A second wave of law enforcement-relevant quotes poured in after our recent posting of a collection we recently ran [read it here].
Here’s a sample of what we received:
Timothy Horty, Director of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and retired Deputy Chief with Indianapolis Metro PD submitted:
The duties which a police officer owes to the state are of a most exacting nature. No one is compelled to choose the profession of a police officer, but having chosen it, everyone is obliged to live up to the standard of its requirements. To join in that high enterprise means the surrender of much individual freedom.
—Calvin Coolidge
David Durkop, a retired Lt. with the TX Board of Dental Examiners shared the following quote from Lt. Gen. Hal Moore:
A leader is paid to do three things:
- Get the job done and get it done well.
- Plan ahead—be proactive, not reactive.
- Exercise good, sound judgment in doing all of the above.
Lt. Dennis Eberly (ret.) from East Hempfield Township Police submitted:
It’s criminal control, not gun control, stupid!
Officer Ken Harris with the El Cajon (CA) PD shared:
Rarely does a witness’s level of accuracy reach their level of confidence.
Calibre newsletter reader Tracy Klem shared the following quote “stolen/commandeered” from retired Officer Ron Gilbreath, formerly with Walla Walla, WA PD:
That badge covers precious little of your chest, and none of your chin.
Sgt. David Cuen who retired from LaHabra (CA) PD shared the following two quotes:
Speaking to a management team about upgrading a training mod. Their response: It’s not a problem until it becomes a problem.
And…The meek will inherit the earth, but they will have to settle for the leftovers from those who are willing to hustle.
Officer Robert Scarborough with Jacksonville (FL) Sheriff’s Office wrote:
This one really hit home in reference to training and martial arts for law enforcement:
[In our fights] there is no trophy for second place. Second place means you’re dead. – Chad Lyman, Officer & BJJ Instructor
Lt. H.S. Campbell, A Colorado Corrections Training Academy trainer, shared his own quote:
A talk down is better than a take down.
Leo Luciani who retired from the PA State Police shared:
One I’ve remembered for over 40 years was from the New Jersey State Police letterhead on bulletins during the search for Trooper Philip Lomonaco’s killers:
He escapes who is not pursued.
One of my own that some have expressed compliments towards:
From the safe streets of a small community a secure nation grows.
Retired Illinois Chief/Deputy Chief Dale Gustafson shared his favorite:
Isaiah 6:8: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
And I said: “Here am I. Send me”
Officer Brent Best with the Summit (WI) PD shared the following quote from The Warrior Creed by Robert L. Humphrey:
Wherever I walk, everyone is a little bit safer because I am there. Wherever I am, anyone in need has a friend. Whenever I return home, everyone is happy I am there.
A Chief from Michigan wrote:
About straightening out your child:
I can’t fix in 15 minutes what you spent 15 years screwing up.
CHP Lt. Nicholas King shared the following:
Now Lord lay them down to sleep.
‘I will protect them,’ my oath I’ll keep.
If I should die before they wake, May they know it was for their sake.
Reader Grant Toma shared:
At a breakfast table one young deputy asked a “senior” patrol deputy about his “PT” regiment. The only PT I do in the morning is pancakes and toast.
Steve Remick, Professional Development Coordinator at the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy shared:
I retired in 2018 after 28 years in law enforcement. I read the article on Police Quotes, awesome stuff! Here is a quote I memorized many years ago. It kept things in perspective for me many times when I was tired, angry, lost, depressed. My daughter told me she always thought it was moving and to this day she gives me a somber look when I say it:
Teach us to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not seek for rest…
—St. Ignatius Loyola
Jay Martze, a Law Enforcement Specialist-Instructor with FLETC shared one of his own quotes:
Attention to detail may not make a difference but it will sure make it obvious.
Chief Michael Crowel with Manlius (NY) PD shared the following quote from the iconic trainer Dr. George Thompson:
Where I walk, there will be peace.
Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Patrick Reilly with Customers and Border Patrol responded:
You can give a cop three solid steel ball bearings at the beginning of his shift, and by the end of it he’ll have lost the first, secured the second for ‘safekeeping,’ and broken the third.
Retired Milwaukee PD Officer Patrick Monaghan shared:
Regarding death notification: Being professionally close, but emotionally distant.
Longtime law enforcement author Barbara Schwartz shared the following:
May God be between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk. —Unknown
We see them when nobody else sees them, when they’re born and dying and fornicating and drunk. We see people when they’re taking anything of value from other people and when they’re without shame or very much ashamed and we learn secrets that their husbands and wives don’t even know, secrets that they even try to keep from themselves.
—From The New Centurions by Joseph Wambaugh
A finally, an unnamed reader shared:
With reasonable men I will reason, with humane men I will plead, with tyrants I will show no mercy.
— Thomas Jefferson (carved on the Jefferson Memorial at the Tidal Basin)
And…
Truth is unchangeable, no matter what is politically correct.
Feedback? More quotes to share? E-mail us at: editor@calibrepress.com
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