Articles - Careers & Training

The door of the unmarked unit swung open and a giant of a man pulled himself out of the car. His humor and informal leadership skills made him not only our favorite instructor but the one who we all hoped to become.

Policing isn't like eHarmony.com. Recruits and field training officers won't be matched based on 29 personality dimensions guaranteed to predict long-term relationship success.

Testifying might be unfamiliar territory, but a few tips can make it less painful.

Find a law enforcement agency that fits your personality and job expectations.

When teaching defensive tactics, simple is better. If you can't execute a technique automatically under stress, it won't do you any good. In fact, it could get you killed. These techniques could save you.

You can expect to be put through the ringer and served up some humble pie, but a police department is not a college fraternity.

Much of what I learned in basic academy in the late 1960s is no longer good law. If I were still operating on the basis of 40-year-old understandings, I wouldn't be very effective.

If you are always on a range with yardage marked and you're standing in a perfect stance out in the open, stop it!

My pager went off one afternoon a few months later. It was Andy and he seemed to be upset. He had gone to see a Marine recruiter and was told that because of his past run-ins with the law, he wouldn't even make it past the interview stage.

Whenever someone asks what they should do in this or that situation, I am usually comfortable telling them I am not real sure what they should do. But there's one thing I'm certain about: What they shouldn't do, since I've probably already done it!