MENU
SEARCH
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.
Once while attending a force training seminar, I spoke quite critically of a deputy-involved shooting wherein a pregnant bystander was shot and killed. It was the kind of thing that was easy to grandstand on—or so I thought—and so I did. A lieutenant who was more intimately acquainted with the details of the incident quickly set me straight. The dressing down I received was pretty severe, and I didn't like it one bit. But I had it coming. In spades.
Read More →
Previously, POLICE Magazine shared some things that dispatchers always wanted officers to know. This time, the shoe is on the other foot, and we allow field units to give dispatchers some advice.
Read More →
As I aimed the barrel of my revolver at the dog's head I also took note that while its head was on this side of the screen door, its body was on the other. By applying pressure to the screen door I allowed the dog to decide whether or not to release its 235-psi bite volitionally, or ballistically.
Read More →
A domestic. Despite the shorthand, Officer Brad Jerome of the Bismarck (N.D.) Police Department knew such calls usually portended something decidedly undomestic, and the fact that this one was in a trailer park on the eastern part of town only raised the odds.
Read More →
I would hope that the next officer who finds himself dealing with three street punks will be armed, and I mean truly "armed" with more than just a gun or a TASER. By that I mean that I hope he or she is armed with a special kind of survival mindset.
Read More →
If it is true that fortune favors the prepared, then it makes sense for law enforcement to have as much prior contingency planning in place as possible. There are several things patrol personnel can do in the absence of otherwise readily available protocol.
Read More →
There are those occasions when the fates bestow upon even an experienced officer something that he or she has not been previously exposed to and he or she has no idea of how to handle.
Read More →
"End of Watch" is from start to finish undeniably entertaining, and on those occasions when it is on tactically and procedurally sound footing, it transcends any other patrol-oriented film I have ever seen.
Read More →
If given the opportunity to make a difference in people's lives, are you more apt to toss a lifeline or an anchor?
Read More →
The dawn of the contemporary female officer came in 1972. It was a moment in time where law enforcement's and the public's attitude toward women with badges began to change and female officers began to be perceived as "real police."
Read More →