Some people I know seem to believe that the primary job of a police officer is community relations.  They also seem to believe that the way to practice good community relations is by failing to enforce the law when dealing with certain residents or business owners, not unless you absolutely have to.  To these people examples of good community relations would be:

1. If you stop a drunk driver who lives in town, let him leave his car at the side of the road and drive him home.

2. If you find some teenagers in an empty parking lot with a baggie of marijuana, two six-packs of beer, and a bottle of vodka, call their parents to come pick them up and confiscate the contraband.  Perhaps a stern word of warning is in order as well.

3. If you see a local resident in a car with license plates that expired twelve months ago, let them go with a warning as long as they tell you that they didn't know the plates had expired.

4. If someone parks in one of the fire lanes in town you should wait for them to return to their car and then then advise them it is illegal to park there.

I have nothing against building good community relations.  I think it's a fine idea and something every officer should keep in mind every time they deal with the public.  But I also am certain that you can't build good community relations by being corrupt.

If the police routinely give preferential treatment to any group, regardless of the reason, that is corruption.  Attempting to build goodwill be not enforcing the law is wrong and foolish.  I believe that by enforcing the law fairly and impartially, without passion or prejudice, we will do more in the long run to build community relations than we would be failing to do our job because it might make someone who lives nearby unhappy.  Each of the above situations could, I suppose, be viewed as helping the community, but in my opinion none of them actually do.  They are all examples of ignoring the law (which protects society) in order to look after the interests of an individual, which runs counter to the oath we all took as police officers.

Of course, every officer in every police department uses discretion at one time or another, and there are legitimate reasons why you may chose not to arrest or ticket someone in each of the four examples above.  In order for it to be legitimate use of discretion the motivation for the act must be an honest effort to do what is fair and what is right.  If the motivation is to avoid annoying or inconveniencing someone who lives in town and is friends with the Chief, or the First Selectman, or someone who owns a business in town or is in general well-known and influential in town, then you are failing to do your job because of corruption, not discretion.

I think that any person of character in town would prefer to have a fair and impartial police department rather than one which enforces the law based on politics or a desire to be well-liked.  For those few people who would prefer that the police pick and chose with whom they will enforce the law and with whom they will not, well, I'm not going to worry about the thoughts of such selfish, elitist people.

It's a paradox:  A well-liked or politically-connected guy in town gets arrested for drunk driving, and suddenly the cop who arrested him has to hear from everyone about what a great guy he is, how hard he works, how many kids he has in college, the nice things he does with the church, etc...  Of course, the cop never claimed that this guy wasn't nice or that he wasn't a hard worker or anything like that; all that the cop claimed was that Mr. Wonderful was driving last Friday night with a blood alcohol level that was three times the legal limit.  But the officer still has to hear all this stuff, which implies that he somehow screwed this nice guy over by arresting him.  Is that the right message to send to the police?  Especially younger officers with only a year or two on the job?  I hardly think so. 
Anyway, the paradox comes in when, after a few weeks of having most of the town doing their best to make the cop feel bad for doing his job and getting a dangerous drunk driver off the road, the news comes out that a different well-liked or politically-connected guy was driving home from donating food to the homeless last Friday night when a drunk driver crashed into his car at high speed.  Now the guy is in the hospital and may never walk again.  And by the way, Mr. Police Officer, how come you guys don't do more to get those dangerous drunk drivers off the road before they hurt someone?

You can see why police officers get frustrated at times.  Since you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, to me it just makes sense to do what you think is right and let the second-guessers and the idiots with 20/20 hindsight make fools of themselves.

I believe that an important part of my job is to foster good relations with the community I serve.  In order to do that I make an honest effort to treat everyone I encounter with respect and civility; from the elderly woman who stops to ask me for directions to the loud obnoxious drunk who just pissed his pants that I'm arresting for DUI.  That is what every individual who deals with a police officer has a right to expect - respect and civility.  If an officer can consistently treat everyone like that while enforcing the law, then that officer is doing a great job and deserves to be commended.

The police are the only part of the system that enforces the law through arrest.  Not the courts, or the social workers, or the family counselors, or the legislators.  If we don't do it, then it doesn't get done.  Is there anyone out there who thinks that would be a good thing?

In general, there are two kinds of complaints people make about police officers.  Some police supervisors tend to treat both kinds exactly the same, a practice with which I strongly disagree.  I see a world of difference between the two following complaints:

1. A person comes in to complain about Officer "A", who wrote him a ticket yesterday for traveling at 55 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.  The person wants to know why the fine is so high, and also why the speed limit on that road is only 25 MPH.  He is very angry with the officer for charging him such a high fine, and also for stopping his car when there are lots of other cars on that road that speed all the time.

2. A person comes in to complain about Officer "A", who wrote him a ticket yesterday for traveling 55 MPH in a 25 MPH zone.  The person says that the officer was rude, raised his voice so much that the person felt he was being yelled at, refused to listen to anything he had to say, and asked questions like "Hey, genius, don't you know the speed limit?" and "How would you like it if someone drove like a idiot through your neighborhood?"

In my opinion, the first complaint isn't about the police officer at all.  The person making the complaint is upset because the state-set fines are too high, the state-set speed limit is too low, and other people get away with speeding while he gets a ticket.  He doesn't have a problem with the officer, he has a problem with the law.  That's not something I can help him with.  If he came to me with this complaint, I would take the time to listen to him so that he feels his complaint is being taken seriously, and I would explain to him about the way fines and speed limits are determined.  As far as there being other cars that speed, I would tell him that we are doing our best but we don't have enough officers to set up a permanent speed enforcement post on that road.  I would not call in the officer to explain his actions, because he didn't do anything wrong.  Can everyone see that, or is it just me?

However, in the second complaint, the person is upset because of the way they were treated by the officer.  That one is a legitimate complaint that I'm going to have to speak with the officer about.  Everyone has bad days, including police officers, but that doesn't make it acceptable to be rude and condescending to people you deal with.  Of course, just because the person making the complaint is claiming that this is what happened, it doesn't mean that is what actually happened.  Sometimes people claim that the officer they dealt with was rude, and when asked for a specific example, they reply: "Because he wrote me a ticket."  But example #2 above seems to have enough specifics in it that it probably isn't made up.  If it turns out the officer did in fact act that way, they would need to be counseled on their behavior.