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There are other jobs within the police department where somebody who is deaf could work. I would not recommend it on the street for a number of reasons...the big thing is safety. I use my hearing for so much other than communicating with somebody. For instance, I have had people try and sneak up behind me...but I stopped it because I could hear them coming. I was also on a traffic stop one time and as I'm approaching I hear the passenger say to another passenger to 'Hide it...Hide it' referring to a loaded gun. There are also times where I am having a conversation with somebody and listening to another conversation going on near me. This comes into play when talking with witnesses or a suspect on the scene. I can be discussing what is going on with another officer while two witnesses are nearby talking about what they saw.
Again though, my big thing is safety being a top priority. We had an officer who was deaf but wore hearing aids. As his hearing got worse, he decided it was time to retire. He was an excellent officer that I looked up to, but towards the end he was missing a lot of things. For instance, there was a burglary in a building and went inside. The bad guy was upstairs and officers could hear the guy walking around upstairs. This is something that he missed and could have easily been ambushed if somebody else did not point it out to him.
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