Officer.com Police Blogs & Podcasts

Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

When I was a cop, I had the same contempt for “the media” that most other cops, then and now, had or have. “The media” seldom got anything right, put their own spin on anything they reported, so that it would look artificially good or bad, depending on their bias, and generally ensured that the reading/watching/listening public knew only what it was they wanted them to know.

Well, as Pogo said so many years ago, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” I have become “the media.” Just in case I forget, every two weeks my paycheck arrives, bearing the logo of Cygnus Business Media, my employer and the owner of Officer.com.

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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

There was a somewhat embarrassing story this week on Ye Olde Cop Web, once again featuring the can’t-catch-a-break Los Angeles Police Department. In this case, it documented that 43% of LAPD officers shot in the line of duty were shot by LAPD officers. Oops.

Those charitable folks at the LA Times take great joy in demonizing the cops that stand between them and some truly bad people (What’s the difference between a pro-police reporter and an anti-police reporter? The pro-police reporter got mugged.) , and what could be more fun than pointing out that their brave centurions are only a bit more skilled with their sidearms than was Barney Fife?

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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

This is not a hot stock tip, an offer for herbal generic versions of performance-enhancing substances, or a deal to transfer money out of a secret bank account in Nigeria. It is one of the best-kept secrets in government-sponsored giveaways for public safety agencies, and it’s only available until September 22, 2006, so tarry not.

Those wacky, madcap folks at the Office of Grants and Training at the Department of Homeland Security are trying to give away about $32 million in equipment, and they don’t seem inclined to make this especially well known. The Commercial Equipment Direct Access Program (CEDAP) provides various approved items of gear to public safety agencies that don’t qualify for grants under the Urban Areas Security Initiative, which is almost everyone reading this.

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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

The news is reporting unrest in Sin City. The officers of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD, or just “Metro”) have, so far this year, shot 21 people. The ACLU and the NAACP both have their own investigations underway. I’m not holding my breath while wondering what the results will be. I would be surprised to learn that there has been one investigation of law enforcement by either organization that showed that the cops had acted properly and honorably, and that the people that got hurt either deserved to do so, or got that way because of their own actions.

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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

Those that are regular readers (both of you) may have noticed that I was conspicuous by my absence last week. I observed the first anniversary of my association with Officer.com by making a pilgrimage, as millions have done before me, to a hallowed place south and east where offerings are made to the graven image of a sacred, holy beast. The beast in question is a rodent that, unlike those found in nature, has impossibly large, black ears and wears bright yellow shoes. I spent last week at Disney World.

I have said this many times: what Disney does, they do better than anyone else in the world. Part of this is because they have 50 years of practice at running theme parks, and part is because they are constantly fine tuning their game. There is no “because we’ve always done it that way” at Disney. If something isn’t as perfect as it can possibly be, it is re-engineered. This results in a near-complete suspension of disbelief for the “guests” in the park, and helps them to forget that they just dropped $10 for a huge Mickey hand on a stick that is going to become landfill as soon as their kid sees some other trinket he or she wants.

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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

An ongoing PFI discussion (this is how academic types refer to what everyone else calls “arguments”) deals with the gradual militarization of U.S. police, where SWAT teams are prolific and arguably overused, officers are carrying weapons that have been traditionally associated with combat infantry troops, and the standard uniform is moving from a “Class A” dress model to one similar to military Battle Dress Utilities (BDUs). It’s this last issue I’ll take up now.

In the 1970s, when violent civil unrest was a common occurrence, there was a large faction of folks that really hated the police. This was the era of a war that was so unpopular that its returning veterans were spat upon in airports, when it was fashionable to speak disparagingly of anything associated with “The Establishment,” and when the term “pig” was used more often to describe law enforcement officers than to reference animated hams.

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Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

One of my last columns when I was the technology editor for another law enforcement magazine dealt with the development of “liquid body armor.” This innovation has surfaced again in a report from Business Week, and with all the attention it’s getting, the new invention is apparently not as well-known as I thought.

The substance being called “liquid body armor” is actually an enhancement to existing soft body armor materials, such as Kevlar, Spectra fiber, and Dyneema. It’s a surprisingly simple compound made of polyethylene glycol and silica. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is contained in human waste, but is also used in laxatives and in some surgical applications. Silica is, basically, sand. The silica particles used in this new compound are micron-sized, meaning that you would need not quite four million of them, laid side by side, to make an inch.

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