society - the role of selfless servants. Once you accept the role of selfless servants wholeheartedly, people are bound to trust you.

My brave, conscientious officers of the law, if you want people to trust you, don't use the phrase "police are your friends", for it only makes you sound authoritarian, egotistical and condescending - instead, remind them "police are humans too" - acknowledge your mistakes and work towards correcting them, so that you can truly become the Caretaker of People, which is the very definition of COP.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Boldly Comes Justice: Sentient Not Silent

“The police are often as corrupt as the corporate government that employs them.”
― Steven Magee

“Bow not, my brave officer of the law, before the soul-crunching pressure of corruption - light up the nuclear furnace of responsibility and justice that sleeps dormant within you and crush all corruption to ashes - only then you'll become the very embodiment of courage, conscience and order in the human society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law

“COP means Caretaker of People.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law

“The devil is our spiritual police man. Unless you wish to do good, then you will be saved from getting a ticket or going to court.”
― Mwanandeke Kindembo

“Police Sonnet

Police is not a profession,
But a promise of protection.
So long as you carry the badge,
You must discard self-preservation.
The thin blue line of service,
Is not for self-serving narcissists.
When your sole concern is society,
Only then can you uphold justice.
You mustn't become manikins of politics,
Nor of bureaucratic brutality.
Your allegiance is only to the people,
Their welfare will rescue your humanity.
In the sea of selfishness be the selfless drop,
Taking care of people you become a real cop.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Boldly Comes Justice: Sentient Not Silent

“Not all cops are bent, but all departments have bent cops.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Karadeniz Chronicle: The Novel

“You are to be the lion that keeps all vicious predators away when it roams the neighborhood.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law

“Yours is not like any other profession - upon your duty depends whether a little child in a corner of your neighborhood will sleep sound - upon your duty depends whether a woman can return home safe from work at night - upon your duty depends whether an elderly person can reach home from the bank without being mugged. You matter - your duty matters - not merely for you mark you, but for those countless civilians who rely on your individual sense of responsibility with their very life. You are to be the lion that keeps all vicious predators away when it roams the neighborhood.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law

“When a burning sense of duty flows through the veins of a police officer like blood, it turns the very word police into an emblem of hope – an emblem of righteousness – an emblem of integrity, dignity and morality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law

“It seemed like the time to mention Abilene, where Bill shot Mike Williams. Mike was the only man Bill ever killed by accident, to Charley's knowledge. He was a policeman--they'd had an election and the winners hired their nephews as policemen, after Bill had made the place safe to be a policeman--and it was the luck of things that when Phil Coe came after Bill in the street, Mike Williams came around a corner and Bill shot him through the head, thinking it was one of Phil Coe's brothers. Then he shot Phil.

The newspaper wouldn't let it heal. It brought Mike Williams back from the dead every week, like a blood relative. The editor called him a fine specimen of Kansas manhood, and declared a "Crusade to
Rid Abilene and the State of Kansas of Wild Bill and All His Ilk." Those were the exact words, because for a while after that Bill called him "Ilk."

It wasn't the newspaper that got Bill and Charley out of Kansas, though. It was a petition. It was left with the clerk at the hotel where they stayed, three hundred and sixteen signatures asking Bill to leave, not a word of gratitude for what he'd done. He sat down in the lobby with the petition in his lap, running his fingers through his hair. He read every name--there were six sheets of them--and when he finished a sheet, he'd hand it to Charley and he'd read it too.

It was the worst back-shooting Charley had ever seen; they even let the women sign. Bill shrugged and smiled, but some of the names hurt him. He thought he'd had friends in Kansas, and looking at the names he saw they were all afraid of him.

What ran Wild Bill out of Abilene was hurt feelings.”
― Pete Dexter, Deadwood

“Nowadays, people who need to maintain law and order behave like terrorists to plunge their flight into common man's building, the policeman”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“Even a buffoon has own his costume but his costume doesn't make the people happy rather his act, the lesson a cop should learn from a buffoon”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“A certain magistrate told somebody whom he was examining in court that he or she "should always be polite to the police." I do not know whether the magistrate noticed the circumstance, but the word "polite" and the word "police" have the same origin and meaning. Politeness means the atmosphere and ritual of the city, the symbol of human civilisation. The policeman means the representative and guardian of the city, the symbol of human civilisation. Yet it may be doubted whether the two ideas are commonly connected in the mind. It is probable that we often hear of politeness without thinking of a policeman; it is even possible that our eyes often alight upon a policeman without our thoughts instantly flying to the subject of politeness. Yet the idea of the sacred city is not only the link of them both, it is the only serious justification and the only serious corrective of them both. If politeness means too often a mere frippery, it is because it has not enough to do with serious patriotism and public dignity; if policemen are coarse or casual, it is because they are not sufficiently convinced that they are the servants of the beautiful city and the agents of sweetness and light. Politeness is not really a frippery. Politeness is not really even a thing merely suave and deprecating. Politeness is an armed guard, stern and splendid and vigilant, watching over all the ways of men; in other words, politeness is a policeman. A policeman is not merely a heavy man with a truncheon: a policeman is a machine for the smoothing and sweetening of the accidents of everyday existence. In other words, a policeman is politeness; a veiled image of politeness—sometimes impenetrably veiled. But my point is here that by losing the original idea of the city, which is the force and youth of both the words, both the things actually degenerate. Our politeness loses all manliness because we forget that politeness is only the Greek for patriotism. Our policemen lose all delicacy because we forget that a policeman is only the Greek for something civilised. A policeman should often have the functions of a knight-errant. A policeman should always have the elegance of a knight-errant.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“Calling the police is like playing a game of Russian Roulette, as you may land on the bullet of the corrupt police officer!”
― Steven Magee