My GLP police thread. Dedicated to my grandfather.

Hey Gang.

I want to start a thread dedicated to my grandfather.

He was a police officer.

He was physically and mentally injured in the Detroit riots of 1967.

His name was Robert Lake.

He was a good man, far from perfect, but did his best.

The family always had a contentious relationship with him after he sustained a head injury in the line of duty, and probably before, but I can't remember that far back.

He was a very solemn guy, didn't talk much, he obviously carried a lot of weight from the shit he saw, what he had to deal with. In short, he was a dick.

I've heard stories.

He was all about the work, and was unable to give much back to us emotionally.

Deep down I feel that he was a good man and wanted to help people, but he became bitter and unresponsive by the time I was old enough to understand that he was traumatized.

I remember hearing stories of the shit he went through while on the job, and now I think he had PTSD.

At that time we didn't have these words, we just knew he was fucked up from his service and we also knew not to cross him when he was "in one of his moods"...

He was from the old school, the wife stayed at home, raised my mother and two brothers, to be honest they were pretty much a disappointment, wife took to the bottle and ended up in a sanitarium, the entire family life ended up in tragedy after.

No one really lived up to his expectations, he was a hard man.

However, no one else makes me as proud, even now.

Mostly we are white trash to be honest, doesn't bother me, we all did what we had to do to get by and most of us worked hard, but none of his grandkids are strangers to the bottle, and none of us ended up cops.

I never did right by Gramps, fuck, who could?

In my own small way I thought I would put this thread out there to highlight some of the things that he would encounter on the daily.

Some of the things that made him go the way he did.

I watch a lot of police videos to understand why he was the way he was and it helps me to understand why.

It's a tribute I guess, and a warning.

With all this "defund the police" bullshit going about, I think it's important that people understand what they go through.

It's helped me, maybe it will help someone else who has family in law enforcement.