{"id":5153,"date":"2018-03-09T09:50:17","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T14:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5153"},"modified":"2025-08-24T10:42:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:42:28","slug":"the-thin-blue-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2018\/03\/09\/the-thin-blue-line\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thin Blue Line"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

A Pierre Police Cruiser, one of the many life lines for an officer.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cGet down on the ground!\u201d \u201cWhere did she hit you?\u201d \u201cPlease slow down at the intersection next time. \u00a0Have a nice day.\u201d These are common phrases in a police drama: even more common in the daily lives of law enforcement officers across the nation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Law enforcement officers play a role in every community across the country. \u00a0While there are those who do not agree with having them, most agree that they are a necessary brick in society\u2019s structure. \u00a0They protect members of the communities against crime and keep our roads as safe as possible. Officers even protect residents from themselves and one another. \u00a0They deal daily in situations that would turn many people\u2019s stomachs inside out and keep their calm when all around them is chaos.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Officer Justin Harmon, an officer with a little over three years of experience, said that he would warn anyone coming into the profession that whatever you imagine the career to be, it is more. \u00a0He, like many, got into law enforcement because it was the family business in a way and he had been around cops his whole life. Harmon said that he loves to get to help people. He knows that he is seeing people on their worst days, so he tries not to hold too much from their interactions against them. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hughes County Deputy Lee Weber said the hardest part of his job was the unknown. \u00a0\u201cYour dispatcher can only get so much from the caller, especially in a crisis situation. Sometimes you are going in blind to a situation that could be life threatening.\u201d \u00a0He also told countless stories of having to be a parent for children in the community. \u201cSo many people rely on you to wake their kids up, get them ready for school, stuff that really isn\u2019t a police matter. \u00a0You become a scary authority figure to these kids and it makes them resentful and afraid of law enforcement before they even get into middle school.\u201d This was a statement echoed by Officer Harmon. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Both officers really drove the point home that they are out here to help. \u00a0They do not want to be the scary people whom parents use to get their children to behave. \u00a0They want to be someone children can go to in times of trouble. They want law enforcement to be a career that people are willing to go into because of a desire to genuinely help people. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Arresting people comes with the territory, but these law enforcement officials want people to know that an officer is not someone whom you need to be afraid of. \u00a0When you work together with the officers in your community, you can help to make it a better, safer place.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cGet down on the ground!\u201d \u201cWhere did she hit you?\u201d \u201cPlease slow down at the intersection next time. \u00a0Have a nice day.\u201d These are common phrases in a police drama: even more common in the daily lives of law enforcement officers across the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8725,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions\/8725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}