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# Retired cop can feel for the rookies
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/retired-cop-can-feel-for-the-rookies-editor/
- Published: 2007-12-15T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T04:24:21.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By John Miehle SMPD Capt. retired Cape Coral, FL*

I was a Santa Monica police officer for a little over 28 years. I have been retired for six years now. It’s amusing how things change, but remain the same.

When sworn in, I was handed a fistfull of bullets (18), a gun the police had been using for about 100 years and the training officer had to show me how to strap my Sam Browne (gun belt) on. I drove a car that had the taxi cab package because the chief felt the police package was not needed and too expensive. You were lucky if you could converse on the VHF radio with the cars in the department, forget another city. Now, you get a modern semi-auto pistol in various calibers; clips containing 30 or so bullets, plus the ones in the gun; a radio for your belt that lets you talk to just about any agency in California; and you drive a car that has so much electronic equipment in it you would swear it is the craziest video game you ever saw.

However, even with all the space age toys, some things never change.

The city has gone from one of the top-10 most dangerous cities in the state to one of the safest. But what I see in the paper — driving woes and where are the cops, when people are doing 1,2,3 etc. — I am not being critical, I am laughing. When you stop people to give them a citation, you are asked why you aren’t out arresting real criminals, like rapists and murderers. If you are out investigating one of those, people wonder where you are when they are getting cut off.

There is just never a cop around when you need them.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 15, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/121507.pdf?ref=smdp.com)