End of Year: Seeing 2020 in Hindsight
Looking one more time at the highs and lows of the year that was… 2020 and seeing perhaps more clearly today than on those days that comprised the year.
December 31, 2020
Looking one more time at the highs and lows of the year that was… 2020 and seeing perhaps more clearly today than on those days that comprised the year.
December 31, 2020
The holidays offer myriad opportunities for officers to interact with the public in a positive and inspirational way. However, the season also holds the same perils officers face during the rest of the year—and potentially some heightened dangers due to holiday revelry and winter weather. Here's a quick recap of some of the things to watch out for.
December 20, 2019
A well-managed reserve officer program can enhance an agency's ability to serve the community and to better connect with the community—the key words being "well-managed."
November 29, 2019
A Citizens Police Academy has the potential—when well planned and well executed—to positively impact police-community relations. Here are a couple of observations I've had in attending a handful of CPAs.
November 22, 2019
Veterans of America's military tend to make excellent police officers—they have baked into their very being a commitment to service, an unusually high level of discipline, an understanding of chain-of-command, and other qualities that police officers also share.
November 8, 2019
Elected leaders and those seeking election routinely make statements—and enact policies—that put police officers in difficult positions at best and in danger at worst.
November 1, 2019
Several news items in the past couple of weeks clearly demonstrate two trends we've known for years to exist—that police supporters do exist, and where police are not supported, policing suffers.
August 30, 2019
Acts of heroism happen all the time in big cities and small communities alike. Officers with departments of all sizes rise to the occasion on a daily basis to ensure the health and welfare of the civilians they serve.
July 19, 2019
The blowback on Facebook against Starbucks was especially vitriolic, leading an outside observer to conclude that mistreatment of law enforcement officers in the company's stores is a pervasive problem (spoiler alert: it's not).
July 12, 2019
An organization recently made available to the media a significant database of social media posts—that they deem to be potentially offensive—from thousands of officers from places such as Philadelphia, Dallas, Phoenix, St. Louis, and elsewhere. Internal investigations have been launched at several of those agencies. Here's why cops need to use social media cautiously.
June 14, 2019
This week's column is about my deep appreciation for the family of the Thin Blue Line allowing me—a civilian scribe from a city and state not well known for supporting police—to be your adopted brother.
June 7, 2019
During this one extraordinary week you will experience every emotion. In one moment you might be laughing with a group of cops and then mere moments later crying with one guy or gal who is overwhelmed with grief.
May 16, 2019
More than two years ago, Matt and Nikki Javit took a break from their careers to travel the world and along the way in their journey they captured the pride and honor of police officers in dozens of countries.
April 5, 2019
Many police departments have a pop-up tent, a folding table, and a bunch of knick-knacks with the department badge or logo to give away during street festivals and other events. This is a very passive recruitment tool, and arguably a giant waste of time and resources. Where the real recruitment opportunities exist are in the day-to-day contact between young people and the police officers who serve their communities.
September 21, 2018
When the Fort Worth (TX) Police Department proactively invited their local media to a press conference to show the dash- and body-worn camera footage of a recent incident in which two officers rescued a suicidal woman who was standing precariously atop the safety barrier on a very high highway bridge — and allow their officers to answer questions and talk about their experiences on that day — I was very pleased indeed.
August 31, 2018