Firearms Training | MN Permit to Carry | Conceal and Carry
Do you take training seriously? How often does your department train? In my opinion, you can never get enough training. With shrinking budgets, departments face challenges with continued training.
Law Enforcement Today published an excellent article on training that can be found here: http://lawenforcementtoday.com/2011/11/03/how-important-is-training-to-you/
We want to hear your thoughts. How much training do you receive?
Officer Brandy Roell of the San Antonio, TX Police Department was beginning the second day of her second cycle of field training with a field training officer that she hadn’t ridden with before. Brandy had graduated from the police academy four weeks earlier with her husband, three kids and her best friend Amanda among the supporters in the audience. She’d had a very modest, sometimes turbulent upbringing and was thrilled to be part of what she believed to be a “noble and honorable profession.” She’d worked hard in the academy, taking her training seriously. After graduation, Brandy spent her first month with an FTO who wasn’t thrilled to have a recruit riding along, much less a female, but she didn’t let that dampen her enthusiasm. She was going to be the best cop she could possibly be.
It was September 8, 2008. She and her new FTO, an eight year veteran of the force, had an early dinner at Subway; she remembers having a chicken sandwich and feeling good about the evening ahead. The FTO had gotten wind of a “deadly conduct” warrant for 43 year old Andres Vargas, who lived on the city’s southwest side. Vargas was wanted for threatening his wife with an AK-47 rifle but Brandy was unfamiliar with the case and had not been filled in by her trainer. She was a rookie, and she did what she was told.
The training unit followed another patrol unit to the suspect’s house. The Vargas home stood out among the other homes in the generally impoverished neighborhood; it was larger than the other houses and the entire lot was surrounded by an ominously tall wrought iron fence with spikes on the top. Members of a SAPD specialty unit had been surveilling the house earlier, knowing that Andres Vargas was armed, dangerous and wanted. The two patrol units parked near the address on Redstart Drive, and Brandy’s FTO asked dispatch to hold radio traffic.
The FTO, the other patrol officer and Brandy entered the fenced-in area and then the house with the help of Vargas’ teenaged son, who had the key and was cooperating with authorities. She remembers being nervous as they went in, but she was determined to do her job. “In the academy,” Brandy told me with conviction, “I gave one hundred percent every day. Even if you’re fighting the biggest guy in class, you never give up.” That determination and mindset was about to put to the ultimate test.
The three officers cleared the lower level of the Vargas home. She saw the suspect’s boots and pants on the floor, and his wallet and keys on the bar; his car was in the driveway. It was obvious even to a rookie that he was probably in the house. The son, who’d been allowed to remain in the house during the search, told the officers that his father had just gotten the AK-47, but he claimed that he hadn’t seen his father recently.
There was a stairway and a second floor yet to be cleared, and Brandy suggested to the two senior officers that they back out and call for additional units. She was told to continue the search by her FTO, and she did. With her gun ready, she began moving up the stairs to the second floor. Her FTO was behind her and their cover officer brought up the rear.
At the top of the stairs was a landing with no hallway, just two bedrooms and a bathroom. Brandy cleared the bedroom on the right and then the bathroom. Her FTO opened the door to the left and bullets started flying, rapidly and without warning. “Holy crap!” was her first thought. The noise and chaos were extraordinary. Her FTO was hit several times and fell down the stairs, the cover officer made it back down to the first floor uninjured. Both men were able to get outside as multiple units rushed to the scene. She was in the bathroom alone, and the gunman was still firing away.
“Water lines got shot, the house alarm was going off, there was lots of noise and distraction” Brandy said, so she turned her radio down. “I cannot die in this house” she thought to herself. “It was surreal; I kept waiting for someone to yell ‘cut!’ and for the scene to be over.” But it seemed like everyone had forgotten about the rookie still inside. “My brain was clear and I wasn’t going to give up. I was going to get out of this house.” And she knew she was going to have to do it alone.
The bathroom was filling up with water as she looked for a way out. She was unable to fit through the tiny second floor bathroom window. It became increasingly clear to Officer Roell that the only way out was back down the stairs, right into the path of the gunman. She used the large mirror on the bathroom wall to try and “quick peak” out the door. That’s when she made eye contact with Vargas and he started firing in her direction, through both the door and the wall. She was hit in the back of both legs as wood, tile and other debris flew through the air, striking and cutting her. She fell back into the bathtub and for a moment, she saw herself dead in that bathtub, crime scene photos of her uniformed, bloody body flashed through her mind. She knew some people would say “just another rookie female, not really ready for the job.” Brandy also thought about her kids, ages 4, 6, and 8, her husband Joe, and her “sister” Amanda, who’d pinned on her badge during the academy graduation ceremony just nine months earlier. Amanda was seven months pregnant, and Brandy wasn’t going to miss out on meeting the new baby. She drew on the strength and determination she’d used in the academy and decided she was going to save her own life, no matter what.
She steadied herself, stepped out of the bathtub with her Glock .45 in hand and hit the door, firing her way out of the bathroom entrance. She used two full magazines to provide her own cover fire as she headed down the stairs. She knew she was down to one full magazine, and she thought to herself “I can’t run out of bullets.” She could feel the burning in her legs but there was no real pain. She glanced back up the stairs to see where Vargas was and he fired a volley of rounds in her direction. She felt a tremendous blow to her lower back, and the world went into slow motion as she was propelled to the floor at the bottom of the stairs, her pistol flying out of her hand.
The rounds from the AK-47 had pierced her gun belt and her keepers, striking her spine and blowing a huge hole through her abdomen. Refusing to give up, she flipped onto her rear, faced the stairs and scooted backwards toward the patio doors, pulling herself with her hands, her damaged legs splayed out in front of her. She felt disembodied, but she knew she had to get outside, because no one knew she was in the house.
Brandy was able to propel herself to the French doors that led to the patio area and a driveway where a boat and trailer were parked. She heard an officer who was positioned under the trailer say to another team member “There’s another officer in there, I see her!” The other officer expressed disbelief, saying the house was clear of police personnel, but suddenly there was Officer Pedro “Pete” Garcia, wrapping his arms around the rookie officer and pulling her from the doorway. Garcia held the gaping hole in Brandy’s abdomen closed with his hands, keeping her intestines from exposure. He yelled to another officer to ram the fence with a patrol car, then he threw her on his shoulder and carried her to a squad car, exposing himself to more gunfire from Vargas. He put her in the unit and then returned to his team, who ended up in a six hour stand off with Andres Vargas before he took his own life with the same rifle he’d used to forever change the destiny of young Officer Brandy Roell.
Brandy was put in an ambulance and then flown to the hospital. “I don’t know if I’d be alive if it wasn’t for the officer who rode with me in the ambulance, keeping me awake and talking” she told me. When I asked her how she felt about Pete Garcia, I could hear her smile through the phone. “He’s still a close friend.” She calls Pete “honorable and noble,” the type of cop Brandy wanted to be, the type of person she thought all police officers were.
September 8th, 2008 changed Brandy Roell’s life forever, but it didn’t change the passion she has for the law enforcement profession or the fighting spirit she has displayed since childhood. In Part Two of this series, PoliceOne readers will see what a true winning mindset really means, long after the shooting has stopped. Until then, stay safe!
About the Author
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Sergeant Betsy Smith has more than 30 years of law enforcement experience, retiring as a patrol supervisor in a large Chicago suburb. A graduate of the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety’s School of Staff and Command and a Street Survival seminar instructor for more than 9 years, Betsy is now a speaker, author and a primary PoliceOne Academy consultant. Visit Betsy’s website at www.femaleforces.com. |
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates
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Dave Smith |
Law enforcement is a family. No doubt about it, once you are initiated into the fraternity of warrior men and women you feel the sense of it, the pull of it everywhere you go. If you are “on the job” you instantly have rapport with hundreds of thousands of folks anywhere you go, from San Diego to Halifax, from Hamburg to Orlando. From your hometown to mine, the sense of belonging is a comforting certainty you will enjoy the rest of your life… or will you?
I was talking with my friend Jim Gerien — NYPD retired — about this very issue at a recent Street Survival Seminar. “Once a cop, always a cop, except once you’re retired you are expected to move on. ‘On the job, you’re the best, off the job, you’re a pest!’ is an NYPD homily meant to remind everyone of that very fact,” Jim explained of his beloved NYPD. Jim and the folks at NYPD have a very solid support structure for retirees to feel connected and not suffer the brutal sense of separation so many report upon “leaving the family” upon retirement.
Yet even with those support services, some have a hard time letting go of that sense of belonging, and the vast majority of you will not have anything like the NYPD has to ease you into retirement. It’s going to be up to you. Also, it doesn’t matter if you have a “countdown to retirement clock” on your computer screen or just don’t want to think about it because you are enjoying the job too much to consider the idea of leaving, the day will come when you leave this profession as an active participant.
Believe me, it will be stressful, so start planning today.
Think of the outside activities you enjoy and keep building on them. Think about the next job you might like to have when you “grow up.”
Many of you will go into other law enforcement endeavors, some will go into other professions, and some of you will just kick back and start the tough mission of being the adventurous retired. Know that this changes things. It changes your relationships, your routines, and your life in many ways you cannot imagine today, and that is where the need to develop a plan that makes it as pain free as possible.
The healthy way to transition is to make your retirement just that — a transition. Make it a path to a new adventure in your life and not an ending. Your friends will still be your friends but understand the nature of the change in your relationship. Showing unexpectedly up at briefing with donuts can become a little creepy if you overdo it, so don’t. Make your friends still on the job at your old agency envy your life — don’t sit around and envy them.
Get ready for your next adventure — your next path in life and please by happy. For those of you with friends retired or retiring, stay supportive and never fail to heed a call for help from a former colleague. We are still family.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith “JD Buck Savage” |
Dispatchers, like all other law enforcement personnel, can suffer from emotional issues as a result of their involvement in critical incidents. By including your dispatchers in debriefs, you can improve teamwork and communications, as well as provide feedback and closure essential to emotional survival.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith “JD Buck Savage” |
The human body is always dehydrating — regardless of the climate, the temperature, or the geography in which that body is operating. The effects of dehydration are not only physical — they’re mental as well. One of the first capabilities a dehydrated person will lose is their ability to think quickly and critically. Keep fluids in your squad car so you can keep replenishing fluids in your body.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith |
The year 2011 has already been a tough one for law enforcement fatalities — after a horrible 2010 I had hoped we would have some respite. We still may, but as I drove back from giving a talk at a leadership conference in Wisconsin I had an inspiration that may help us all be safer the rest of this year and beyond.
Safety is Everybody’s Responsibility
I had just pulled into a rest stop and quickly read my phone texts before going in. One of the first had been a text advising me of the tragedy in Miami. “Two officers killed!” This was a wet blanket on my fiery enthusiasm following my talk and as I walked into the building I saw a small sign that read: Safety is Everybody’s Responsibility. In my head, I cynically remembered an old saying that is a response to the sign: “if it’s everybody’s responsibility then it’s nobody’s responsibility!” The word “everybody” seems to unconsciously relieve us of any responsibility and the simple truth is that only you are responsible for your safety. Period!
That thought hit me like a brick, and I made the decision right there to propose that you and I start a conspiracy, a conspiracy of safety in the truest sense of the word. We tend to think of ‘conspiring’ as plotting an act of evil in secret, and that is one of the meanings of the word. But the root of the word “conspire” means literally “to breathe together.”
Just you and me, breathing safety together — you taking care of you, me taking care of me. We will do this day-to-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, consciously thinking of the risks we face and overcoming them one at time, each time they appear.
Perhaps as much as any profession we know death and injury stalk us in multitudes of forms, many springing at us unexpectedly and with terrible malice and while we cannot keep that from happening many times, we can harden the target… and that’s us!
We Have a Lot of Work Ahead
For decades from the stage of the Street Survival Seminar we have hammered home the idea of “When/Then” thinking and staying in “Condition Yellow.”
Your feedback over the years has been remarkable — the next step is joining us at PoliceOne in this new conspiracy. Breathe safety together with us.
We will continue to post articles, news, and videos to help you as our part of the conspiracy. You will actively think when you read or watch these posts, “What would I do?” mentally rehearsing YOU resolving this or that crisis successfully. On the street, think to yourself, “Not today, not on this shift, not on this call, not on this stop — I will not be caught unaware!”
All of us conspirators have a lot of work to do this year. We have to keep researching and interviewing and training and writing and you need to keep researching and learning and growing and training and at the same time dealing with the deadly detraining effect of “routine” on your mindset. When you make a traffic stop and everyone involved are “yes-people” and smiley faces, before you make your next stop, visualize the last stop, and mentally rehearse overcoming a variety of threats from subjects or vehicles that might have occurred on that stop.
Remember: always see yourself win or you are just worrying, which is negative visualization. Negative visualization is practicing to lose!
On every building search, field interview, alarm call, domestic, accident with injuries on a busy roadway, whatever you’re doing, you must think, “Not today, not now, I will not be caught unawares!”
Remember, this is a conspiracy — we are going to breathe this together, plan together, bring in others, and let it grow. You get a hot call and it’s icy, and you think, “Not today! I will drive within my capability, it’s a risk right now, right this second and I will overcome it!” That is your responsibility, your obligation in this conspiracy and when you get there another risk will arise and another and another, and each one you will greet with the thought, “Not today!”
One way to grow this conspiracy is to take a sticky note and put on your dash with the simple words,“Not today!”
When others inquire, simply tell them, “Injury and death haunts our profession, and I have decided that they cannot have me today!”
By making our personal safety an immediate issue it is no longer some abstract, some statistic, or some trite saying; it is a manageable concrete situation we can pay attention to right now!
How fast you drive, whether you wear your seat belt and body armor, maintain your equipment and skills, and keep you mind in the game is up to you, it really is your and only your responsibility. Making it a minute-to-minute thought gives it force and weight. Put all your keepers on? You bet! I will need my equipment to be stable if I am fighting for my life. Treat this stupid building alarm like the real thing even though I’m sure it this crazy windstorm that triggered it? Yep, your choice, your decision, your immediate situation and as you set up on the building and prepare for the search think, “Not today, I am ready.”
You see, your part in this conspiracy is tough, requires lots of effort, lots of awareness, constant thought, but if you do your part the likelihood we will be coconspirators at the start of next year is very very good! Grow the conspiracy.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith |
For more than 30 years, Calibre Press has helped the law enforcement community remain healthy both emotionally and physically, and win encounters of every kind. A thousand Newlines ago Chuck Remsbergexpanded his service to the crime fighting community by creating the first Newsline. It’s appropriate this Newsline be transmitted on Veteran’s Day — a day that America remembers the service of the millions of men and women who have served in our armed forces. So many of those heroes continue their service by putting on a badge and gun to protect our liberties here at home! We are so proud to be part of that mission by assisting you with training and information.
PoliceOne, Calibre Press, and the Street Survival Seminar exist to give you the resources you need to prepare yourself for whatever challenge you face. The philosophy of always having “When/Then” thinking is the driving force in our articles and videos. The real training has always been — and always will be — within you. You are the one who has to face the threats and stresses of our profession. You must craft your own mental and physical skills to meet whatever the street throws at you. While we provide tools to help you, it is your responsibility to keep your mind, skills, equipment, and body ready for the next mountain you’ll have to climb.
That’s why — whether or not you are a military veteran — you are our mission. This is your Newsline. Your feedback guides the content. Tell us what you want to see, hear, and learn in the future and we will do our best to get it you. We look forward to hearing from each of you in the future — a future we hope to help make safer and better by continuing to grow as you do!
Stay safe.
— Dave Smith
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith |
Sitting in the Seattle airport getting ready to fly home from a Street Survival Seminar, I overheard two professional musicians talking. They were discussing instruments, their intricacies, and why they had chosen them. Being a musical illiterate I was amazed at the depth of thought and attributes of the various instruments each performed and how they added this or that to a tune or song. They came to one instrument and a fellow who seemed to play everything a country band or orchestra could imagine said simply “I gave up on it when I found I couldn’t play it without thinking. When I play a musical instrument my goal is to be able to play without thinking!”
He described how hard he tried but something about the instrument didn’t click and he had given up on it but loved to listen to it.
How many times have I heard this said about something in law enforcement — often in a conversation about a skill or tool someone couldn’t master, or someone found simple but seemed complex to others?
The evening before my flight from Seattle, I was having dinner with Officer Britt Sweeney of the Seattle Police Department — earlier in the day she had received the Medal of Valor from the International Association of Women Police at our Street Survival Seminar. Halloween would be theanniversary of the terrible ambush that claimed her Field Training Officer — Tim Brenton — wounded her, and made her name synonymous with excellent performance under incredible stress. She was flabbergasted by the attention she kept getting for doing what she felt she was trained to do — to fight back no matter what, to never give up!
Britt was no normal rookie, she was a product of intense athletic development and is a professional fitness trainer, helping others get fit by pushing them beyond their normal limits, and in doing so, learning to push herself as well. Like so many winners I have met in the past she could only say over and over she had done what she had trained to do without thinking when the time came.
At the table with us was Ben Kelly, the Seattle police officer who had been set up by Maurice Clemmons, the murderer of the four Lakewood officers on November 29th, 2009. He reaffirmed the same thing — when Clemmons tried to ambush him, he went into action mode and confronted his would-be bushwhacker and won. Simply acting without thinking, the way he had trained!
Listening to a world-class musician speculate on why his brain could pick up such a vast array of instruments and at the same time be stymied by one, proved to him the unique variety of human abilities and skills and that we are all different. He is right and we need to think about how we prepare ourselves to perform like the Sweeney’s, the Kelly’s, and the Orville Johnson’s of the world when our time comes to fight, take cover, duck, or play music. Learning our skills to that “thoughtless” level is exactly the goal we must all have. Motor research tells us if we have to ‘think” about what we are doing we are slower and more likely to error and overreact or under react.
We all agree our goal in every situation is to ‘WIN,’ not merely survive and that puts the burden on us to do our repetitions, just as a musician practices the instrument and the song to be able to perform flawlessly and “thoughtlessly” we need to practice as well. The “instrument” can be a firearm, a baton, or Dobro, and practicing the “song” is a powerful metaphor for the ‘context’ that a skill or instrument will be used in. You have to do your rehearsals over and over and be ready to perform in a fraction of a second.
I remember a martial artist/police trainer saying “you have to learn it until you forget it,” and I am sure that has been said by a million masters over the millennia. In fact, I have heard it said a hundred ways and expressed in others by those who had done it and not been able to articulate exactly why they had won, but they had! To hear a professional musician say the same thing in a different way that I had heard just hours before from two of our fellow warriors reaffirmed my beliefs — both anecdotal and empirical — about the nature of human performance.
Halloween — tomorrow night — is the first anniversary of the terrible murder of Ofc. Brenton, and the best way to pay homage to his sacrifice and honor his wounded partner who fought back is to reaffirm our own sense of mission and take it upon ourselves to practice our skills and rehearse our “songs” of combat to be able to win every confrontation; to react at exactly the proper “pitch and tone” to win, not only on the street, but administratively, judicially, and at home as well.
Stay safe.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith “JD Buck Savage” |
The rule of “plus one” holds that if you find one weapon, you need to be looking for the second one. But from the very outset, you have to begin by expecting to even find that first weapon in the first place. As Street Survival Seminar Instructor Dave Smith explains below, this is the when-then thinking we know to be so important for an officer’s mental preparation.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
Contact Dave Smith and Follow Dave on Twitter
Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.
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Dave Smith |
A third off duty Chicago police officer has been killed since May. The murders of these three Chicago officers only highlight what some of us have called “The War on Cops,” and yet, once again the mayor and the media are whining about “gun violence” as if marauding gangs of guns are roaming the streets of Chicago. As we grieve the loss of one of our brothers, the public’s attention is distracted by utopian dreams of a happily-unarmed populace. In 2010, we still have criminal subcultures whose members’ social standing rises when they kill one of us! With a few exceptions, the media continues to be our enemy and not our ally in this war, and the politicians — with Machiavellian cynicism — use our deaths for their own political advantage.
Mayor Daley doesn’t seem to see the irony in the fact that Officer Michael Bailey — who was approached and killed while still in uniform — had just spent the night guarding the Mayor’s house as part of Ruler of Chicago’s security team. It is being called an “apparent robbery attempt” but smells more like an assassination and points to the level of chaos that rules the city. In fact, Chicago is a microcosm of social experiments gone wrong, from creating ghettos as described in Nicholas Lamann’s,The Promised Land to the nation’s most extensive handgun ban — recently overturned in the Supreme Court. Chicago has every social program ever thought up to reverse poverty, segregation, ignorance, and crime, and all these have deteriorated into political patronage jobs and a huge underclass that is filled with criminality, disease, drugs, welfare dependency, illegitimacy, anger…everything but hope.
The mayor’s cry following this third tragedy is to lament the loss a little and then go on to whine about guns. Ironically, it was University of Chicago Economist John Lott who showed that crime was inversely proportional to the number of guns in the community…the more guns, the less crime! Well, our fallen brothers had guns and were murdered just the same and the root problems of Chicago go a lot deeper and, I fear, hold a dark vision of the nation’s future as a whole if we ignore the true issues.
In the 1970s we were told the “Culture of Poverty” could be cured with a simple welfare program and a little “affirmative” effort. Criminologists explained crime was a byproduct of the friction created by Capitalism and the “have-nots” suffering from watching the “haves” live in lucrative luxury. A few non-Marxist leaning sociologists felt crime came from local and familial issues and the simple fact that ghettos and barrios produced fine and honorable citizens in relatively greater numbers than it produced criminals was de facto proof the problem lay in beliefs and values not in economic structure.
Regardless of the cause, the crime and social ills of the cities were soon found throughout our nation and the tip of the spear in the societal response to that plague was the law enforcement community. Reviled and mocked, misrepresented in the media, law enforcement has tried program after program to stem the tide of social ills. In the last 30 years, the professionalization of the criminal justice community has done little to stem drugs, poverty, and the other social problems we studied so intensely in the 70s. Punishing criminality finally put the criminal class behind bars for extended periods and the crime rate dropped throughout the nation. The problem is, we still have the root causes and social issues and it seems they are getting worse.
Ultimately, the politicians and talking heads end up wondering, “What are the police going to do about this?”
The truth is, the police will answer calls, investigate crimes, patrol the neighborhood, watch the businesses, and do their jobs! The people should ask when will the politicians honestly look at social issues and address them without pandering to this constituency or that.
The cause of murder or rape is not the possession of a handgun but a predisposition that is resident in an individual — doubtlessly present for many reasons. Humans don’t need to do much reflection to realize the darker side of our nature, and almost every social institution is designed to reign in our lower self. Since the species isn’t going to change anytime soon, we are assured of job security, and with that security the intense risk of being guardians of the weak, the innocent, the victims. But where does that predisposition come from to murder, rob, rape, loot, molest, steal or kill a cop? I don’t care. Catch and punish is the simple answer to dealing with those who wish to prey on others.
If we don’t stigmatize negative behaviors we will get more of them. Until society has the courage to face some real truths it cannot solve anything. Self esteem programs in school? Well, the highest self esteem measured is among male urban gang bangers…hmmm. Take guns away, fine, then the law of the jungle prevails and the largest, strongest, or most in number, will take what they wish. A petit hundred pound lady is the equal of Mike Tyson thanks to Mr. Colt, if she’s allowed to pack him along, but Mayor Daley prefers to demonize a weapon and not its bearer.
Chicago will not solve its social ills until society itself realizes that criminality is created most often by a short-term pessimistic view of the world — a “get mine now” mentality. Optimism is an antidote for criminality — believing you control your own life and destiny is essential. The term is “Locus of Control” and the criminal underclass class sees everyone else as in control, especially “The Man” and you, my brothers and sisters, are the living embodiment of that entity, making you a valid target for them all the time. Not just in a physical sense but also an emotional, blaming sense. Thus, the politicians, activists, media, and anyone playing to emotions of the hopeless will always seek to find fault with the police.
It is not an accident that law enforcement ends up with this or that program trying to raise other people’s kids or change the culture of a neighborhood, it is a deep emotional belief that the police have such power when they do not…you do not.
Such illusions always lead to anger and the rare — but highly publicized — misconduct by one of our own becomes a metaphor for all police activity everywhere. Hip Hop songs often chant the anger and hostility directed at law enforcement. It has been more than twenty years since NWA’s F___ the Policeand what stunned us in ‘88 seems pretty benign now, but the sense of hopeless and anger has not diminished.
Which brings us to today, a day when we are more socially-polarized than any other time since the 60s, and the social issues seem more aggravated than ever, and with a contentious election, massive unemployment, and unprecedented debt, it doesn’t seem that things will get better. We are seeing law enforcement layoffs in cities like Cleveland and Oakland, where the need for such peacekeepers would seem essential. Common sense would say other social programs would be reduced or eliminated since all they have created is a dependant and angry underclass, (a welfare state does NOT create a sense of gratitude among it’s recipient population) before the peacekeepers would be laid off!
The American law enforcement officer can only do what he or she has always done and that is our job the best we can! The motive of the criminal is really not a factor we care about; if you commit a crime we will catch you…period. The studies of survivors at sea find the ones who survive are not the ones calling out “help will be here in the morning!” but the real optimists with their heads down bailing out the raft. We are in a storm and we have to keep our heads down and keep bailing.
Law enforcement does not control the politicians, the upper or lower classes, the economy, or the budget. We control evil, we hunt it and to do that we have to stay focused. The root causes of crime and social unrest are not in our hands, although we will bear the brunt of the burden. “A War on Cops” or not, we will do our jobs and we will keep on bailing! Take care of yourself, your brothers and sisters, and your family. Do that first and go and be the best crime fighter you can, refresh your skills constantly, keep focused, and please, please vote.
About the Author:
As a police officer, Dave Smith has held positions in patrol, training, narcotics, SWAT, and management. Dave continues to develop new and innovative programs across the spectrum of police training needs designed to assist your agency and your personnel in meeting the challenges of policing in the new millennium. As a trainer, speaker, and consultant Dave brings with him unparalleled access to modern law enforcement trends.
Dave is now the owner of “The Winning Mind LLC,” the Director of Video Training for PoliceOne Video and author of the new book “In My Sights.” His experiences as officer, trainer, manager, and police spouse lend a unique perspective to his signature class, “The Winning Mind.” Visit Dave’s website at www.jdbucksavage.com.
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Credits
Article originally posted on PoliceOne, republished with permission from Dave Smith & Associates.