Community for Cops
Active and retired officers offer straight talk to officers and deputies working the urban and rural beats of this country.
It's easy to look at the landscape of public opinion in America and come to the conclusion that the majority of people in the United States despise the police. However, the vitriolic anti-police sentiment demonstrated by a small number of the public, the press, and the political class is not an accurate reflection of how the majority of Americans feel about their law enforcement officers.
Following the murder of Corporal Ronil Singh, elected officials and law enforcement leaders across California are pointing to legislation friendly to illegal immigrants as the reason an illegal immigrant was able to murder the officer in cold blood.
Despite downward numbers of recruits seeking to join the ranks of law enforcement and increasing indications of de-policing across the country, we can—if we look hard enough—find countless bright spots for American policing in 2018.
Officer safety is obviously paramount—and should never be jeopardized by allowing a potentially dangerous subject who should be handcuffed to retain use of their hands—but weigh into your tactics the fact that communicating with a deaf subject who is handcuffed becomes significantly more difficult.
Elected officials' underlying goal of getting re-elected directly impacts how these politicians interact with their police departments in setting department policy.
Foot patrol is the essence of community policing—officers on foot create opportunities for the public to connect with their police (and vice versa). Conversely, when officers are wrapped in two tons of metal and plastic, that opportunity for real connection is essentially lost.
Too many officers are driving themselves into their graves—turning their cars into their coffins—in single-vehicle crashes. According to ODMP, there were 34 such preventable duty deaths in a three-year span from 2016 to the present. It's impossible to know how many officers were seriously injured but survived single-vehicle crashes during that time period. Something must be done.
While empirical data doesn't exist—at least to my knowledge—on lost productivity due to injuries sustained during foot pursuits, anecdotal evidence suggests that medical leave following such activities is significant enough to give some thought to the matter.
There is certainly benefit to being current on events involving the people you consider family—your brothers and sisters across the country with whom you share a special bond—as well as the world at large. However, it's also important—and extremely beneficial—to spend some time completely disconnected from the job. This is a lesson I recently re-learned.
I've talked with officers who have lost a colleague to suicide—as well as many widows of officers who died by suicide—and just about everyone has said that the warning signs were there before tragedy struck. They just didn't put the pieces together until it was too late. Let's all do a better job of helping officers in crisis.
