Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on June 22nd, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
A recent conversation dwelled on a fundamental difference between people associated with law enforcement. There are the “sworn” folks, and everyone else. It also reflects a common attitude among cops. Where I was a cop, this was summed up in an axiom: “If you ain’t sworn, you ain’t born.”
“Sworn” is the generic term for people with guns, badges and arrest powers. When discussing their respective agencies, cops will ask each other “How many sworn?” A law enforcement agency might have 1000 employees, but only a few hundred sworn. The rest are clerical, administrative, communications, report takers, and others that perform eminently necessary but more mundane duties. The non-sworn folks can be highly skilled and possessed of credentials far beyond those of the cops, but they’re never going to be part of the fraternity.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on June 11th, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
Peter Pace got a break last week. You may not have heard of him, even though he is considerably more accomplished and more deserving of the limelight than was Paris Hilton, who was the focus of the day. While Paris was getting sent back to jail on Friday, it was announced that General Peter Pace, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, would not be serving a second term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This news was judged not worthy of interrupting the minute-by-minute reporting of Paris’ hearing. I don’t know General Pace, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to comment on whether he should or shouldn’t have served another term, but I respect anyone that can rise to that level of command, especially in the Marine Corps. But in today’s world, he takes a back seat to an underweight rich girl whose most eloquent quote, and description for most everything, is “That’s hot.”
This event will serve as the future standard for “media circus,” and folks are outraged for all sorts of reasons–Paris is being treated too harshly, Paris isn’t being punished enough, celebrities don’t get treated the same, on and on. Even my old pal Al Sharpton is trying to steal some of the thunder, demanding to meet with Sheriff Lee Baca about the disparity of treatment between convicted drunk drivers with no prior record and gangbanger murderers whose rap sheets begin with “Volume One.” I have not yet heard any protests about how Paris Hilton’s jail sentence is a waste of time and resources, no matter how much she might deserve to be there.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on June 5th, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
Last week saw a health scare for some air travelers when they learned that a man with an especially virulent strain of tuberculosis had been on a commercial flight with them. That was the primary concern for those people, but the news story focused more on how Andrew Speaker managed to get across a Canadian-U.S. border despite being entered on a watch list from the Centers for Disease Control. Worse yet, the alert came up on the display being used by the Customs & Border Protection (CBP) officer at the checkpoint, and he admitted Speaker, anyway.
This faux pas got national attention not so much because of the public health threat, but because it was so easy to bypass a warning system that was apparently working as it was expected to. Why did this happen? It happened because the CBP officer resorted to a supposedly superior screening method that he has been urged to use many times, as have we all.
Read the rest of this entry »
