While the media coverage of law enforcement these days seems to paint all cops as members of a rogue group of armed thugs that enjoy exerting authority … I know otherwise. After experiencing a few “ride-a-longs” and being on the receiving end of an armed bank robbery, I was fortunate enough to receive a more intimate view of how the police operate. There are several good books available that shine a more well-rounded perspective of how police operate, but I have found no better work that Adam Plantinga’s 400 THINGS COPS KNOW. The book is simply a brutally honest nuts-and-bolts view of the good, the bad and the ugly of a much-maligned profession.
What makes Plantinga’s book so effective is that it is essentially a book written by a cop for other cops. Reading it, as a “civilian”, felt like I was eves-dropping on an intimate conversation between military buddies swapping old war stories. While we may not relate directly to every subject being discussed, we can easily become immersed into the stories and, for a second or two, put ourselves in the storytellers’ shoes and envision their reality … a reality that tends to yield more uncertainty, more fear and misery than one generally imagines.
400 THINGS COPS KNOW is broken down into nineteen chapters that cover specific aspects of policing: Shots Fired, Use of Force, Booze and Drugs, Domestic Violence, Being Among the Dead, etc. Each of these chapters contains a specific number of entries pertaining to the topic. Cumulatively, the entries for each topic total the “400 things cops know”. What enhances the tone of the book is that the numbered entries in each chapter are not long, laborious paragraphs, but simply a handful of sentences that get to the point and get you thinking. This results in a fast-paced and interesting read. While some of these entries are longer, most are nothing more than a few sentences that are thrown at you, one after another. While this book could have served as a platform to whine and complain about how unfairly society and the media label police, Plantinga never goes down that path. It’s simply an accumulation of things experienced and/or seen on the job that most of us have never considered. He maintains level-headed and a sense of humor throughout the book and writing it must have been a cathartic experience for the author … a sense of relief that maybe he could give people a better sense of what it’s actually like to be a cop (it certainly isn’t portrayed accurately on television … with the exception of HBO’s “The Wire”, according to Plantinga). If anything, the book gets you thinking; its contents should generate a number of reactions from readers: shock, disgust, sympathy, laughter, empathy, pride and anger.
I’ve read other books that described certain aspects of law-enforcement (like “What Cops Know”) and they tend to center on “meat-and-potatoes” incidents that seemed aimed to shock readers. 400 THINGS gives us a much broader perspective of the profession. While there is certainly a degree of drama, the biggest reality is that the average police officer’s daily experience involves uncertainty and not a lot of down time. We learn that in winter months, even the criminals don’t like the cold weather … that domestic assaults are some of the most dangerous calls police respond to … that guns, drugs and money can be found in the most unlikely places and that police are allowed, by law, to elevate their response to a perceived threat. What really makes reading the book so enjoyable is that the author manages to educate us and illustrate his points with personal accounts all along. Some of the details are disturbing and depressing (issues of child maltreatment), pathetic (the red tape), frustrating (never being caught up responding to calls), disgusting (the abundance of bodily fluids these officers come into contact with when dealing with drunks and drug addicts) and downright hilarious and embarrassing at times. One thing for sure, Plantinga leaves no stone uncovered in tell us what he’s learned as a police officer.
Honestly, this is one of the better “true-crime” books I’ve read. It’s a short read (about 200 pages) chock full of details that get you thinking, wondering how you would react in some situations and simply questioning whether or not you could handle such a job. While my ride-a-longs allowed me to experience a high speed chase and responding to accidents and domestic assault calls, those heart-thumping moments are simply grains of sand in the sand dune that is police work. 400 THINGS COPS KNOW does an excellent job telling us things we things we don’t know about and correcting many of the exaggerated stereotypes we’ve been told to believe. Plantinga tells it all good and bad … this is one book every American should consider reading.
400 Things Cops Know: Street-Smart Lessons From a Veteran Patrolman
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Last update: 12-29-2024
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