THE MURPHY'S LAW OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

• New uniforms and ties attract catsup and gravy stains.
  
  
• Court will be scheduled in the middle of your days off.
  
  
• Hot calls will only come over the air 10 minutes before the end of your shift.
  
  
• You will never get the urge to use the bathroom until you have left the station.
  
  
• Surprise inspections will only occur after you have been in a foot pursuit through mud.
  
  
• The Mayor will get a traffic ticket the day before your department negotiates for a salary increase.
  
  
• The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Also the harder they punch, kick and choke.
  
  
• Never search a dark warehouse with a cop whose nickname is "Boom-Boom".
  
  
• If you park your patrol car in the exact center of the Gobi desert, within 5 minutes someone will pull up and ask for direction.
  
  
• Coffee machines only break down on the graveyard shift.
  
  
• Pens never leak onto old uniform shirts.
  
  
• You will only forget to go to court when the case is presided over by the meanest Judge in town.
  
  
• To error is human, to forgive is against department policy.
  
  
• You will find a "police discount" one day before payday.
  
  
• Shatterproof flashlights seldom are.
  
  
• You will remain in perfect health until your days off.
  
  
• Glow in the dark sights are just as visible to you as they are to the crook hiding behind you.
  
  
• No patrol car assigned to you will be clean and never have a full tank of gas.
  
  
• Wearing white socks makes boot zippers break.
  
  
• The oldest squad car won't be retired. It will be assigned to you.
  
  
• Coffee jitters will never bother you until firearm qualification day.
  
  
• Flashlight batteries never die in the daylight hours.
  
  
• Your mouthiest traffic violator will be related to the sheriff.
  
  
• You will score no higher than fourth on a promotion exam with only three positions.
  
  
• If the crooks are within pistol range, so are you.
  
  
• The speed you respond to a fight in progress is inversely proportional to how long you have been an officer.
  
  
• Perfect 10's only show up to talk when you are busy.
  
  
• Bullet proof vests might be.
  
  
• The number of citizen that approach you during lunch is inversely proportional to the amount of time you have to eat.
  
  
• Your portable radio will never fail until you are involved in a foot pursuit.
  
  
• Vehicle pursuits always progress from areas of low traffic density to high traffic density.
  
  
• Your pen will only run out of ink when you are ready to write a ticket.
  
  
• NCIC will be down anytime you see a car listed on a hot sheet.
  
  
• Old squad cars never die, they just smell that way.
  
  
• You will never get a bomb threat call until the squad is away on training.
  
  
• The experience of your DA is inversely proportional to the importance of the case he is prosecuting.
  
  
• Word processors only delete reports when they are nearly done.
  
  
• Your bullet proof vest was supplied by the lowest bidder.
  
  
• You receive a subpoena for a major felony case for the first day of your paid for, nonrefundable vacation.
  
  
• In a physical confrontation involving more than one officer, any impact weapon used will strike cops more times than crooks.
  
  
• Do unto others, but do it first.
  
  
• Eat right, Exercise, Die anyway.
  
  
• You will be called into work on your day off when your family has planned a party at the lake.
  
  
• Your squad car will only break down when you are outside your beat.
  
  
• Waterproof boots aren't.
  
  
• You will be flagged down by a citizen when you are on your way to the PD with a bad case of diarrhea.
  
  
• You will only be stopped for speeding off duty when you have forgotten your badge and DL.
  
  
• Freebees will only arrive at the station on your days off.
  
  
• There will be no parking spaces around the court house when you are running late to appear.
  
  
• There is an inverse relationship between the number of auto club stickers on a rear bumper and how well the person drives.
  
  
• You are ALWAYS downwind from pepper spray.
  
  
• You will only be subpoenaed to court at 0900 hrs in the morning after working an 18 hour day.
  
  
• To err is human, just do it in front of as few people as possible!
  
  
• Anyone that flirts with you on-duty won't even recognize you off-duty.
  
  
• The hardest job for a Hostage Negotiator is to negotiate with the crisis committee!
  
  
• No one's idea is a good idea until it becomes another's idea...usually the Chief's.
  
  
• If your patrol car's air is out the suspect will smell worse than a wet dog.
  
  
• On the nights where you have to go grocery shopping in uniform, you will get pissed on by a drunk.
  
  
• When your in a hurry, that is when all slow and "lack of attention" drivers are driving on the road.
  
  
• You always have a big use of force on your Friday before your vacation.
  
  
• Never respond to a domestic with anyone braver than you.
  
  
• If your raid is going well, you're at the wrong house.
  
  
• The one time you cuss on the radio, your chief will be listening.
  
  
• Your overheads and siren will only fail during a pursuit.
  
  
• You will only roll through a stop sign when your Chief is sitting at the other side of the intersection.
  
  
• K-9 units only do stupid thing's in public.
  
  
• The day you let your girlfriend ride out with you, your wife comes by the station to visit.
  
  
• Court will be canceled only after you have changed all your plans to be there.
  
  
• You will be decorated for stupidity, and busted for brilliant work.
  
  
• When closing the Sally Port door, if a fellow officers car is under it pushing the stop button will only slow it down.
  
  
• Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
  
  
• The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
  
  
• Anything that you do can get you shot - including doing nothing!
  
  
• The first sip from the first coffee of your shift always triggers the dispatcher to send you on a call usually an emergency or something that will cause the coffee to go cold before you can return to it.
  
  
• You will only lock yourself out of your cruiser when a Supervisor is on scene, about to arrive on scene or is the only person available to fetch the spare set of keys from the station.
  
  
• Putting in a request to go home early is the best way to jinx yourself and end up on overtime.
  
  
• It will always be busy as hell when you don't feel like doing anything and will always be dead as heck when you are out looking for something to do.
  
  
• Just when you are thinking about making a pit stop in case they call you for an emergency they'll call you for an emergency.
  
  
• Crime only occurs on days that end in "y".
  
  
• You will only talk bad about another officer when they are standing behind you.
  
  
• The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
  
  
• You will run out of road flares on the foggiest or darkest night of the year.
  
  
• Don't think of it as being outnumbered and surrounded, think of it as a really low risk of ammunition wastage.
  
  
• When placing cuffs on a suspect, you will always close them to the point that it takes half an hour to back them up so blood can circulate.
  
  
• The one time you wake up late and don't have time to iron your uniform is the one time the chief comes to roll call.
  
  
• Your transmission will work just fine, until you get into a chase.
  
  
• The only time Chief's come out from behind their desk is to overreact!
  
  
• After all is said and done, a heck of a lot more is said than done.
  
  
• You will only get a citizen complaint when your video camera or tape recorder is broken.
  
  
• Your cars AM/FM radio will only go out when you have had only 4 hours of sleep before your shift.
  
  
• Your radar will only malfunction when you see a car you know is going over 100 MPH.
  
  
• You will always get a "Hot" call at the same moment you realize your weapon is still in the gun locker back at the jail.
  
  
• For every good deed done there is a Lawyer to undo it.
  
  
• The one time you order that expensive lunch is the only time you are told by dispatch to break for a hot call, right after the food is served of course.
  
  
• The one unimportant fact that you forget to record at a crime scene will be the one that the defense cross examine you about and that the prosecutor tells you is "Crucial to this case!"
  
  
• Out of 10 traffic stops, the violator you gave a warning to instead of a cite is the one who file a personnel complaint against you.
  
  
• After taking a sign language course, you use sign to a deaf driver and citizens call the station to complain about seeing you doing strange things and touching yourself on a traffic stop.
  
  
• The intensity and number of war stories told is inversely proportional to the street experience of the storyteller.
  
  
• Anyone who doesn't notice an unmarked car is probably not doing anything illegal anyway.
  
  
• Anyone opting for a foot chase is always carrying at least 20 pounds less than you are.
  
  
• Your time is always less important than the time of the judge and prosecutor.
  
  
• Equipment always fails at the most inopportune time. usually right after you've checked to make sure it's working.
  
  
• When a cop does something right, no one remembers; When a cop does something wrong, no one forgets.
  
  
• The "big" pay raise will always come next year.
  
  
• One day YOU will know why your FTO was so picky and cranky.
  
  
• No matter how quiet the radio has been, an emergency call will be dispatched in your beat just after you stop your first car of the night.
  
  
• You only lock yourself out of the squad car, when your portable radio is not working.
  
  
• On the day you make the felony arrest of your career, just as the news mini cams arrive your zipper will break.
  
  
• No good deed goes unpunished.
  
  
• The only time there is paper in the dispenser at the station is when you don't need it.
  
  
• When you come to the last form in the file, only you will burn copies of it.
  
  
• Departmental Intelligence Units....aren't very.
  
  
• The higher the oath, the bigger the lie...except when your Sergeant is telling the story.
  
  
• Just when you get a nice brand new squad car, the first offender you pick up is going to be a drunk that will get sick in the car.
  
  
• The only consistent thing about any law enforcement agency, will be its inconsistency.
  
  
• When you get old, with lots of experience, and need the peace and quiet, they will pair you up with a rookie!
  
  
• The first bad-guy your trainee decides to tick off will have at least three black belts in three different martial arts.
  
  
• What is said in the patrol car stays in the patrol car. Unless it was said in the patrol car.
  
  
• There is a code of silence in law enforcement. Until Internal Affairs, the news media, and lawyers get involved.
  
  
• Looking good in uniform more than compensates for incompetence.
  
  
• When you are late for work and in a hurry to iron your uniform shirt, the power system will fail suddenly.
  
  
• The time you need to transmit on the radio comes immediately after you have taken a big bite of your lunch.
  
  
• Rookies will ask the Dispatcher "Do we have a clear channel?" on the radio only when you are clearing a house on an alarm call!!
  
  
• You only need assistance in a hurry when you are in the part of town your radio doesn't work in.
  
  
• Your portable radio will only malfunction when you have accidentally set off your car horn, which remains stuck, as you follow the Hell's Angels down the freeway on your way to work.
  
  
• Your alarm clock is guaranteed to break, making you late for work, the day after you receive a department-wide memo regarding attendance policy and punishments.
  
  
• The only car you let go with a warning ticket will be stopped ten minutes later and the driver arrested for transporting the largest quantity of illegal drug in your counties history.
  
  
• If the guy you pull over for speeing says he was going so fast becaause he has diarrhea, and for one reason or another you have to put him in the patrol car, it will turn out he wasn't kidding.
  
  
• Your department will always be over budget, and your equipment will always be older than you.
  
  
• Never date Murphys' daughter, especially when Murphy is the Chief.
  
  
• A police officer who wields a baton or other impact weapon in a fight is more likely to strike another cop then a criminal.
  
  

Have any suggestions to add to this list? If so, please e-mail me at: [email protected] with your suggestion and I will post it on this list as soon as possible. Thanks for your assistance--Ron (W5WWW)



E-mail Me At: [email protected]

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