Good Morning

I have written before about the sometimes unusual nature of our everyday life thanks to my husband's noble occupation. The home of a police officer can be an interesting place. The other morning was no exception.


I switched on the coffee maker at about 5:15am and made my way to my office. I sat down at my desk and looked over at my printer only to be greeted by a mug shot of the most offensive looking middle-aged man.


Mug shots and rap sheets often come across my printer, but to be greeted by one first thing in the morning was less than appealing. And this guy is a real winner. He is a convicted sex offender--child molest none the less. Why was he on my printer, you ask?


Recently, the "new" department came up with a brilliant idea to save the tax payers' money. For you local folks, you know that the city (of which Jeff was) and the county police departments merged in January to form, what the mayor convinced the public would be, a beautiful strong force that would save the city millions of dollars each year.


The merge hasn't gone so well (unless you as the mayor or any of his puppets) and crime has sky rocketed--I assure you the two are not completely unrelated. The latest of their brilliant ideas--assign each officer an individual on the local sex offender registry. Now, instead of spending their time being proactive, the police are babysitters.


The mugshot was Jeff's sex offender. Oh joy. A middle-aged African American man convicted of like 8 counts of child molest and my husband gets to babysit him. He lives in the community (fortunately, not my neighborhood--but maybe yours), despite his conviction and even jail time.

Each police officer gets assigned a sex offender--what a great idea! Do you think? Is this community policing or a total waste of time?