"I think I’m probably a $65,000 babysitter.

"I think that the police officer is a very interesting part of Americana, the Western police officer is different from the Eastern police officer. It’s like a different specie. Here, Western police officers tend to be fit, they tend to be sharp, …very educated, over 60% of our officers have degrees and that’s not the case in a lot of Eastern police departments and Southern police departments….I think we’re a different breed, a lot of us that are here today are different than the people that we tried to get on the department 20 years ago when I came on."

"When I came on they were all Vietnam veterans: soldiers, sailors, airmen and we came into the streets to do right by the people who had just spent years condemning us. So I think we tried to get back some sense of right and wrong in our lives…so we had more than just a job here, we had an expression of ourselves here that we carried out everyday; and I think that’s maybe been lost in recent times, because well one reason is because we’ve introduced women into the police field and while they strive to be accepted as hard- charging, ass-kicking police officers, the fact of the matter is three or four years later they want to have babies and settle down and get out of the street and go be a detective, or a Dare officer and do nothing--like they do. Or shop on duty, depends on your perspective. So, that’s changed the Department a lot."

"It used to be we used to meet after work, raise hell, chase women, drink beer, and that’s the way it was, and now it’s turned into a more sensitive, kind, feeling police department."

[ME: Do you think that's all negative?]

Zrofsky: "I think it’s very bad. Because…the kind of job we do we have to enjoy a certain amount of anonymity when we’re out there. It protects us from the feelings and it protects the citizen from feelings. What’s happened now is we’ve made a police officer more sensitive and women have aided in that because that’s the trend. So now it’s O.K. to kill a cop because a police officer is not a cop, he’s just another person and he doesn’t represent the law. See, what police officers really are in our society, what they mean to our society, is they’re a symbol of law and order and they’re a symbol of how we respect the law, so if you kill a police officer, it’s just a sign that we disrespect the law and [we’re] no longer this lofty people that we used to be."

"So, I think that has a lot to do with the things that are going on now. The kind of police officer I am is not gonna get gunned down in wholesale numbers because I have a different code than the new officers."

[ME: But, now wait a minute, I came to you with a project that could be perceived and has been…]

Zrofsky: "--as a touchy-feeley."

[ME: Right.]

Zrofsky: "--O.K."

[ME: --and you really understood what I was talking about--]

Zrofsky: "--because I think it’s important to understand that police officers are people at a certain level but to the violator out on the street, to the suspect out on the street, to the man/wife or the woman and woman or the man and man that are fighting, he [they] doesn’t need to see him as what he really is when he’s there; [he's] representing order and law, an organization. You make [it] too personal out there at that level…I think you’re doing us a disservice."

"But, you ought to understand that we’re also a big family and that we bleed together, we cry together, we laugh together and all those things and I think that somewhere, someplace, there’s a right place to display that. It may not be and I don’t believe it is out there on the street with the average citizen. But maybe in some abstract means or maybe in some remote, removed means, I think that’s appropriate. And, I think they need to know that we got really wonderful people here and you know you’re talking about probably the top 3% or 5% of our community that are here driving these black and white cars and doing this. Now whether people want to admit that or not, I don’t know, but out of every 5000 that apply, only 1 or 2 walk out the door with a uniform on. So there’s a little bit of eliteness there that I think has to be understood."

"Certainly, not all these officers, but most of them are willing to lay down their lives on the line for anybody, anytime, regardless of your social, sexual, religious, ethnic makeup. It doesn’t make any difference. It doesn’t matter to me if I go out there on the street and I see you in trouble, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what your color is, what you do."

"What matters to me is I’ve sworn to, I’ve taken an oath to do a job and I’m gonna do it, even if it costs me my life. So, that’s why I think the feeling is important at a certain point."

About the art—

"I think it’s an expression of what I feel is going on today and because it seems to be prevalent in my mind the last few days about the thin blue line in our society and it’s really the border or the barrier between good and evil…This thing down in here in the dark tones, of course, in the black, and death and that sort of thing. And, then, of course, what I feel is, a, freedom isn’t free means that these folks up here have to pay the price and they come and mostly the people that pay the price in our society are the police officers. And you know that’s not really fair because there’s firefighters and other people, but these are the guys that stand on the line at night, everyday, 24 hours a day, no matter what. So, I tried to portray them with a little more color, more brightness, because we have to go about our job with color and brightness and some stars, meaning I think they’re stars, and of course, the badge. And, then, of course, of all things, we’ve got to temper everything we do with love, no matter how hard we have to be. It’s kind of hard to say, but even when you have to fight someone or even when you have to become hostile with them, you’ve got to have love. When you deal with them."

"And I think that kind of says what I feel. [The person up here] is just the person with the badge, and he’s on the other side of the line where he belongs, on the good side of the line, whereas most people see police officers somewhere in between or even over [down] here depending on your perspective. But, we have to see ourselves on the good side of the line, cause if we lose sight of where we’re at then you have problems. For your citizens."

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