If you're like me you have a lot of LEO sites in your feeds.
This includes Departments, individual officers, even a K9 here and there as well as sites such as Drug Enforcement Cops and the ever present Mike the Cop and Officer Daniels.
Mixed in with the updates about the risks they face and jokes they share are what I'm noticing as an increasing trend:
The Police trophy photo.
Since the beginning of the photograph law enforcement has been posing with things they found.
Here's some with beer and liquor during prohibition. They made a big bust, they shared it as a "We're out to get you, see!" I hope you read that like a 20's movie gangster otherwise it looks really silly.
Speaking of looking silly, some of the trophy photos as of late on social media make me wonder what they're trying to convey.
This one I first saw on Officer Daniel's page and I had to laugh for a number of reasons.
This trophy photo is from the Lawrenceville Police Department and shows the confiscation of close to 7 grams of "suspected marijuana." Officer Thomas was, I assume by his body language, roped into doing the photo, but why? Why are we as a Police Department sharing this seizure? I get the top photo of the whiskey cops, that's one hell of a haul, but poor Officer Thomas and his 7 grams make me giggle. Then of course there's the comment on the photo from keyboard commando Craig Kuzma that steals the narrative. Everything you were trying to accomplish...poof...gone.
Next slide, please.
@EatPrayTrap grabbed this screenshot from a (you're welcome) unnamed Department showing the seizure of a few bags of whacky weed, a couple small guns, around $70 and a decent amount of zip lock bags. But here's my question...why are the Officers in the photo? Why not just show what you found?
Oh...that brings me to this gem I saw earlier today:
Courtesy of CBS 19 News comes a great story about a considerable seizure! I haven't seen that much drugs stacked up since Super Troopers!
Here's the trouble, it has all the makings of a great photo! It has the Department affiliation on the side of the vehicle, a beautiful backdrop, a crap ton (The story mentions more than 200 pounds of marijuana and edibles) than something happens in the foreground that loses me.
The local connection with the highway sign, OK, but what is going on here? We see the drugs piled so high on the police car (I'm calling it a car, Police SUV sounds like a crappy TV show) then what looks like a bird box challenge gone wrong. At first glance it looks like Farva crashed his car through a stack of marijuana and into a highway sign near some discarded boxes.
What could have been a great picture is lost in the chaos of the trophy shot.
There was a comment on the Book of Faces when I shared my thoughts on this photo earlier today that said "How is it different from a group of firemen standing in front of someone's home that's a total loss, smiling and making faces and celebrating because they caught their first fire in 6 months??"
Well, it isn't except that Fire and EMS don't share their work like this. We get dramatic drone footage or helicopter shots of the fire, then maybe there's a photo of a Firefighter retrieving a priceless family heirloom from a burning building, the difference being that they don't go back, arrange the heirloom on a table and pose with it.
Am I against Departments sharing their accomplishments? Absolutely not, but there is a way to do it and a way to set your self up for ridicule and laughter. Imagine if in the first photo the prohibition officers were standing around a case of Miller Light? Would it have the same impact?
I don't think so either.
This includes Departments, individual officers, even a K9 here and there as well as sites such as Drug Enforcement Cops and the ever present Mike the Cop and Officer Daniels.
Mixed in with the updates about the risks they face and jokes they share are what I'm noticing as an increasing trend:
The Police trophy photo.
Since the beginning of the photograph law enforcement has been posing with things they found.
Speaking of looking silly, some of the trophy photos as of late on social media make me wonder what they're trying to convey.
This one I first saw on Officer Daniel's page and I had to laugh for a number of reasons.
Next slide, please.
@EatPrayTrap grabbed this screenshot from a (you're welcome) unnamed Department showing the seizure of a few bags of whacky weed, a couple small guns, around $70 and a decent amount of zip lock bags. But here's my question...why are the Officers in the photo? Why not just show what you found?
Oh...that brings me to this gem I saw earlier today:
Courtesy of CBS 19 News comes a great story about a considerable seizure! I haven't seen that much drugs stacked up since Super Troopers!
Here's the trouble, it has all the makings of a great photo! It has the Department affiliation on the side of the vehicle, a beautiful backdrop, a crap ton (The story mentions more than 200 pounds of marijuana and edibles) than something happens in the foreground that loses me.
The local connection with the highway sign, OK, but what is going on here? We see the drugs piled so high on the police car (I'm calling it a car, Police SUV sounds like a crappy TV show) then what looks like a bird box challenge gone wrong. At first glance it looks like Farva crashed his car through a stack of marijuana and into a highway sign near some discarded boxes.
What could have been a great picture is lost in the chaos of the trophy shot.
There was a comment on the Book of Faces when I shared my thoughts on this photo earlier today that said "How is it different from a group of firemen standing in front of someone's home that's a total loss, smiling and making faces and celebrating because they caught their first fire in 6 months??"
Well, it isn't except that Fire and EMS don't share their work like this. We get dramatic drone footage or helicopter shots of the fire, then maybe there's a photo of a Firefighter retrieving a priceless family heirloom from a burning building, the difference being that they don't go back, arrange the heirloom on a table and pose with it.
Am I against Departments sharing their accomplishments? Absolutely not, but there is a way to do it and a way to set your self up for ridicule and laughter. Imagine if in the first photo the prohibition officers were standing around a case of Miller Light? Would it have the same impact?
I don't think so either.
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