Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?

For the first time in a long, long time, I caught a few minutes of Cops. Maybe it’s my redneck nature, but Cops is kinda like a car crash on the highway-you just can’t look away. At least, I can’t.
Tonight’s episode showed an officer responding to a citizen complaint about teenage boys next to her home. The complainer(is that a word?) was an elderly woman who seemed like she had nothing to do but do the crochety old person role. The teenage boys were barely into their teens and seemed like they were doing nothing but playing some pick up Bball on the court next to the old woman’s home. The officer listened to the old woman’s complaint, questioned her, questioned the boys, explained to the woman that the boys had committed no crime and, as you’d expect from a crochety old woman, she walked away mad at the world…and the youth of the world. After smoothing things over with the woman, the officer went to the boys playing ball.. He told them they were doing nothing wrong, that they should just keep doing what they were doing. Then, with a quick smile, he said, “Any of you guys think you can outshoot me?” The boys all laughed, slapped high fives and passed the ball to the cop. The scene ended with the officer taking a few jump shots over the heads of the boys before hopping into his cruiser.
Now, had the world had interaction with a cop like this for their first ticket, maybe there’d be less hatred of law enforcement. Maybe Killa Cam and Ice T would be less stubborn about accepting the role of cops in the community. That short interaction with a cop will probably make the boys have less animosity towards the boys in blue for their entire lives.