“Leave it to the cops, eh?” in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own. “Leave it to the cops to clean up the world’s s^%$, and vomit, and blood. Keep your own hands clean. Just as long as you don’t know what they’re doing!”New York Police Captain Edward X Delaney
The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders
I’ve been wearing a badge and uniform for almost a quarter century. I spent almost a third of that time involved with field training new officers. Field training, in laymen’s terms, is formally pairing a rookie with an experienced officer in a second training program, i.e. after the academy. The Field Trainer’s mission is to teach the rookie how to take what he was taught in class and use it on the streets.
The Houston Police Academy stole their Honor Code from the United States Military Academy. “We will not lie, steal, or cheat, or tolerate those who do.” I asked a friend on academy staff, “You really teach them that?” He said yes, and I responded, “Well, field training, we’ll teach them the real world.”
We both laughed, but training police, like soldiers, is both standardized and improvised, and continual. Law changes over the year, new weapons are developed and fielded, the mission of the police has expanded (e.g., handing people in mental crisis, riots). And as it has changed in the past, it will change in the future.
Some things, however, will never change. One of which is we, the police, enforce the law, bring order to chaos, and assistance and protection to people in their worse moments. We keep people from doing things that we, as a society, have said you cannot do, such as having a riot when you don’t get paid on time (Been there, and thank God a 12-gauge Remington makes an impression as it’s being racked.)
And impressions are a lot. When I was a field trainer, on day one I would take them to a Starbucks and explain what I expected from them. One of the points I emphasized to these new cops was something not in the book. Assertiveness.
A cop arrives on a scene, it may be a simple accident, no one is upset, the two thirty something year old drivers have already exchanged information and agreed on who is a fault. Or a 23-year-old woman is there, crying, hysterical, and a 50-year-old man is trying to answer for her every time I ask a question. Dad has arrived.
This leads to a simple question from me, “Sir, are you the driver? No. Fine, please walk over there and do not hinder my investigation anymore.” Occasionally dad is not inclined, and I have to be more forceful, “Sir, you will either stand by your car, or you will have a seat in the back of mine.”
Impolite? Yes, to a degree. And I understand a parent wanting to ensure their kids are not screwed over. However, no matter what the situation, there is one person in charge. And I’ve told more than one rookie officer, “If that person is not you, we have a major problem.”
An officer arrives on a scene and must make immediate decisions on how to handle it, with the safety of the people on the scene paramount. For example, a crash on a highway is a very dangerous event. One thing I drill into young officer’s heads is unless there is a serious reason you can’t move the vehicles off the highway (e.g. waiting on an ambulance), the first thing you do is get off the road. A highway is an excellent place to get killed.
Sometimes a driver is not so inclined, “I got my own wrecker coming and I ain’t paying this guy to tow me…” At this moment I order the wrecker on the scene to hook up his vehicle. The cost is not my concern. Not being killed by a distracted or impaired driver scares the hell out of me. Not to mention while hundreds of drivers are looking at the accident and not the other vehicle, we may have another crash (Again, been there before). Sometimes civilians lose track of those critical points.
Or when we have other serious incidents, like a shooter in a building who has already shot two officers. We have over one-hundred officers, each with a weapon drawn, handling the situation. And civilians walk up, “Officer, what’s going on?”
As politely I can, I will scream (Yes, scream), “Get the f&^% out of here!” Somewhat unprofessional, but when you have possible life and death situation, an officer must be more direct to get the point across.
It’s not that cops want to rude. But under extreme circumstances, which is what cops handle, the police must ensure the incident is as safely and efficiently as possible. And sometimes we cannot be worried about giving you directions, or letting you walk through the bullet casings behind the yellow tape because, “I live over there and you’ve blocked the street I cross…”
Cops often make decisions with limited information, under stress from the countless people, and may not make the best decisions. Like the people on the scene, we’re only human. And trying to do the job as best we can.
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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