Police have a lot they have to do in one day. An officer has several tasks to accomplish in one day of work. To start the day they get in their car and start to patrol. Then if they get radioed or a call from a fellow officer they must report to the calls location. Then they return to their patrol, during their patrol if they see something out of the ordinary or suspicious they will more than likely check it out and report it. Police really do have a lot to fit into one day.
Some of the people that they run into are crazy. Many people that an officer will run into or have a confrontation with, are not first offenders, many are repeat offenders. Officers can have run-ins with people for many reasons, they could be on a call, or just because they saw them do something suspicions or out of the ordinary. Officers could run into many types of people, like; drunken, high, mentally sick, or just plain out weird. The most common would most likely be drunken people.
There are many divisions in a police force. There are divisions for street patrol, homicide, bomb squad, swat, auto theft, missing persons, dive teams, helicopter, motorcycle, bike, mounted patrol, vice, narcotics, juvenile, community, relations, k-9, internal affairs, burglary, ADR, Support, dispatchers. But, most stations only have patrol, detectives, dispatchers, homicide, and access to a bomb squad. The bigger metropolitan areas have all of the divisions, such as New York or Washington. There are a lot of divisions for one department, depending on the area.
Most police feel they have a duty to serve to their city and or country. Most veteran officers have had some military experience, but it is not