By Steve Pomper Marcus Aurelius (121-180), Roman Emperor, Stoic Philosopher (Photo: Jastrow, Public Domain) When I was first hired as a cop, our police chief gave each recruit Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Before the academy he “encouraged” us to read it and he’d ask us about it after graduation. Not Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Twenty-eight-year-old Germaine Davansha Small wasn’t on a casual stroll on the first weekend of April. Hiding a pistol under a shirt draped over his shoulder, Small first engaged in a brief contact with the occupants of a car that had just pulled into the parking lot of a St. Read more »
Image: New London, CT PD Bodycam Indianapolis – April 8, 2024. Louisiana House Bill 173 would make it a misdemeanor crime to be within 25 feet of a police officer who is making an arrest or performing other lawful work. It ensures that officers have an area in which to safely make arrests, restrain suspects, Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Every cop has heart and conviction before they enter the profession of law enforcement, and the humanistic virtues that shine are most illuminated when children are involved in traumatizing incidents and police officers pillar frightened and confused young souls, consoling them when they need it most. Kids jolted in car crashes are Read more »
By Steve Pomper Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department patrol car (Missvain, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0) I’m not sure if people understand why it’s a particularly heinous offense when someone murders a police officer compared to other victims. While all innocent victims of murder are tragedies, killing a law enforcement officer is a unique crime. It’s not Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski By now, just about everyone is aware of a massively loaded cargo ship Dali slamming into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, at 01:39 a.m., collapsing the hulking expanse and sending cars into the water below, eliciting gobs of uniformed personnel to the land/sea scene. As can be imagined, Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D The father of modern policing is Sir Robert Peel who famously developed the London Metropolitan Police. Known as “bobbies”, presumably after Peel, they were a model of the new, centralized uniformed police force after which America’s municipal police are still modeled. Peel’s 9 principles of policing are still vital Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Law enforcement officers going deep undercover to infiltrate groups of bad actors, gain rapport, meticulously stitch solid cases, and deposit violent phantoms in jail cells…is a notoriously perilous assignment in police work. Undercover cops talk the talk, walk the walk, and dress the part, including beards and long hair. After several years Read more »
By Chief Joel F. Shults, Ed.D Kids say the darnedest things, but sometimes they do the darnedest things. A 9-year-old boy in Oroville, CA decided to drive himself to school in the family Volkswagon sedan. When a California Highway Patrol officer saw the car oddly stationary in an intersection, the officer instructed the driver to Read more »
By Stephen Owsinski Lately, I’ve been hearing first-hand accounts from friends and family mentioning instances of people with dementia and Alzheimer’s…and how the police handle reports of missing person cases in the demographics. On March 21, 2024, officers with the Hemet Police Department encountered such a call, involving an elderly individual with dementia who wandered Read more »