Will Cops Bug Out During SHTF? (Video & Transcript)
7 min readVideo By Ethical Preparedness
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Transcription provided by American Preppers Network
Number of speakers: 1 Ethical Preparedness
Duration: 8 min 54 sec
Will Cops Bug Out During SHTF? An Insider’s Answer
“Hey folks, Welcome to Ethical Preparedness. Several times in the prepping community I’ve heard the topic come up of whether cops, paramedics or first responders will bug out and abandon post should SHTF happen. So in this video I wanted to address this topic. As a first responder myself I feel I have a little insight on this topic from what I’ve witness from working along side so many other first responders.”
“First lets get this out of the way. If you hate cops and you think all cops are power hungry and abuse their authority and SHTF were to happen and everybody is gonna come for the cops whatever. That’s fine, everybody is entitled to their opinion, but I know who I am and I know what I stand for. So feel free to go ahead and leave your hateful comments or send me your hate messages. All I have to say is if you hate cops that much then go to the police academy, become a police officer yourself and do the job yourself and then change what you hate about cops and change the system from with in instead of being a keyboard commando. I personally don’t care what you think about cops either and I probably won’t waste my time responding to someone who doesn’t know anything about me either.”
“So back to the point of this video which was the question. Will cops and other first responders bug out and abandon their post should SHTF happen? My belief is from my experience of working along side so many other first responders is that cops and first responders from larger cities, especially cops that patrol the bad inner cities, will most likely get the heck out of dodge should SHTF happen. BUT while the cops and first responders from the smaller towns probably will not. The reason I believe this is because cops that work in larger cities usually do not live in their patrol beat, if they even live in that city at all. When a cop doesn’t live in the area that he/she patrols then he/she doesn’t have any real personal stake in that area. The bigger city cop usually just goes from dispatch run to dispatch run dealing with the criminals and the intoxicated idiots in their patrol beat. The bigger city cop also usually doesn’t have the time to really get to know the good people that live in their patrol beat. Plus people that live in the bigger cities tend to hate cops to begin with. Maybe not everybody, but many of the people living in the inner city have a tendency to be involved in narcotics, gangs, and robbery and hustling and other illegal activity and just criminals have a tendency to dislike cops. So during a societal melt down, who in their right mind would stay and try to protect an area they have no personal stake in? Especially in an area that would have so many criminals that would hate them. Especially when their families and loved ones are elsewhere and possible in personal danger. I can also see a lot of cops and first responders not necessarily feeling sorry for these ghetto neighborhoods that will almost surely burn to the ground should SHTF happen.”
“With the amount of cop haters that these neighborhoods have, if SHTF were to happen and the cops were forced to get out of dodge the cops probably won’t lose a wink of sleep when these thugs are standing in the ashes of what use to be their neighborhoods and their scratching their heads trying to figure out what went wrong. But even if the bigger city cops that don’t patrol bad areas, but instead patrol decent areas in a bigger city, they still won’t know most of the people in that area. Cities are just full of different people and strangers and the cops home and family will still more than likely be outside of that city or the complete opposite side of the city.”
“Now you take the small town cop, you know the ones that so many people like to make fun of in the movies or on TV. These small towns will usually require their police or other first responders to either live with in the town or live with in a close proximity of it. This makes it so that many of these small town cops will know most of the people on their control beat and it also makes it so many of these people know where the police officer themselves lives at. Now while I’m sure this isn’t true in every situation most of these small town cops know that they can not get away with some of the same stuff the big city cops get away with. Therefore, they are a lot more respectful of the townsfolk and in turn the townsfolk like the police more. So when you have a small town cop whose patrol beat includes his neighbor, and his friends and the church he goes to and his own home…he’s going to have a lot more at stake in that town. While he’s obviously not going to want to see his own house looted and his own family harmed he is also not going to want to see his neighbor harmed or his church or his pasture or the friends that he has in that town to be harmed either.”
“You have to realize he is probably going to know the bank manager or the grocery store manager and his pasture probably married him and his wife. And he’s probably going to know the teachers and the school principal and many people in the town will have probably seen actually grow up from kids to young adults. So I can actually even see local law enforcement in these rural town actually deputizing or swearing in able body townsfolk to assist in protecting the town out should SHTF happen. I can also see the paramedics and fire fighters in these rural towns putting in extra work hours to help out in their community. As again they don’t want to see their neighbors with medical needs suffer should the lights go out and delivery of some medicine stops and etc etc. And they also won’t want to see their neighbors businesses burn to the ground and stuff like that.”
“Now, in reality, unless the catastrophic event makes it necessary to get out of dodge, something like a very contagious disease or nearby dirty bomb or something like that. Small town first responders will probably almost certainly stay at their post. Most first responders know it’s better to fight the beast before it reaches even their neighbors door, let alone actually let it reach their own door. So just to recap, I can see bigger city first responders not having any real stake in the areas that they service and being quick to bug out to protect their family and neighbor should SHTF happen. And I can see smaller town first responders almost being forced to not bug out in order to protect their family and neighbors should SHTF. To simplify it, during SHTF, everybody including most first responders will simply go to where their families members safety is at stake.”
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My expectation is that just about everyone who is not working a shift at the time a disaster strikes and who lives with their family will take care of their family first before returning to duty, before the start of their shift, to assist co-workers already on duty. This goes for law enforcement, EMTs, ER docs, nurses, fire fighters, utility emergency repair crews — I expect that just about everybody will make sure their families are safe first before coming in to assist those of their co-workers already on duty — and they will probably stop by to check on the families of co-workers who are already on duty before coming on duty.
Many police bugged out during Katrina in 2005, also bus drivers for evacuations didn’t show, other essential workers, knowing New O. would revert to a third world hell hole when the levies gave way, which even today isn’t far from it. Family comes first and cops can always say their phone wasn’t working or they couldn’t call the boss. Family comes first, and how do they know they would even get paid or cash a check if this scenario happens?
I don’t know about your area – but the local residing officers, of all police agencies, are expected to be on “duty” to lead and give credibility to the civilian posses that will be backing them up on roadblocks, patrol and guard duty …. going to be around 50 guns backing up each cop ….
I agree that unless a person has family in the area they patrol and work in it’s likely cops will not say on the job. I can’t blame them as family comes first and it will always be this way and should be this way. Would any of us want to stay on the job in an environment like Ferguson or Katrina?
In your video you say you won’t respond to any anti-cop rants, and that is your decision to do, but it doesn’t at all address people’s feelings about the police and their actions and the interactions police and people are having and will continue to have. Sticking your head in the sand on this issue helps no one.
But as far as people not liking cops there is reasons for this beyond one being a criminal. I live in a nice suburb that has little crime and is full of law abiding people so there is no reason to fear cops, but I think we all fear them today. I haven’t been pulled over in years while driving. But when a cop car is behind my I have concerns that the cop could do bad things to me. All it takes is a cop to have a bad day and step beyond the limit and in doing so will likely get away with his overzealous actions. Actions that can alter peoples life for the rest of their life. Is there anyone here that’s not a cop that does not worry what a cop can do to you when you see one in the mirror of your auto? My guess is we all fear them. Like I said I obey the law, I don’t speed but I see what cops can do and get away with. Any sane thinking person should fear this power that can be brought down on you.
To fix this, it needs to be addressed by the cops and local governments. But it’s not happening as the ruling class seldom looks at things from the other side. This works for them because societal norms are still in place and help (for any cop) is a microphone away. But if we do have SHTF the microphone may not bring instant gun-reinforcement like it does today and the need to get help form people may not be so easy to get when the cops have been abusive to people for the last 20 + years.
There is credible proof that cops have indeed went well beyond what could be called reasonable. A search of U-Tube will show (Numerous and ever expanding) examples of cops taking actions that did not warrant such overzealous action. So I can see how many don’t trust cops that much these days.
And before you say it’s the people with the problem you need to look at the training cops get today. In the past cops were trained to de-escalate a situation (think sheriff Taylor on Mayberry TV show) and today cops are taught to protect themselves above the public. They no longer serve the public, they serve themselves. Today the gun comes out and gets fired at the drop of a hat and the government almost never holds the cop accountable so it breeds more such action. And before you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about (I’m not a cop) I have 2 family members that are cops, one of them my younger brother that’s a county sheriff and I also have several friends that are cops (friends of my brother and I)so I do have exposure to the mindset of today’s cops.
What would the military or even fireman look like if they had the mindset of today’s cops? No soldier would go into battle for his country because he might get shot, no fireman would go into a burning building to rescue a child because he may get burnt to death. Think how sad it would be if soldiers and fireman thought the way cops do today.
The only people that can fix this is the cops, but it’s seems clear that few of them or the governments they work for are really interested in a fix. The public is not the problem, they are simply responding to the problem.
PS: I’m not anti-cop, like I said I have family and friends that are cops. Heck I go shooting with a lot of them every month at the range. It’s just that I can look at the trend in attitudes and actions of the police over the last several years and am only commenting on what is going on. It’s an observation of what is going on and becoming the way things are done today and how they seem to be getting more hostile to the public at large.
I don’t know. I certainly agree that smaller town cops are not likely to abandon their posts. I also think when it comes to large cities it will depend on the circumstances (which city, which part of the city, what events have preceded the event, the quality of the police force, etc).
My personal experiences are limited to what I have seen during emergencies here in NYC: 9/11, 2003 blackout, Hurricane Sandy, etc. I’m not aware of a single emergency responder or police officer abandoning their post. Now, would that be different in a city like Detroit? Maybe. And certainly different events might cause different reactions, but overall from what I have observed, I think we should give first responders a lot more credit than we often do. Just my opinion.
I agree to a certain extent. I think you are correct about contained events such as a hurricane etc. I mean, even electricians, red cross, and first repsonder teams through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from other states come out to help at that time However, I do believe the YouTuber is speaking more about world wide events that will cause chaos every where. Things like war, chemical events, the market collapsing etc, disease like Ebola or other deadly viruses. A real SHTF every where event. I could be wrong, but that was my take on the video