400 Things Cops Know: Street-Smart Lessons from a Veteran Patrolman

The police have been in the news a lot lately, and for decidedly unpleasant and horrific reasons. Now more than ever, a level of understanding between the police and the community needs to be rekindled, fostered, and tended. This book might be a good first step in the right direction.

Eye-opening, funny, heartbreaking, and enlightening, the book is presented as a series of numbered lists, from “27 Things Cops Know About Shots Fired” to “21 Things Cops Know About Thugs and Liars.” Each entry is its own lesson, drawn from firsthand experience as a police officer, and each helps put the reader in an officer’s mindset.

Although many of these entries will seem like common sense, others will surprise you. Odds are, some of these entries would never have occurred to you otherwise. For instance, one of the “54 Things Cops Know About Being on the Job” is “Don’t smile when you get your picture taken for your police ID. If you shoot someone, that ID photo will be the picture the media uses.”

Plantinga walks a fine line between loyalty to the uniform and honesty with the public in 400 Things Cops Know.