Saint Tommy & the NYPD

My circles on social media are a mixed bag when it comes to police.

My own attitudes have evolved over the past few years.

I, personally, have never had a single instance of a negative encounter with the police.

That’s diametrically opposed to a lot of my acquaintances, who have no use for the police—that’s because I hang out with a lot of Libertarians and other assorted gun owners. They don’t need cops, they just need body removal.

Their motto is “When seconds count the police are minutes away.”

Personally, I grew up with the cops of Giuliani and of 9/11. For the cops then, the motto wasn’t “Come home safe at the end of shift.” Their motto was “Protect and serve.”

Then 2020 became the year where cops sat back and let cities burn. The cops that were rookies back on 9/11 have now put in their twenty. The 1981 Supreme Court case Warren v. District of Columbia stated that the police are not obligated to protect you.

Therefore, there’s a problem with my entire series. In an era of Parkland and Uvalde, having a cop does not look the best choice for a hero.

Then there’s Tommy Nolan.

He has no use for anyone who considers Warren valid cover.

His thought is simple: “Cops take an oath to protect and serve, not shelter in place. If you don’t run towards the screaming, what use are you, and why are you wearing a badge?”

This becomes really fun by book #8, when he becomes a Lieutenant.

You can imagine what Nolan does when he’s in a position of power. With that attitude, and disciplinary authority, you can imagine just how popular he’s going to be. 

Nolan doesn’t believe that there’s anything necessarily wrong with a neighborhood vendor handing out freebies to cops on the beat (like a free cop of coffee, or an extra donut, et al, etc)… but it’s against the rules, and he enforces the rules, if only to protect the men under his command.

I won’t say that Tommy is an idealized cop, but he does his job.

Hell, as far as he’s concerned, all he does is the bare minimum.

Granted, his idea of the bare minimum is unusual. He still walks the streets to arrest street criminals, despite being “a boss.” He’s got some Internal Affairs guys he sees as unreliable and double checks their work, no matter what their verdict it. He will protect his guys from political hacks unduly throwing them under the bus, but if they done screwed up, he will rip them to pieces.

Yeah, he is so popular, whenever there’s a threat to the city from out of down, they make darn certain to put him on a plane out of town.

Then again, who am I kidding? Nolan’s had corrupt cops try to kill him since book three. And corrupt politicians. Other correct civil servants. At this point a corrupt politician is just redundant.

At the end of the day, Tommy makes friends and influences people to generally dislike him. But that’s largely because he’s just as hard on himself as he is on his men.

And historically, no one can beat themselves up harder than a Saint.

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