It might be easier if Tony Correa were a criminal. Then he could respond in kind to the obscenities and punches thrown at him on a daily basis while patrolling Evanston’s south side.

Or maybe Correa would be better equipped to handle scenes like Friday night’s domestic battery call, where a man was arrested after apparently hitting his wife during a heated argument and throwing his baby down on a bed.

Instead Correa is labeled as an obnoxious bully and a donut-eating blob of ineffectiveness.

But Correa is definitely overworked, probably underpaid and undoubtedly under-appreciated.

Correa is a cop.

He patrols Howard Street for Evanston Police Department, where he has worked for two years.

Correa said the job is difficult because of the love-hate relationship citizens have with police.

“One day (citizens) are calling because they need your help — the next day they’re calling to complain,” he said.

“It’s bad enough that the bad guys are mouthing off to you,” Correa said. “When the good guys — or the victims — are mouthing off it’s like, ‘OK, whose side am I on?'”

The “bad guys” can be doubly frustrating.

“Doing police work is tough because (officers) are required to play by the rules and that’s not fair,” Correa said.

He likened it to sports teams: If one team is allowed to cheat, it has an unfair advantage.

“You got to be able to bend without breaking the rules,” Correa said. “But if you’re breaking the rules, are you any better than the guy you are locking up?”

Correa said he tries to avoid the bad cop image.

“I’m not really into banging the everyday hardworking guy,” he said.

Besides, citizens generate most calls for police, Correa said. Therefore, an officer’s ability to do the job is based on “how far citizens want to go.”

He also said police “mess with people” because they know who belong in their areas.

An officer is on the street every day and if he or she doesn’t recognize someone, that person is might get questioned, he added.

Sometimes an officer will tag someone with a minor violation in order to build a case history on a person they suspect of bigger crimes, Correa said.

But it often seems like things never change.

“It’s a little frustrating when you go on calls on a beat and it’s the same calls and the same people,” he said.

Cops get “fed up” with the lack of progress.

“We’re human,” Correa said. That is the hardest thing to understand. “Officers react to citizens,” he said.

And “when the adrenaline is flowing,” cops react in their own way, he added.

“(Officers) don’t want to back down because (they) are the authority figure,” he said.

He said often he is just trying to make the best decisions in a high-pressure situation.

So secretly flip him the bird. Complain about his service. He’ll still come running when someone needs help.

And he’ll never call himself a hero. After all, he only does what the rest of the world does everyday: He goes to work.