Law & Order: CI (Realism Question)

[PhoenixCadet]

Hi all,

I just tuned into an episode of Law & Order: CI - and noticed one thing that made me curious. A cop pulled a guy over, and she walked up to the drivers-side door, noticed his hands were down and she quickly said "Hands where I can see them or I'll blow your head off". I know it's a TV show - but if you had said this in real life (knowing how PC the world is now), do you think you would've gotten in trouble? (Even though that's what you would've done?)

[Dinosaur32]

No.....................

[PhoenixCadet]

With the way people are so politically correct nowadays, it seems as if (I could picture) a cop gettin' reprimanded for "not being nice". I've heard some pretty crazy things happen. I guess not, though.

[Rasmblack]

I wouldnt want to risk saying something like that. In my area it would be really easy to say it to the wrong person that has the connections to get me fired. It depends who you would say it to I guess.

[Dinosaur32]

A good thing about having a strong union....there probably would be a couple more adsjectives in the sentence.

[Phlip]

But it does happen in the heat of combat. "Give me your F-----g Hands!" is easy to blurt out when you're in a good fight with a perp and your backup is still a ways out. Not a big deal. At least not at my department. Now if I was dropping F bombs in ordinary conversation, I would expect to be disciplined for for being uncouth and unprofessional.

[pulicords]

In the "old days", I thought that using profanity helped get the message across and emphasized that I was serious. I wouldn't get in trouble for the verbage, as long as it was justified.

In later years, I learned to keep my language more simple and to the point (ie: "Raise your hands slowly, or I'll shoot you!"). Suspects who were intoxicated or had less than perfect English speaking skills could understand the words easier, persons nearby (potential witnesses) could easily hear and recall later what I had said, and I believed that simple commands, indicated to the suspect that I'd done this a lot times before and could handle him if he didn't go along with the program.

Using profanity or descriptive language wouldn't get anyone on my department in trouble, it just makes getting the job done a little more difficult.