Professional courtesies are endemic to professional life and not limited to police, but a significant difference is that police pledge to enforce the law and failing to enforce the law simply because the offender is another officer may appear to be a violation of a central requirement of the office. The extension of professional courtesies need not express the selfish self-interest of a privileged group but may more appropriately be viewed as one distinctive expression of the intimate bond that exists between members of many groups, including those fraternal and familial arrangements regarded as central to one's social behing. Yet, fraternal traditions and obligations and their analogues do not, ipso facto, take priority over all others. When police fail to ticket fellow officers, what occurs, at least symbolically, is a compromise of the egalitarian and democratic commitment that accompanies the public nature of their employment and service. 7 notes and 22 references