Blog - Recruit

My old police academy was near a large mall. Of course, the food court was a lunch hangout for the officers. I used to sit there with a coffee and spot all of the off-duty rookies. Bet I can spot one a mile away.

The other day I stopped and performed a visual inventory of just how many "things" officers can carry on their duty belt. There are times I worry that some have too much on their belts. One worries if they fall on their backs, they could be trapped like a turtle.

Don't get your feelings hurt, but if you think your FTO won't mark up your first police report until it's bleeding red ink you're in for a surprise.

Being a police officer is not always about chasing down a bad guy, guns blazing. If you remove an intoxicated or aggressive driver from the highway, you have performed a social service to the motoring public.

Try though they do, the academy does not have a vial of "essence of dead man" to give you the full effect. So what do you do?

A recruit should not feel pressured into doing something that he or she has made a cognitive decision not to do, just for the sake of inclusion.

I don't know why, but every generation of young officers thinks, "I am now a copper! I have the legal authority and power to carry a weapon off-duty, so here I go!" Wait a minute here; do you have a plan?

Most officers wish they had spent more time learning interpersonal communications skills early in their career. I suggest you get started now.

If you do your job you will get plenty of complaints and only rarely receive compliments; these are the realities of policework. But how you handle or survive these unpleasantries of life is what is important here.

I don't know what it is but if you ever hear someone say, "Hey, watch me do this," a first aid kit is usually called for next.