April 2008 Issue

Tactical consultant John Giduck used a lot of humor in his six-hour two-day keynote presentation at TREXPO West. And that's a good thing because Giduck's presentation is about Islamist terror attacks on children, especially school children. So if his audience of veteran cops and soldiers didn't have some comic relief, they'd probably start crying.

The first bout featured Dave "Knockout" Apodaca of the LASD vs. Dustin "The Nosebleeder" Ciscel of the Anaheim Police Department. In the second fight, Armando "The Hitman" Guzman of LASD squared off against George "The Argentinian Olympian" Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department. And in the final contest Mike "Machete" Giacoletti of the Orange County Sheriff's Department battled Carlos "Chupacabra" Navarro, a special agent with the FBI.

Both TREXPO's roots and its evolving focus were both evident in the product offerings at the West Coast edition of the conference held Feb. 19–22 in Long Beach, Calif. On the show floor of the Long Beach Convention Center, several new products made their debut and several others made their TREXPO debut.

For the first time, TREXPO conference attendees were offered the chance to earn POST credit for attending a wide variety of hands-on and classroom lecture TREXPO conference sessions.

Managing the rising costs of police fleets is a challenge that all law enforcement agencies are facing. Fortunately, there are technologies available to help fleet managers better manage these costs and save their departments thousands of dollars annually.

Frightening, instructional, oftentimes inspirational, and even entertaining videos come to us via a variety of dashboard cameras mounted inside America's law enforcement patrol vehicles.

It started with a gunfight. Almost 40 years ago a former Marine named Richard Davis was delivering a pizza in downtown Detroit when three men tried to rob him at gunpoint. As he recovered from his wounds, Davis realized the need for lightweight body armor that could be worn by law enforcement officers in the field.

"My brother told me, 'If you want everyone to love you, join the fire department. If you want half the people to love you but half the people to hate you, go ahead and be on the police department.'" — Officer Michael Pecha, Omaha (Neb.) Police Department.

Last Month Utah paid a lawyer and his client $40,000. The lawyer represented Jared Massey, a 20-something-year-old Vernal resident. Massey's cause of action was that a state trooper named Jon Gardner had used excessive force and thereby violated his civil rights by shocking him twice with a TASER during a Sept. 14 traffic stop.

Each of us who wears a badge and a gun gets to live a real-life monster movie.

I was really impressed with the 9mm model of the PPS. Its captive dual recoil spring and excellent ergonomics combine to make an extremely soft shooting pistol. In fact, it's the softest shooting subcompact pistol that I have ever tested.

From its aggressive outsole to its waterproof heavy-duty 1,200-denier nylon upper, this boot is built to tackle the worst conditions a call-out can throw your way.

As you read this, one of your fellow officers may be bleeding out from an extremity wound. She may have been shot or stabbed by a dirtbag. Or just as likely, he is pinned in a smashed car while rescue personnel desperately try to get to him and render care. Either way, he or she only has minutes to live.

The two detectives hurriedly exited Schmidt's truck and made a stealthy approach to the apartment complex. If spotted by the suspects, there would be little mistaking the significance of the word POLICE on the back in white letters.

Perhaps the most prominent use of the Kubotan is to apply crushing force against bone, joints, and/or muscle. A simple rule of thumb: Most pressure point control training that you learned to perform in the academy with your fingers can be performed much more effectively with a Kubotan.

Just because a prosecutor declines to file or a grand jury declines to indict does not necessarily mean there has been a bad arrest. Proving guilt in a criminal trial requires the prosecutor to meet a much higher burden than the arresting officers, by proving the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.