Saying "thank you" to the police

has been under discussion after the deaths of two police officers in a neighbouring state. 

The two officers were allegedly shot and killed by a man who apparently calls himself a "sovereign citizen". As I write this the heavily armed man is still on the run. He is apparently an excellent bush man who knows the territory around his disappearance and knows it well. 

It is an appalling situation for all concerned and a reminder I would much rather not have of how dangerous the job of policing can be. 

While this has been going on the police union in this state is making demands which cannot be met under current funding. Their leader is criticising the senior management over the type of policing model which has been put in place and more. 

I do not know as much as I would like about this but I do know that, for the most part, members of our police force are not trained to communicate as well as they might be. They are trained to do things in ways which I find unacceptable but there may be good reason for this.

I remember when, because they could find nobody else, they came to inform the Senior Cat of his cousin's death. They came mid-evening. The Senior Cat was getting ready to go to bed. He was ninety-four or five at the time, a frail old man on a walker. There were two officers, one of them a woman who told him calmly and sensibly what had happened. She used words she had obviously been trained to say. They were adequate in the circumstances and "correct" but entirely lacking in empathy.  She was doing her job, a difficult job.

All that was not a problem but what was a problem was that the male policeman refused to sit down even after I asked him to do so twice. He stood close enough to be a threat and made no attempt to say anything. I doubt it was intended but it was intimidating rather than reassuring. It is likely he behaved this way to be ready to restrain the Senior Cat or myself if necessary. I can recognise that but it did not help, especially as I then had to make a call to a cousin in another state and inform him so cousin D's sister could be informed. 

This approach is typical of our police force. They lack training in communication skills and it seems they are trained to put up a sort of barrier between themselves and those with whom they are dealing. This is not simply imagination on my part because a member of the force who had transferred from Manchester actually raised it with me one day on public transport. It is rare to have a casual conversation with any member of the police force here.  On another occasion I nearly got myself into trouble for intervening when another of the force was getting irritated with someone. I had to point out that the person they were questioning did not understand the question being asked. A little training in asking questions might help but it seems they get none.

The discussion around the issue yesterday revolved around members of the public not thanking the police for doing their job. It's a fair point but it is difficult to do when they stride through the shopping centre and snap out their order for a takeaway coffee without making eye contact. Communication is a two way thing and our police need more training in that. It will make their job much easier and perhaps there could be a campaign to get the general public to say "thank you". 

All that said if you live in this state and you are going to the state Show this week there will be police around. Perhaps you could give them a "thanks for your service" and see if it helps them?