Patrol: Page 48

Sitting on Your Ass Can Get It Buried

When you've compromised your body through fatty foods, aspartame, caffeinated sodas, sugar, chocolate, and other crap, you can only hope that somehow things will get incrementally better just as they'd gotten incrementally worse in the first place.

Be On the Lookout for Loners

Take parks for instance. The lone male may be there to 1) buy his dope, 2) do his dope, 3) sell his dope, 4) drink his beer, or 5) relieve some sexual tension.

A Crappy Job of Parenting

I have had parents tell me to discipline their kids, yell at them, take them to jail, and lock them up. One asked to borrow my service revolver.

Your Role in Homeland Security

The arrests of Oklahoma Bomber Tim McVeigh and abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph were affected by street cops, and more than one routine check at a Canadian border checkpoint has averted more stateside terrorist attacks.

Stacking the Jury

Each prospective juror has to answer seven standard questions: name, marital status, etc. The only two that strike me as concerns for exclusion are type of work and whether or not we’ve been a victim of a crime.

PC Collateral Damage

Much has been made of the educational opportunities afforded by the Gates incident. But it really shows, once again, just how conditioned we have become to tolerating acts of idiocy

Knock on Any Door (Except Mine)

I understand full well how unnerving it can be to see cops parking their patrol cars on and around your property and atop your cat—especially if you haven’t called them. The imagination starts working in overdrive and pretty soon you’re convinced that these badged brethren are going to be the bearers of bad tidings or at the very least the neighbors will think you’ve been beating your wife or molesting your dog.

How to Give and Receive 'Assistance'

One of my training officers started to search a car one night so that all I could see of him was his feet dangling out the passenger side door as he snooped beneath the seat. Looking at the ID of one of the detainees, I happened to read the man’s name aloud. Upon hearing the name, my t.o. hurriedly got out.

Explosive Situations

At the City of Industry (Calif.) Sheriff’s Station, we had one deputy actually transport a grenade in the trunk of his patrol car before parking in the station parking lot. Once the grenade was discovered, it was left in the trunk of the deputy’s patrol car and the parking area was immediately taped off pending the response of the Arson/Explosives Detail. Our watch commander was livid and for good reason: The deputy had parked right next to her new Corvette.

Perverts, Police, and Priorities

Clearly, even though he was a talented musician, singer, dancer, and performer, Jackson’s passing and the nation’s reaction to it is another example of our subverted priorities. Now here’s an example of someone who should be memorialized with every honor this country can give instead of MJ.

Help Wanted

It has been largely left to the individual officer to somehow come to terms with his career decisions and its eventualities. To recognize its impact on him or her and find some manner to come to terms with it—or not.

Stupid Policies Are Costing Us on Multiple Fronts

Without further ado, here are some of my major reservations about modern law enforcement policies.

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