Police officers are like lawyers; the only time one wants to deal with them is when their help is needed more than anybody else’s.ÿ

Take the EC Police Department for example: It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to operate with a mission that many believe is to give hefty tickets and to guard the bookstore from some sort of highly tactical “Mission Impossible” style heist that has yet to occur.

But other high-profile police work conducted by EC’s finest includes giving students free rides to their cars through the jungle of overgrown walkway shrubbery as well as jump-starting broken-down cars that would have been better off stolen.ÿ

And don’t forget how they are always available to break up the weekly fights occurring throughout campus.

In all fairness, however, the police do much more than dealing with common campus crime problems.

The campus police department has to deal with the same awful crimes that every city police department has to deal with, from sexual assault to violent crime.

One example of that might be someone getting stabbed on campus.

Looking at the Union’s Police Beat, one may notice that the hundreds of calls police respond to involve not only crime, but also emergency medical response; the EC Police Department often are the first responders on the scene before fire and paramedics arrive.ÿ

Try asking a student whose life has been saved by the campus police if they are a necessity for the college or not.

All of this good work is not to say that the police are always as likable as firefighters, which are seen as some sort of sacred cow of government.ÿ

One recent letter to the editor from a campus staff member claims that his civil rights were violated by the police while riding his bicycle across campus.

Such an allegation is disturbing and should be investigated, but it should not cloud all of the work done by the police department on behalf of EC community which it protects.ÿ

Students might even hate the police when one of the cadets, known by some students as “piglets,” give them parking tickets, but the same students won’t complain when they have been robbed or assaulted and need the police to help them.

With tens of thousands of people in such a small area, it is hard enough to prevent crime, let alone solve it;ÿhaving Alondra Park next door, which seems to act as some sort of homeless preserve, doesn’t help things either.

As it stands, in a moment of urgent need or emergency, most people would want to have the toughest, meanest and street hardened cop answering their 911 call instead of some affable, polite Barney Fife.