Policing Matters

JD “Buck” Savage humorously taught officers to write accurate reports when he said, “Saw drunk. Arrested same.” Thorough, well-written reports get results. Sloppy reports with a dearth of information let the guilty run free. In this podcast segment, Jim and Doug discuss best practices for report writing, and ponder what the future holds, as artificial intelligence and body-worn cameras may one day...

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida was a failure of law enforcement from start to finish. In January, the FBI received tips that the 19-year-old shooter had expressed a disturbing desire to kill people both verbally and in social media posts. The FBI did nothing. There are reports that as many as 39 calls were made to the Broward County Sheriff's Office about...

Following the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, there have been renewed calls for arming teachers who qualify mentally, emotionally, and physically to carry a concealed firearm. Any such program would require careful vetting, police training, constant re-evaluation of the people and the program itself. There would need to be budget put aside for everything from...

Research from Force Science Institute reveals that in order to get the most accurate and detailed information from officer-involved shootings or other high-intensity events, officers should be allowed a recovery period of at least 48 hours before being interviewed in depth about the incident by IA or criminal investigators. Further, the manner in which the interview should be conducted should not...

Until fairly recently, FAA regulations seemed somewhat unclear about exactly when and how law enforcement agencies can use UAVs. Now that there is a little deeper understanding of the legal parameters, police agencies are beginning to adopt the technology. The most obvious use for a UAV in law enforcement is for search and rescue operations. Drones can get under the canopy of thickly wooded areas...

Recently, a news item appeared on PoliceOne about eight police cadets who were injured during defensive tactics training at their academy. This sort of thing is not terribly uncommon. Police training is necessarily difficult, and comes with some degree of danger. But the question becomes, how can police conduct training (both academy and in-service) that is as close to reality as possible, but sti...

You have the right to free speech. But being a cop is not a right — it is a privilege. That privilege can be taken away from you in the event that you conduct yourself in any way deemed to reflect poorly on the department. This is particularly true of incendiary statements made on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Cops are held to a higher standard than other government...

Most thoughtful police leaders know that they are in perpetual peril that something so monumentally ugly goes down in their jurisdiction that cable satellite trucks will rain from the sky and take up residence in the parking lot of the nearest big-box store. Whether it is an officer-involved shooting or an active shooter event, the cameras will be rolling and the story will be you and your agency....

Police officers at the line level can demonstrate leadership just as much as the chief in the big office. In fact, line level officers and their immediate supervisors are the raw materials from which the most visible forms of police leadership are formed. What does it take to turn street leadership skills into promotions in rank and responsibility? Jim and Doug discuss the traits of a good leader,...

Under federal law, marijuana is illegal. Meanwhile, 30 states and the District of Columbia currently have laws legalizing marijuana for either medical or recreational use. This discord puts the Justice Department in a legal bind. Under President Obama, Deputy Attorney General James Cole drafted a memo saying that the Feds would defer to state and local agencies to enforce their own marijuana laws,...

The gunman in the Las Vegas shooting in October reportedly had equipped several AR-15 rifles with what is called a bump stock, which effectively turns a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon capable of automatic fire. Following that tragedy, there has been a great deal of discussion around the legitimate purpose a bump stock might have, as well as the need for a gun owner to equip their firearms with...

As we do every December, the Policing Matters Podcast looks back on the year that was. Probably the biggest single event of the year was the Las Vegas mass shooting, but Jim and Doug also discuss how police responded to natural disasters — particularly Hurricane Harvey in Houston and the widespread wildfires in Northern California. Other major trends were cops in the middle of First Amendment asse...

Drug overdose is reportedly the leading cause of death for Americans under 50, and according to a recent report from PERF, more than 64,000 people died by overdose in 2016 alone — that's more than three times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. Doctors have been prescribing opioids too generously, and addicts are still successfully "doctor shopping" to load up on pills. Further, Her...

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.