Policing Matters

In late November, US District Court Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued a permanent injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive order to deny sanctuary cities a variety of federal funds. Less than a week later, a jury in San Francisco acquitted the illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle on all but one charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Following tha...

How do we even define de-escalation? Isn’t this really the same thing as Verbal Judo? Does de-escalation policy put cops in danger? When does de-escalation actually work? In this podcast segment, Jim and Doug discuss the fact that you cannot talk everyone into handcuffs — some will always resist, and how that reality negates some of the training and philosophy around de-escalation.

For 100 consecutive weeks, Jim and Doug have cranked out podcast segments on topics as varied as suicide by cop, stop and frisk, Apple vs. the FBI, officer suicide, gang injunctions, and "contempt of cop." They've also covered some lighter topics, assembling lists of their favorite police books, as well as best cop movies and cop shows on TV. In this 100th podcast segment, Jim and Doug revisit the...

In Sutherland Springs, Texas, 26 people were killed at a small church. The killer was reportedly neutralized by an armed citizen who shot the subject as he fled in his vehicle. Of course we also recall the recent tragedy in Las Vegas that left 59 dead and hundreds injured at an outdoor concert. After events like the slaughter of 20 children between six and seven years old in Newtown, Connecticut,...

Too many training budgets in law enforcement continue to suffer cutbacks. Meanwhile, police critics demand that cops get more and better training. You can’t have it both ways. If you want more training, you have to fund it. But failing that, many officers are choosing to train in their off time and on their own dime. Training companies run by retired police and military personnel are seemingly pop...

A few weeks ago we did a podcast on the best cop shows in TV history, but what about movies? In this week’s podcast, Jim and Doug discuss the merits of films ranging from Dirty Harry to Blade Runner to The Naked Gun to Chinatown.

A few weeks ago, an article called "The 'SWAT nod': How to tell other cops what your duty assignment is without saying a word" ran on PoliceOne. It was essentially a list of how to make it clear to everyone in your department (as well as any other department) what your duty assignment is. In this week's podcast segment, Jim and Doug discuss when it makes sense (and when it doesn't) for departments...

On July 26th, a nurse in Utah named Alex Wubbels was arrested for refusing to draw blood from an unconscious patient who had suffered severe injuries from a car crash. Wubbels argued that she wouldn't allow the blood to be drawn unless the man was under arrest or there was a police warrant. This was despite the fact that Section 1.3 of the Utah Commercial Driver’s License Handbook states that “If...

From a corner suite on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, a 64-year-old gunman — whose name merits no mention in this space — unleashed a hail of gunfire on an innocent crowd of 22,000 people attending a county music festival. He fired on the crowd for roughly ten minutes, killing at least 58 and injuring 527 others. In this week's podcast segment, Jim and Doug disc...

Urban Shield is one of the largest training exercises for police, firefighters, and paramedics in the country. Started several years after the September 11 attacks, it is designed to prepare first responders for a host of potential threats to public safety. But the event has drawn criticism over the years from activists who say police training is too militaristic. In this week’s podcast segment, J...

In 2013, researchers from the Arnold Foundation studied 153,000 bookings into Kentucky jails over a two year period and found that the longer low-risk defendants were held in jail the more likely they were to engage in criminal activity. Now, we have to separate correlation from causation — we cannot go leaping to the conclusion that if-this-then-that. However, there has been some criticism that t...

Ambush attacks on police officers are undeniably on the rise in the United States. In 2016 alone, at least 20 officers were fatally shot in ambush attacks. In this week's podcast segment, Jim and Doug discuss some of the ways in which officers can "harden the target" and prevent such tragedy from befalling them on patrol.

We all remember the story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, but there have been other less-famous incidents in which non-sworn personnel attempted to do the work of a sworn law officer that resulted in unintended and unwanted consequences. Vigilantes are criminals and should be prosecuted as such, but where do people like bounty hunters and neighborhood watchmen fit into the mix? In this wee...

There have been dozens of terrible police procedurals, but we've had some good cop shows too. That list includes Southland, Streets of San Francisco, Hill Street Blues, Barney Miller, and The Wire. What are the best cop shows in television history? What makes those good shows good? In this week's podcast, Jim and Doug go to Hollywood and talk about their favorites. Add your favorites in the commen...

A white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in mid-August left a 32-year-old woman dead and nearly two dozen other people injured when a deranged white nationalist drove his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters. There were other violent clashes in the streets that saw too little separation between the opposing factions. At the time of this recording session, there is a far-right...

Because cops have a tendency to retire at a younger age than people in other careers, a cop pulling the pin on a 30-year career is likely to have a second career in mind. Lay the groundwork for that next phase of your working life, whether it’s consulting with a LE-related vendor, establishing your own training company, or working as a criminal justice professor. In this week's podcast, Jim and Do...

According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, public pension plans need an additional 1.1 trillion dollars just to meet current expected obligations. This is, as the mayor of Dallas recently said, untenable. Meanwhile, pensions are one of the most important incentives for police (and fire) to put their lives on the line to serve their communities. How can states resolve this looming issue? Something has...

New Jersey is considering legislation (Assembly Bill A1114) that would require schools to teach children how to interact with police "in a manner marked by mutual cooperation and respect." But can we really legislate civility? And what about compliance with lawful commands? Just because a kid has been told what to do, will they when they become adults actually do what they’ve been told? In this we...

Some of the most important people in policing are the teachers, trainers, and mentors. Whether those are assignments (the academy, FTO, and other roles that focus on teaching) or informal relationships that develop organically, the police mentor is vital in helping officers to be safer and more successful on the streets. In this podcast segment, Jim and Doug discuss the role of the mentor in law e...

For many — if not most — agencies, the act of drawing the service pistol from the holster and pointing it at a subject is considered a use of force. However, context should be considered. Is the firearm out and hidden behind the leg upon approach at a traffic stop? Is it out and at the low ready during a building search for a suspect known to be armed and dangerous? In this podcast segment, Jim an...

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a 9th Circuit case involving two Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies who shot and wounded a man who pointed a gun — later found to be a BB gun — at them. The premise of the 9th Circuit decision is a "provocation" theory — followed by no other federal courts — that essentially undermines the objectively reasonable set forth by Graham v. Connor. I...

In many lines of employment, the advent of high-speed internet and the cellular phone network has made “the office” obsolete — people can successfully do their work from a coffee shop or from their living room. Police work is obviously much more dependent on being present out in the public, but cops too can do a number of tasks remotely. They can file reports via computer and phone, do forensic an...

According to the Los Angeles County Probation Department, transit fare evasion is the number one cause of juvenile citations in Los Angeles County. The California Senate recently passed legislation that prohibits youths from being charged with a criminal violation for transit fare evasion and instead treats the offense like a parking ticket. California State Senator Robert Hertzberg — who introduc...

A new non-fiction book entitled "The Valley of the Shadow of Death — A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption" is a riveting read about crime, race, gangs, the death penalty, and African American victims of violent crime. It was co-authored by former NFL defensive back Kermit Alexander, with Criminal Justice Professors Alex Gerould and Jeff Snipes. Alexander’s mother, sister, and two nephews were brutally...

Body cameras, drones, Shotspotter, analytics, GPS … police work has evolved significantly over the past couple of decades as new technologies such as these have been introduced, adopted, and utilized. In this podcast episode, Jim and Doug discuss some of the top technologies that have helped improve police work, and what may be on the horizon.