By and large, cops are a grumpy lot. Catch them in the middle of a good day, they’ll resent you for ruining the mood. Catch them when things are tense, they’ll bite your head off. You just can’t win. You’d think they have a lot of job stress or something.

But I’m speaking as a reporter. If you’re a cop and a reporter comes calling, I imagine it’s like getting visited by a fungal infection. No good can come of it. You just have to find a way to take care of it in the least painful, least embarrassing way possible.

So, I’m a fungal infection. I can live with that. I’ve been called worse. And for the most part, I do all right. I call the police a half-dozen times on an average night, and they rarely fire chemical spray at me. Maybe it’s because I’m a professional with honed skills. Maybe it’s because I’ve earned a level of respect among our law enforcers. Maybe it’s because my approach borders on spleeny apology from the get-go.

“Hi, lieutenant. LaFlamme here. Really, really sorry to bother you. I know you just had a nine-car pileup and half of Lisbon Street is burning. Seriously, I hate calling at a time like this, but an editor is making me. We really need to know the 1994 statistics for animal bites during summer months that contain more than two syllables. And if you can manage it, we’d like a breakdown on those complaints involving cats instead of … Sarge? Where’d you go, Sarge?”

“The delicate dialogue”

Clearly, I’m exaggerating. Somewhat. Police are generally very good to me. They spend 10 minutes calling me vile names and then, once they’ve caught their breath, they give me what they can. Not always what I want or what I feel I’m entitled to, mind you. But something worthy of print in tomorrow’s big story. Such as: “We can’t confirm a murder was committed. But the victim was shot in the back 47 times.”

The delicate dialogue between a reporter and a cop on the record is way more complicated than any romantic discourse in any dimly lit nightclub. It’s a dance, where nobody really knows the moves. It’s clever turns of phrase and an almost gymnastic exchange of words. It’s give, it’s take, it’s trust and balance.

Reporters have questions. Cops have answers. In an ideal world, that’s how simple it is.

But in the real world, as I’ve come to know, there are victim’s rights, chains of evidence, police protocols, prejudicial comments, privileged communications, gag orders, police lines, hearsay, confidentiality and all kinds of other hindrances to the communication process.

And it’s usually late at night. Almost always late.

Put yourself in my place, I implore you. A snarling editor is hanging over my desk, insisting I get the story. His fangs drip green slime as he awaits my meager words. He wants it on the record. He wants it in 10 minutes. And he wants it written like poetry. He growls and digs a talon into my shoulder in painful warning. (If only I were making this part up …)

Conflicting demands

Put yourself in the place of the desk sergeant down at the cop shop. Chaos is unwinding downtown, and the press is calling. Secrecy is a luxury you can’t afford, because a frothing public awaits the facts. You have to give away something. But how much is too much? Or not enough? What would the chief want you to do? What about the mayor? The detectives will blame you for screwing up the case if you release that little detail about the nail gun.

The public’s right to know crashes into the integrity of a police investigation almost daily. If it were only law and order at work, it would be much simpler. But there are personalities. The reporter is dying to crack the big story, and to make the competition look like simpletons. We can’t believe a case of this magnitude has fallen into our laps. We wonder if we’ll have something decent to wear to the Pulitzer acceptance speech.

The sergeants and lieutenants want to avoid mangling a case in the press so the detectives might give something close to pristine to the district attorney. They want to do right and make the chief proud, so that when he wakes up to the news, he won’t be in a butt-kicking mood.

Egos come into play, is what I’m saying. In big cases and little ones.

I bug the cops about little stuff, mostly. A crash here, a water-main break there. I do it with the zeal inherent to my profession. And occasionally, the real importance of my role in the calamity gets put into perspective.

Not long ago, there was a car crash. A bad one. I bugged a sergeant over and over about it, because the clock was ticking and deadline was approaching. The editor was hovering and snarling.

“A few more minutes,” the sergeant told me. “I’ve got to call the family of the kid and tell them he didn’t make it. After that, I can release the information you need.”

So, sometimes cops get grumpy. If I had to make one of those phone calls, I’d probably be grumpy for the rest of my life.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.