Am I the only student on this campus who doesn’t hate cops?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I distrust cops just as much as I distrust politicians, mid-level university bureaucrats and all others on this planet who have a tremendous amount of power, little oversight and worship at the idol of rule and procedure. Distrust, though, is a far cry from the outright hatred of the pig-calling throngs of students I have talked to about their views on police.

I distrust police simply because the nature of their job makes completely bungling and complicating a person’s life part of their daily routine, and, on top of that, they tend to be far more secretive and defensive about their methods and decisions than need be. In other words, I don’t trust police for the same reason many don’t trust reporters.

Those are good reasons for distrust in both the former and the latter. I’ve met a few cops, and I’ve known many a reporter. To be truthful, I’ve found a higher percentage of the cops to be decent, honest people, though that may be a result of knowing far, far more reporters than cops.

But ask an average student his or her opinion about the friendly local constables, and it’s one giant case of groupthink: “F’in cops. Always trying to f’ya. They’re just a bunch of f’ers. Motherf’in f’ers.”

The truth is, yes, some cops are f’ers. I respect cops to death, and I know they perform one of society’s most important tasks. But boy oh boy, some of them just need to relax. Not every situation calls for being a complete ass. Just as students rarely put themselves in a cop’s shoes, I think cops rarely put themselves in a student’s shoes.

The balance of misunderstanding, though, undoubtedly tips to the side of the students.

I know it’s hard for most 18- to 24-year-olds to understand because the only contact most have with a badge is of the negative variety (busted parties, speeding tickets, etc.), but believe me when I say this: the cops, even the nasty ones, are not out to f’ya. They’re just doing their jobs, of which busting college parties and ticketing minors with beer is probably not their favorite part.

What’s that? Do you imply there are other parts, eh?

Police officers are like the parents that always got stuck doling out the punishments to their kids while their spouse (public defenders) always seemed comparatively compassionate. They may like it or they may not, but either way, cops do all of the tough things in society that most of us sure as heck wouldn’t.

Do you want to go stop your neighbor from beating on his wife at 4 a.m. after he’s been drinking since he woke up? Do you want to go pull a baby out of a burning car teetering on the edge of a highway bridge? Do you want to keep the banks from being robbed, the children from being molested and the methamphetamine labs from exploding?

I don’t.

Almost exclusively, police see people at their worst. They see them after they’ve wrapped their car around a tree three sheets to the wind. They see them when they’ve been beating each other up. They see them, well, you get my point.

I’m sure that never-ending contact with the least-desirable aspects of human nature makes it difficult to put on a happy face every day. I can see how a cop would come to think that everyone out there is a criminal, that everyone is doing something heinous just behind the closed doors that only probable cause can open for them.

Sometimes, though, they’re right. At those times, they need protection. They need to be armed.

Finally, in the next couple of weeks, the campus police officers with the Department of Public Safety are getting stun guns. Before that, if a possibly life-threatening situation presented itself, DPS officers (no, not the ones who write parking tickets, you smart-asses, the ones that are licensed and trained peace officers with all the authority of any city officer or county deputy) will have a way to defend themselves and others.

Students and faculty who have opposed this move confuse me to no end. How can you expect a police officer to do his or her job without a gun?

How can reasonable, educated people actually buy into the notion that giving campus police guns, even of the stun variety, would make the campus more dangerous? Are the powers that be at every public university in the nation with student bodies larger than 20,000 except this one, the University of Iowa and the University of Delaware wrong? The campus police at all of those schools have guns and have had them for years.

Good cops, even bad cops, don’t want to shoot anybody. That would completely go against every instinct and every second of training that has been ingrained into officers.

I’m glad DPS officers are getting guns.

I’m disappointed that students can’t see beyond their narrow experiences with police.

And I hope someday this column will get me out of a speeding ticket, though I suppose it’s more likely that it will get me beat up by a gaggle of cop-hating students next time I’m at a party.

At least I’ll know who to call.

Dave Roepke is a senior in journalism and mass communications from Aurora. He is the opinion editor of the Daily.