I have friends who are cops in small towns and also in OKC. It varies even within OKC with the different PD's serving different areas of the city.
Small town cops have less resources, less pay, less "specialists" and you're pretty much on your own when **** hits the fan. You gotta deal with a lot of meth problems in some of the smaller areas. You probably will need a second job to pay the bills and may have to pull double duty with the county tactical / swat unit that is shared with multiple towns in a rural county. Unless it's a 1 or 2 street town, you will generally have to pull your weapon out just as many times as cops in OKC will. There are still armed robberies, assaults, drug related incidents, ect and because it's a smaller force you have to investigate a lot more of the calls.
I could be wrong, but I believe a fulltime OKC officer makes about $55k starting pay, which is actually decent money. You have the advantage of various detectives, specialists, better gear / funding and probably better support. You probably deal with more traffic incidents and aggravated assault or noise complaints than anything else. Bulk of the hardcore action probably happens in the South side of OKC or East side of the capitol.
Cops downtown have it easy and all they do is hang around Bricktown and scare all the teens away from Harkins when it's curfew or troll skateboarders and hippies in Paseo... Rofl, just joking.
And for those who are just bored, go become a volunteer sheriff's deputy or Police reservist. Most people who are just bored will actually find that the process of just becoming a reservist or volunteer deputy is too hard and will quickly shake out of their mid-life crisis fantasies of becoming a tactical operator with a badge...
Small town cops have less resources, less pay, less "specialists" and you're pretty much on your own when **** hits the fan. You gotta deal with a lot of meth problems in some of the smaller areas. You probably will need a second job to pay the bills and may have to pull double duty with the county tactical / swat unit that is shared with multiple towns in a rural county. Unless it's a 1 or 2 street town, you will generally have to pull your weapon out just as many times as cops in OKC will. There are still armed robberies, assaults, drug related incidents, ect and because it's a smaller force you have to investigate a lot more of the calls.
I could be wrong, but I believe a fulltime OKC officer makes about $55k starting pay, which is actually decent money. You have the advantage of various detectives, specialists, better gear / funding and probably better support. You probably deal with more traffic incidents and aggravated assault or noise complaints than anything else. Bulk of the hardcore action probably happens in the South side of OKC or East side of the capitol.
Cops downtown have it easy and all they do is hang around Bricktown and scare all the teens away from Harkins when it's curfew or troll skateboarders and hippies in Paseo... Rofl, just joking.
And for those who are just bored, go become a volunteer sheriff's deputy or Police reservist. Most people who are just bored will actually find that the process of just becoming a reservist or volunteer deputy is too hard and will quickly shake out of their mid-life crisis fantasies of becoming a tactical operator with a badge...
