Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on September 28th, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
Officer.com is here for the law enforcement community, and I usually write these editorials with that audience in mind. Lately, though, it seems like I have attracted more of a civilian audience, and this time I want to speak to that group more specifically.
The last couple of weeks have focused on police misconduct (or behavior perceived by some as misconduct) and police-citizen interactions. The comments have made reference to police officers being too quick to use the force option, disrespectful of constitutional limits on their powers, overly protective of one another, biased in their enforcement and discretionary decision-making, and just not the kind of police that you want or are comfortable with. So, let me explain a few things that might shed some light on why we have the police that we do.
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Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on September 21st, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
Anytime I want to expand our reader base a bit, all I need to do is write a commentary on an issue near and dear to the hearts of people outside the police community. I don’t have to promote it beyond that –the internet does it for me. Last week’s blog about the St. George, MO police sergeant who was videotaped cursing and threatening a driver who had set up the encounter for that purpose was one of these. At this writing, it’s up to 35 comments–not a record, but respectable.
This round was interesting in that it turned into a kind of dialogue between the commenters, who stopped criticizing what I had written in favor of criticizing each other. I pointed out that we have a discussion forum that works much better for that sort of thing, and the reply inferred that their perspective would not be tolerated on our forums. I submit that those of you who constantly find fault with the police are less tolerant of the police point of view than the police are of yours.
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Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on September 14th, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
As if we didn’t need more bad press, a police sergeant from St. George, MO was suspended this last week after his tirade directed at a motorist was captured on videotape. This is unfortunate on several levels, but it should also make for a warning flag for other cops, because the tactics used by the “victim” in this incident are becoming increasingly commonplace.
The incident has been a hot topic on the Officer.com discussion forum, where some people might expect the cops there to be defending the Missouri sergeant. For the most part, this hasn’t happened. The prevailing tone is that the sergeant was out of line and unprofessional, but also that he was baited into the incident by someone that was looking to push his buttons, and succeeded. Cops are supposed to be paragons of self-control, and they usually are. But every one of us has a hot button (maybe several), and if that gets pushed, bad things are likely to happen.
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Posted in
Tim Dees on Law Enforcement on September 6th, 2007
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
No, these aren’t necessarily related topics, but I needed to get both of them out of the way.
You may have noticed that the “Online Events” section of the O.com home page now includes a link to the Officer.com Podcast. I thought that podcasts were a pretty well-known phenomenon, but it seems like every other policeperson I mention this to asks me, “What the hell’s a podcast?” So, indulge me for a moment while I explain.
The web, and blogs, evened the publishing playing field by making it possible for the common man to get his musings out to the world. It used to be that one could only do this if they owned a publishing company, or were in the good graces of someone that did. Podcasting has done this for radio. You still can’t tune your car radio to the podcast from your favorite person or organization, but you can obtain the same program by listening to it through the web, or downloading it to an iPod or other MP3 music player. Since you see a lot more people listening to personal music players than to broadcast radio these days, the market penetration potentially outshines radio.
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