No Word Bank This Time

I read a cool article today on PoliceOne about Use of Force; it’s basically a 10-question, true or false quiz on the topic. I found myself involuntarily reading the questions and marking down answers. As a warning to Across-the-ponders, the test is written in the context of U.S. Law Enforcement which of course depends heavily on the Constitution. Thusly the test might not be quite as relevant to such as do not find themselves ruled by said venerable body of law. At any rate, I had fun with it, and you no doubt will do the same. Click here to take the test.

I got a 70%, which of course means I passed. One of my favorite quotes from Undergrad was “C’s get degrees”, and the fact is that truer words were never spoken. But I digress. The questions I miffed on were 1, 2, and 7. I won’t discuss the answers in this post so as not to give any unfair advantage to folks who should want to give the test a go for themselves.

Reflections

Two months down. A successful two months by any standard. My perspective on the world of Law Enforcement has changed considerably since the pre-Academy days, mostly because I have begun realizing what it must take to do the job well. The two best parts so far would have to be the physical training and my internship.

Physical training has taught me how to push myself to do things that both my body and mind don’t want to do. It’s also partially been about overcoming obstacles. I ran two miles without taping my foot this past Saturday, which to me was a big deal as I’ve been taping the thing since the beginning of the year. No problem there, so that’s one scare behind me. However, last Tuesday I came away from PT with a sharp pain on the side of my leg right by the knee – and it didn’t go away. Looks like it could be a muscle pull or even a tear. So the hurdles just keep coming.

I’m interning at the local Sheriff’s Department. Interning basically means doing lots of ride-alongs in addition to observing some of the other units doing their job. Ride-alongs are a special thing for me. I never find myself so intimidated as when I show up for a ride-along. Imagine a police recruit that nobody knows from Adam, and a police officer who is usually a 6-10 year veteran is going to be stuck with him in a squad car for the next 12 hours. I always feel at the start of a shift that I am quite out of place; intruding into a world where I haven’t yet earned the right to be, in some sense.

Ride-alongs in my area often involve long periods of inactivity. Some officers will fill this time with proactive stuff like lots of traffic stops and other what-not. Usually all will make mention at some point about how they’re sorry it was so slow and boring, and how it’s not usually that way, and so on. To me, traffic stops and even just patrolling an area is exciting. An officer will go on at length about some inter-departmental drama and how it’s affecting everybody, then they’ll feel bad about dumping on you. As someone wanting to eventually be in their place, I highly value that kind of interaction because it reinforces the lesson that the police are real people, not just a big collection of emotionless stoics.

Deer in the Headlights

The snow started to come down thick and heavy as the cruiser rolled to a slow stop. The officer noticed two figures shuffling in between the vehicles, realizing that they didn’t belong in the parking lot.

Baker 5, I’ll be out with two.

The officer and his partner approached them; a middle-aged woman and teenage boy, both looking guilty as sin. They stood sandwiched by parked cars of all description. He started asking the woman questions; her name, her address, her date of birth. Her answers were all rather dubious. Ma’am, are you SURE you were born in 1934? The boy was her son, she said. The car next to her was also hers, she said. She was in the parking lot waiting for a friend. The officer kept asking questions; soon he ran out of them. Meanwhile, the woman and the boy continued to meander in and out of the parked cars. “What else can I possibly ask her?” he wondered to himself as he followed the two around, occasionally glancing woefully at his partner who glanced just as woefully back at him. His notepad had become damp from the snow, and his ballpoint had ceased to function entirely.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration came upon him. He retreated from the maze of vehicles, leaving his partner to hold down the fort while he took care of business with the dispatcher.

Baker 5, file-check! First of, uh, rather last of Juju, that’s um, J-Juliette… ah…

He finally got through the file check, but the airwaves offered no help. He tried again with the license plate of the car claimed by the woman and again was met with silence. Jumping back into the fray, the officer prodded the woman for information about the car. She circled around the vehicle in question, reading bumper-stickers in an attempt to sound knowledgeable about the thing. A light-bulb went on in the officer’s head. I bet it’s not her car! Ask for her keys! He did so. The car was dead, she told him. Emboldened by her unwillingness, the officer decided it was time to act. He was too late.

The woman casually strolled towards the cruiser. Following her, the officer yelled, “Hey, you can’t go in there, ma’am!” Undaunted, the woman hopped in the driver’s seat and began rolling toward the now-helpless officer.

Baker 5, um, I need backup to my location! 10-39!

And so the recruit’s first scenario came to a close.

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.

Just Do It

Being the idealistic, starry-eyed police recruit that I am, I get up at 6am every day to go running in preparation for the Academy. This is not just so that I can endure the months and months of PT coming up, but also because I believe that it’s important for police officers to take care of their bodies. Chalk that up to my youthful exuberance and lack of experience if you want, but I would wager that most out-of-shape cops would grudgingly agree that they “oughta be” doing something similar but just don’t have the time these days. 20-30 minutes a day of some kind of cardiovascular exercise can make a huge difference, and I personally think that departments should either require it or at least offer legitimate incentives for those who do it.

The lack of a continuing physical training requirement in the vast majority of U.S. departments has always puzzled me somewhat. Nearly every police academy will run the crap out of its recruits, which would lead most people to believe that being in top physical condition is important for the job. Start talking to officers with enough years of experience, though, and they’ll tell you that it’s not that important after all. Out-of-shape officers can still be very good ones. So much of policing has nothing to do with how far or how fast you can run that in reality one’s level of athleticism seems insignificant.

The real benefit of continuing physical requirements isn’t just to help officers do their job. It’s to help officers in their general well-being and healthiness. Being healthy improves your quality of life, which means on the job and off the job. It’s proven that you feel better, think more clearly, are happier, and have more energy when your body is in good shape than when it’s not. Most patrol work in my region of the world is tough on the body because you don’t get much sleep (12 hour shifts are the latest fad), your eating habits are terrible, and you spend many hours a day on your butt just driving around. With that in mind, the dividends of staying healthy out-weigh what it would cost you to make time for exercising every day.