All Together Now

We’ve just finished up the first bit of curriculum regarding cultural diversity.  My opinion is that if you take a corn-fed white boy from the rural northeast and make him sit through hours and hours of classroom diversity training, he will be no more culturally aware than before he started.  You need to actually get into a culture in order to become aware of it.

The Academy has been doing a good job of getting us some real interaction with local cultural leaders.  I value this more than a million PowerPoints on the subject.  The advice of these people is often similar – be a member of the community which you police; spend time on your beat outside of your uniform; be more human and less robotic.

Local black leaders have been very candid with us about the baggage that exists in the black community against police officers, which has a very long history.  This animosity is there the moment a rookie cop hits the street, and the only way the situation will improve is if police officers earn back a community’s respect.

One guy, exactly my age, was brought into the class to talk with us and had a very insightful point.  Police in many U.S. cities are shipped in from the suburbs to police dense urban areas.  These police officers are by default authority figures in communities where they are complete outsiders, and this dynamic leads to problems.  Imagine one of the innumerable predominately white communities having an almost completely black police force – the same would likely apply.

Details

So today we did our first handcuffing training session, the first “hands-on” police training we’ve done. Today was also the first time we wore our Academy-issued duty belts. The variety of configurations around the room was astonishing. Some folks decided they didn’t need “keeper clips” to attach the duty belt to their pants, and others figured that since they had a duty belt it wasn’t necessary to wear their regular belt. As is typical with our class, the lessons to be learned were in abundance.

The act of handcuffing is one of those things which “police enthusiasts” such as myself have seen many times on T.V. shows, and thus initially it doesn’t seem like a tremendously laborious task to learn. Such is not the case. After managing to accidentally attach my handcuffs to my own wrist shortly after roll call, I realized that there was going to be more to it than met the eye.

There are many different methods for actually attaching cuffs to wrists, and if you asked 10 cops about the right way to cuff people you might get 10 different answers, but today we focused on one particular technique and spent a good deal of time on the other issues. Some examples: putting yourself in a position of advantage before even taking your cuffs out, gaining control of the subject from the moment of first touch, keeping enough distance from the subject to avoid being “inside” where he can exert the most power against you, and all this assuming the subject is being initially compliant. We made the barest of beginnings today, but it felt pretty good overall.

CYA at Its Finest

In 1991, David Simon wrote a book called Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, which has become my latest project. Simon spent a year with Baltimore’s Homicide investigation unit and came away with a masterful piece of story-telling that I have only just begun and am already enjoying immensely. Here’s an observation he made 17 years ago regarding the changing nature of Police Use of Force:

A quarter century ago, an American law officer could fire his weapon without worrying whether the entrance wound would be anterior or posterior. Now, the risk of civil liability and possible criminal prosecution settles on a cop every time he un-holsters a weapon, and what could once be justified by an earlier generation of patrolmen is now enough of get the next generation indicted.

This painfully brings to mind the plight of the Utah State Trooper who is being sued for using his Taser on a civilian motorist during a traffic stop. For the record, I do not believe that the Trooper’s use of the Taser in the matter at hand was necessary. However, I further do not believe that fact alone entitles the complainant Mr. Massey to what will doubtless prove to be godless sums of money in punitive damages at the Trooper’s expense. The Police should be held accountable for their actions, but people like Massey put undue strain not only on governmental budgets but also on the consciences and decision-making processes of officers in potentially life-threatening situations.

The Shining

Just over a week into the Academy and I’ve learned that shining a pair of boots takes quite a bit of work.  Layer after layer after layer of polish, seemingly without end, are applied to the leather of the previously-ok-looking (to a normal person) boot in quest of the ultimate goal: my own reflection.  I’ve decided to work on my boots bit by bit, doing a few dozen layers each night rather than sitting for three hours in a row (which, outside of class and work, I just don’t have).  Having been marked off on the first inspection for not having shined boots, it is my goal to have boots that are so shiny they’ll make the squad leader’s head hurt.

Get Out the Tar and Feathers, Boys

I thought I’d weigh in on the story about the police chief that was fired after being caught stealing beer from the fire department’s refrigerator. In the town of Wilson, Kansas, the police and fire department actually share a building. Someone noticed beer going missing from the FD fridge, and set up a hidden camera.

Busted!

Never mind the fact that there was apparently a regular supply of alcoholic beverage on the premises of a public safety headquarters. Were I the officials of the town of Wilson, my response to this incident would probably be, “Hey Chief, knock it off huh? Go get your own beer.” Instead this guy gets arrested, convicted of misdemeanor larceny, then loses his job. No, taking the fire department’s beer wasn’t the right thing to do. It’s theft, after all. But it’s not like the chief was grabbing 24-packs and bolting for the door of the local Stop’n'Rob.

A Word on Gratuities

The subject of police gratuities is nigh-universal in the experience of American law enforcement.  You hear about it in the news, you hear about during the academy, you hear about it during departmental in-service training, you hear about it your entire career.  I will attempt to break it down.

There are four levels of gratuities with which the police around the world come into contact.  The first is huge payoffs to corrupt, top-level police administrators by groups intending to influence police activity in their favor.  An example would be Mafia bribes, drug lords in Central America, that type of thing.  The second is small amounts of money passed to officers on an individual basis with the intent of influencing police activity – the famous “$20 bill clipped to the back of the driver license”.  We can agree that such interaction is corrupt and wrong without further discussion.

The third level of gratuity is insignificant, indirect courtesies given with the intent of influencing police activity.  For instance, a certain 24-hour corner store makes police officers aware that they can have free coffee, any time of the day.  The goal here is to increase police presence on the premises.  The offers of free coffee, free fast-food meals, half-off this, free that, is a pervasive reality of American policing which is universally condemned by departmental regulations.  Despite this, such “minor” gratuities are just as universally accepted daily by officers on duty.

So what’s the deal?  Are these third-level gratuities wrong?  Does accepting them compromise an officer’s integrity?  Why is it that the vast majority of police departments do almost nothing to enforce their anti-gratuity regulations?

My opinion is that an officer should abide by the regulations of the department they serve.  Pay for your coffee, pay for your meals, obviously keep the $20 clipped to the license (and max them out on any possible citations for attempting to bribe the police).  Is it morally wrong to accept a free meal?  No.  Are there good reasons for not doing so, and hence good reasons for such policies regulating these gratuities?  Definitely yes.  I believe that if an officer expects to have the integrity to deal with major matters, he/she ought first to have the integrity to deal with minor matters.

Easier said than done, perhaps, but that’s life, innit?

Oh yes, the fourth level of gratuity.  Level Four consists of small courtesies which are tokens of actual gratitude, often of only sentimental value, from citizens who appreciate the work that police and other first responders do – this level looks much like level three, but lacks any intent to influence.

Beyond Academics

I have successfully made it through the first three days of Police Academy.  My first impressions are very positive; the instructors so far have been excellent, and I survived the first PT class.  On the first day we were issued a big pile of cool stuff including a full duty belt.  You’d be amazed how long it took me to get my 20-year old sister into handcuffs that evening.  I definitely need some practice there.

Yesterday was very interesting.  PT pushed me to my limit; I used up a lot of willpower in order to get through it.  I am definitely in the bottom 20% or so in terms of physical conditioning, thanks to my lazy computer nerd days.  Always good to have room for improvement.

I also managed to leave my uniform belt at home, and foolishly decided to attempt to retrieve it in between PT and class.  After much running through the facilities, duty bag in hand, I got to the classroom about 30 seconds after roll was called, making me the first tardy recruit of the squad.  I suppose it had to happen to somebody, and it might as well be me.  So it was a big day of firsts, and hopefully some lasts.

Animal Controlled

It looks like police, especially those in Kinder, Louisiana, have finally gotten sick of pit bulls. This should come as no surprise, and I personally have never had much love for pit bulls. Pit bulls are almost like Africanized bees; it’s a mistake of a breed that is completely faulty, and it’s easy to tell.

What’s the point of these things, really? If you want a guard dog, get a gorgeous German Shepherd.

What I love about the Kinder, La. story is the part about the animal control officer being trapped on her vehicle by a pit bull. You know the pit bull population is out of control when rogue pit bulls are trapping animal control officers on vehicles, but isn’t that why we have animal control officers in the first place? Looks like it’s time for the citizens of Kinder to pony up for an Animal Control SWAT team. I’m reminded of what Conlon said in his book about NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit: “When a cop needs a cop, he calls ESU.”

One Down

New Jersey rejoiced today as one of two recently escaped inmates was recaptured.

No place like home.

You’ll recall that these escapees were the ones who got out through a hole they chipped in the wall which they cleverly concealed with a poster. Well done, N.J. Law Enforcement! Keep up the good work.

This is Why We Have Academies

It’s one thing for kids (like myself) to admire the police and want to work in Law Enforcement. It’s another thing to dress up as Sheriff’s Deputies and conduct traffic stops. This kind of stuff actually happens with regularity, in one form or another. Usually the impersonators are up to no good, but it seems in this case that these kids were genuinely trying to enforce the law.

I’m hoping that somebody somewhere really failed in educating these youngsters, because why else would kids (who seem to be so preoccupied with public safety) not know by their late teens that impersonating police officers is a crime? Not only that, but why weren’t they taught that normal people in general don’t just go about pretending to be something they aren’t? Hopefully this was just a crime of ignorant enthusiasm rather than a premeditated impersonation.