Blue Canary: For Cops By a Cop

Send us Fan Mail Sheriff, a word, and position that derive from the old English term Shire-Reeve. This person was responsible for managing a shire or county in England. The practice began sometime before 700 A.D. and when America was colonized by European settlers we brought the concept with us.  Today in the US, 48 out of the 50 states have sheriffs. Alaska doesn’t have counties and therefore has...

Send us Fan Mail Fear is the Mind Killer,  That statement is as relevant today as it was in 1965 when Frank Hubert published his novel Dune. Paul Atraides, the main character in Dune, quotes from the Litany of Fear in the first chapter of the book. The entire quote is; "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I wi...

Send us Fan Mail I had been a sergeant for about 6 years before my agency sent me to my very first leadership class. I didn’t know what to expect and honestly, I thought it was going to be a waste of time. I mean I had been an informal leader on night shift for years as the old guy and the FTO. When they promoted me to sergeant, they obviously didn’t think leadership was important because they did...

Send us Fan Mail Leadership Journeys. You are going to hear me talk a lot about leadership journeys this season. What do I mean about leadership journeys? It’s how I describe the process of growing as a leader, of taking on formal and informal responsibilities and about not only learning the process of leadership, but embracing it as well. I decided the best way to start this season off was to tal...

Send us Fan Mail Leadership, The Oxford English Dictionary defines leadership as; The action of leading a group of people or an organization. The state or position of being a leader. Got it. That’s a simple one. Next important lesson please… Not so fast. Leadership has to be one of the most vexing skills to learn in our profession. First of all, it’s critically important. It’s important for the of...

Send us Fan Mail That's a Wrap. In 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic I decided to start this podcast. I had just retired and started full time teaching and consulting when the world came to a grinding halt. The podcast was a way to fill that void. To scratch my teaching itch and to share what I had learned in 30 years of working as a cop.    I couldn’t be more happy with the results.  ...

Send us Fan Mail In 2022 Rafael Mangual a senior fellow and head of research for policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research published his book Criminal (In)Justice. If your profession revolves around the criminal justice system then this is a must-read book. Using extensive studies and documentation Mangual takes the fight to the decarceration and depolicing narrativ...

Send us Fan Mail Rick Snyder started in law enforcement over 27 years ago and continues to serve on a major metropolitan police department. Rick is the president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 86 and also serves as the National FOP Chaplain. Rick has been vocal about the issues involving police reform for many years and I was pleased to have an opportunity to talk to Rick about the state of po...

Send us Fan Mail This is our fourth annual Halloween Special and it's a doozy. Ever had one of those creepy encounters that just set the hair on the back of your neck straight up. Usually we just move on and forget about them, but sometimes they can really spook you. In this episode we hear the real true story of a creepy conversation that took a dark turn quickly. Dim the lights and settle i...

Send us Fan Mail Jeff Schemmer is a longtime friend and colleague of mine. He is also an expert on the 911 system. Jeff began working in the 911 community thirty-five years ago as a dispatcher with the Bloomington Indiana Police Department. After the 1998 consolidation of dispatch services with BPD and Monroe County Sheriff's Office, he continued to serve as a dispatcher, training coordinator...

Send us Fan Mail There isn’t an easy answer to the origin of the black mourning band. The use of black clothing to show that the wearer is in mourning for the loss of a loved one, can be traced all the way back to ancient Rome, where the traditional white toga would be replaced with a black toga pulla. Over the centuries and in various cultures white and black have battled it out for dominance as...

Send us Fan Mail Kathleen Dias isn’t a cop, but her husband was and the experiences he faced everyday as a rural police officer made her want to write about the issues faced by rural officers in America. She began studying, writing, and researching topics important to rural officers and speaking out against the Mayberry perceptions that most people have of the job. Not only does Kathleen write a c...

Send us Fan Mail During my 3 years as the Administrative Captain, I hired 43 police officers. 43 in three years. That number becomes amazing when you realize that my department was only allowed 100 cops at maximum staffing. 43% turnover in 3 years. Sadly, only in policing can you get away with that. If I were to address the board of directors for a company and told them that employee turnover was...

Send us Fan Mail I will never forget some advice given to me by one of my FTOs. “Write it down. Write something down everyday and at then end of your career you’ll have a best-selling novel. You’ll never have to work again.”  Unfortunately, my rookie self wasn’t smart enough to take him up on his advice. I never wrote it down and because of that so many stories have slipped through the cracks. Gle...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we will look at the terms typically used to define the police, warriors and guardians. Where did these terms come from and why have they become so divisive within our profession. Warrior, Guardians, and Cops.

Send us Fan Mail Officer involved shootings are some of the most difficult and important internal investigations you will ever be a part of. Making sure they are done properly at all levels is critically important to the officers involved, the agency, and the community. To talk about this topic as well as other issues involving internal affairs, I had the pleasure of speaking with Marlon Marrache....

Send us Fan Mail Demotivation is simply a lack of interest and motivation at your work. It doesn’t seem like a big deal; I mean everyone gets a little demotivated at work. You slack off a little, spend some extra time at the water cooler or on a smoke break, and once the weekend kicks in you get a little rest and relaxation before you’re better next week. That’s not what’s going on in policing. De...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s policing is more dangerous than ever. Staying sharp and following proper professional and tactical procedures is the key to staying alive and I couldn’t think of a better guest to talk to about this topic than Scott Savage. Scott Savage began his career in public safety at age 19, first as an E.M.T and then as a licensed paramedic working in a busy emergency medical system...

Send us Fan Mail There are a lot of people, including those in our profession that don’t like to hear the phrase “War on Cops”. They feel it will promote the Us vs Them mentality and broaden the divide between the working police officer and the public they serve. In 2014 Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown after Brown violently attacked him. That’s right, contrary t...

Send us Fan Mail Police Academy is more than just a funny movie starring Steve Guttenberg from 1984. It is the basis for law enforcement across the United States and most of the world. Police academies are training schools for recruit officers that provide the basic instruction on how to do job of a police officer. They include but are not limited to classes in firearms, physical control tactics,...

Send us Fan Mail True Crime is a genre as old as Cain and Able. OK, maybe not that old, but it’s pretty close. The True Crime genre is a non-fiction book, magazine, pulp, podcast, movie, or TV series that examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. Murder is the crime most focused on and Serial Killers make up 40% of the True Cri...

Send us Fan Mail A few months into my first year on the department I attended my first in-service training class with the agency. Interview and Interrogation taught by a guy named Stan Walters. I learned a lot from Stan. Stan Walters has spent more than 40 years studying and researching the science of interview and interrogation. He is the author of Principles of Kinesic Interview and Interrogatio...

Send us Fan Mail In this Halloween Special we hear a true story that's out of this world.

Send us Fan Mail Dispatch is one of the most important parts of the emergency management system. They are the first ones to talk to the public, they answer questions, and send help where needed. It’s also the one we tend to forget about. To help us understand more about Dispatch and what they do I talked with Adam Timm. Adam Timm worked as a dispatcher for LAPD for 10 years before starting his own...

Send us Fan Mail I have worked with most of the federal agencies at one time or another and for the most part the individual agents were great. Dedicated professionals working hard to solve the cases. I always appreciated the resources they could bring to a case. But the moment I had to deal with one of the “Guys in Charge” things tended to take a turn for the worst. The higher up the administrati...