I understand why people ask for a supervisor. Sometimes they think the officer is wrong. Sometimes they don’t trust what they’re being told. Sometimes they think another officer will see it differently. And sometimes they’ve watched enough videos online to think asking for a supervisor is the police version of speaking to the manager, where…
I’ve had officers ask me why they need to write a use-of-force report when everybody already knows the force was justified. Nobody complained. Nobody got hurt. Maybe it was nothing more than a two-second grab to get somebody under control. Why write several paragraphs about it? Because six months from now, “everybody knows what happened”…
If somebody has been doing the job for twenty years, I expect them to know things a new officer simply hasn’t had time to learn yet. They’ve seen calls go sideways, watched people react under pressure, learned which details matter, and probably made enough mistakes of their own to recognize a few before they happen…
When somebody really needs the police, there’s a good chance they’re already having a bad day. They may be scared, angry, confused, or worried about somebody they care about. That’s a terrible time for me to discover that the first relationship we’re trying to build with them is happening in the middle of a crisis….
If you only see the blue lights, you’re only seeing a small part of the day in a small police department. From the outside, quiet can look like we’re sitting around waiting for something to happen. From my side of the desk, it usually means I finally have time to work on everything the last…
You see something happening in your neighborhood, call the police, and explain the problem. An officer comes out, talks to a few people, and leaves without arresting anyone. From your side, it may look like nothing happened. Sometimes the officer could have explained the response better. But there are also times when we know something…
The first time I went through the police academy was in 1998. On January 19, I’ll start all over again. Because I’ve been out of law enforcement for more than 15 years, my Alabama certification is no longer active, so I have to complete the whole academy. There isn’t a shortened version based on the…