Police Magazine

Dean Scoville

Associate Editor

Former associate editor of Police Magazine and a retired patrol supervisor and investigator with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Sgt. Dean Scoville has received multiple awards for government service. He was the author of Shots Fired, Police Magazine's monthly column examining officer-involved shootings as experienced by the officers themselves.

Inside the Badge •by Dean Scoville•April 24, 2009

Could Your Vehicle Approach Get You Killed?

If an officer or his vehicle is immobilized because of haphazard parking on a hot call, other officers can effectively become trapped inside the kill zone because of an inability to back up or accelerate forward due to the incapacitated patrol unit.

Inside the Badge •by Dean Scoville•April 17, 2009

The Hazards of “Low Risk” Calls

Annoying, "routine" calls can sometimes have significant consequences for the officers that respond to them.

Articles•by Dean Scoville•April 17, 2009

Shots Fired: Falls Church, Virginia 01•21•1999

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as though the very air about him suddenly became ionized with some ill-defined threat. The officer couldn't suppress the sensation that something was terribly wrong.

Inside the Badge •by Dean Scoville•April 10, 2009

Secure and Insecure Cops

Few things are more rewarding in one’s career than the opportunity to work among the quietly self-assured. Few things are more depressing than having to work around the desperately insecure.

Inside the Badge •by Dean Scoville•April 3, 2009

What I Learned at TREXPO West

At first blush, one would be hard pressed to connect the dots between that Michael Keaton clunker of a film "Multiplicity" and TREXPO. Nonetheless, I found myself thinking of the cloning comedy throughout the three-day training conference and expo because if there's one frustrating thing about TREXPO WEST, it's one's inability to be at multiple places at once.

Articles•by Dean Scoville•April 1, 2009

Staph: The Hidden Training Hazard

Responsible for 18,650 deaths nationwide a year—150 percent as many deaths as caused by AIDS—the monster is microscopic, extremely aggressive, and damned difficult to kill. The monster is a microbe called Staphylococcus.

Inside the Badge •by Dean Scoville•March 27, 2009

You Can Get Killed Just Because of Your Uniform

The idea of targeting cops is hardly a new one. Indeed, it may have reached its apex during the late sixties and early seventies with the advent of counter culture revolutionary groups such as the Weathermen, Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army.

Inside the Badge •by Dean Scoville•March 20, 2009