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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.
There is no shortage of inducements to work specialized units. Cool tools, flexible schedules, prestige, and the ability to work at something one is truly interested in are but a few of the perks.
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Sometimes you can use finesse to gain compliance and stop a situation from escalating into violence.
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On Easter Sunday 1998, I was injured when a suspect ambushed another deputy and myself with an AK-47. In the shooting's aftermath, I considered how I owed my survival to formal and informal training that others had given me.
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Several recent 911-related misadventures are currently making their way through the courts. One where a five-year-old dialed 911 for his mother who had collapsed, only to be chastised for "playing with the phone" while his mother died; another where a 37-year-old woman choked to death while veteran 911 workers refused to assist a trainee with the call. Upon hearing of her death, one of these employees was heard to comment, "I guess she bit off more than she could chew."
Read More →I wasn't the only one out there that day faking my way through firearms training.
Read More →Going in foot pursuit of some fleet-footed felon is a popular rite of passage for cops. As if the natural dangers of heading off some dirtbag’s escape route weren’t dangerous enough, add unfamiliar territory and conditions of darkness, and you’ve got pretty good odds of ending up in full body traction.
Read More →Sometimes concerns beyond the scope of the incident at hand can make an officer hesitate when his or her life or the lives of the innocent public are at risk.
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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.
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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.
Read More →There’s not enough underpaid mental health professionals to go around, and family members eventually reach their own breaking points. This leaves society’s de facto field shrinks—that’s you, my brothers and sisters—to deal with those who spend more time listening to the voices inside their head than they do voices of reason.
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