Explorations in Policing, Faith and Life (With a hint of humor, product reviews, news and whatever catches my attention)

Friday, July 11, 2014

Team work

Police work is by its very nature quintessential team work.  The roles require a level of creativity yet maintain dedicated role boundaries.  A understanding of abilities or skills of individual team members and formulating a plan taking into account the abilities or lack of in a given situation.  Frankly most of the time it happen without thought since most of the department has decades of  experience with each other.

I was watching the following video and it really struck me as an analogue of what we do on the street each day.  A successful outcome of a call is really like creating a complete song...even to the part that it has to be picked up and tweaked a couple of weeks later.

Enjoy.




Monday, June 30, 2014

Finally Illinois get's something right...well sort of...

The Illinois General Assembly passed Public Act 098-0650:  The no police quota act.  So on the plus side they can no longer have the list of tickets that they can say, "Why are you so far behind Ofc Brown?"  The correct answer is, "Because I am covering all his calls that he can't answer because he is always out pimping the public" but you say, "I will certainly try harder."  Then don't.

But of course with everything Illinois it can only look pleasing but never be substantive.  If you read the statute below you will see they still can evaluate us by, "Contact" and what are "Contacts"?  Interestingly they are only things that you gain by...traffic stopping people.  But its...better...hopefully the next bill will kill these..."Contacts" provision.

First the link to the statute...Public Act 098-0650

The Statute:

 
Public Act 098-0650

SB3411 Enrolled LRB098 18994 JLK 55614 b

    AN ACT concerning local government.

    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:

    Section 5. The Department of Natural Resources
(Conservation) Law of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois
is amended by adding Section 805-537 as follows:

    (20 ILCS 805/805-537 new)
    Sec. 805-537. Conservation Police Officer quotas
prohibited. The Department may not require a Conservation
Police Officer to issue a specific number of citations within a
designated period of time. This prohibition shall not affect
the conditions of any federal or State grants or funds awarded
to the Department and used to fund traffic enforcement
programs.
    The Department may not, for purposes of evaluating a
Conservation Police Officer's job performance, compare the
number of citations issued by the Conservation Police Officer
to the number of citations issued by any other Conservation
Police Officer who has similar job duties. Nothing in this
Section shall prohibit the Department from evaluating a
Conservation Police Officer based on the Conservation Police
Officer's points of contact. For the purposes of this Section,
"points of contact" means any quantifiable contact made in the
furtherance of the Conservation Police Officer's duties,
including, but not limited to, the number of traffic stops
completed, arrests, written warnings, and crime prevention
measures. Points of contact shall not include either the
issuance of citations or the number of citations issued by a
Conservation Police Officer.

    Section 10. The State Police Act is amended by adding
Section 24 as follows:

    (20 ILCS 2610/24 new)
    Sec. 24. State Police quotas prohibited. The Department may
not require a Department of State Police officer to issue a
specific number of citations within a designated period of
time. This prohibition shall not affect the conditions of any
federal or State grants or funds awarded to the Department and
used to fund traffic enforcement programs.
    The Department may not, for purposes of evaluating a
Department of State Police officer's job performance, compare
the number of citations issued by the Department of State
Police officer to the number of citations issued by any other
Department of State Police officer who has similar job duties.
Nothing in this Section shall prohibit the Department from
evaluating a Department of State Police officer based on the
Department of State Police officer's points of contact. For the
purposes of this Section, "points of contact" means any
quantifiable contact made in the furtherance of the Department
of State Police officer's duties, including, but not limited
to, the number of traffic stops completed, arrests, written
warnings, and crime prevention measures. Points of contact
shall not include either the issuance of citations or the
number of citations issued by a Department of State Police
officer.

    Section 15. The Counties Code is amended by adding Section
5-1136 as follows:

    (55 ILCS 5/5-1136 new)
    Sec. 5-1136. Quotas prohibited. A county may not require a
law enforcement officer to issue a specific number of citations
within a designated period of time. This prohibition shall not
affect the conditions of any federal or State grants or funds
awarded to the county and used to fund traffic enforcement
programs.
    A county may not, for purposes of evaluating a law
enforcement officer's job performance, compare the number of
citations issued by the law enforcement officer to the number
of citations issued by any other law enforcement officer who
has similar job duties. Nothing in this Section shall prohibit
a county from evaluating a law enforcement officer based on the
law enforcement officer's points of contact.
    For the purposes of this Section:
        (1) "Points of contact" means any quantifiable contact
    made in the furtherance of the law enforcement officer's
    duties, including, but not limited to, the number of
    traffic stops completed, arrests, written warnings, and
    crime prevention measures. Points of contact shall not
    include either the issuance of citations or the number of
    citations issued by a law enforcement officer.
        (2) "Law enforcement officer" includes any sheriff,
    undersheriff, deputy sheriff, county police officer, or
    other person employed by the county as a peace officer.
    A home rule unit may not establish requirements for or
assess the performance of law enforcement officers in a manner
inconsistent with this Section. This Section is a denial and
limitation of home rule powers and functions under subsection
(g) of Section 6 of Article VII of the Illinois Constitution.

    Section 20. The Illinois Municipal Code is amended by
adding Section 11-1-12 as follows:

    (65 ILCS 5/11-1-12 new)
    Sec. 11-1-12. Quotas prohibited. A municipality may not
require a police officer to issue a specific number of
citations within a designated period of time. This prohibition
shall not affect the conditions of any federal or State grants
or funds awarded to the municipality and used to fund traffic
enforcement programs.
    A municipality may not, for purposes of evaluating a police
officer's job performance, compare the number of citations
issued by the police officer to the number of citations issued
by any other police officer who has similar job duties. Nothing
in this Section shall prohibit a municipality from evaluating a
police officer based on the police officer's points of contact.
For the purposes of this Section, "points of contact" means any
quantifiable contact made in the furtherance of the police
officer's duties, including, but not limited to, the number of
traffic stops completed, arrests, written warnings, and crime
prevention measures. Points of contact shall not include either
the issuance of citations or the number of citations issued by
a police officer.
    This Section shall not apply to a municipality subject to
Section 10-1-18.1 of this Code with its own independent
inspector general and law enforcement review authority.
    A home rule municipality may not establish requirements for
or assess the performance of police officers in a manner
inconsistent with this Section. This Section is a denial and
limitation of home rule powers and functions under subsection
(g) of Section 6 of Article VII of the Illinois Constitution.


Effective Date: 1/1/2015

Proverbs 8:15  By me kings reign and rulers issue decrees that are just;

Friday, June 27, 2014

How to Become a Police Officer dot com (We made top thirty)

I was recently notified by the associate editor at How to Become a Police Officer site that this blog had made their top thirty.

I took a look at their site and it really does have a lot of good info worth checking out if you are considering the field.  Trust me every little bit helps, I tested in an eleven department consortium, that had thirty-three positions open up over a three year period.  At the two day orientation at the local junior college about twenty-five hundred people attended each day.

I would have killed for this kind of resource back then.



Song of Songs 3:8
8 all of them wearing the sword,
    all experienced in battle,
each with his sword at his side,
    prepared for the terrors of the night.


Thursday, June 26, 2014

Kevlar-May she rest in piece


Most of my twenty year working life, from security guard to police officer, I have been encapsulated by a Kevlar bullet proof vest.  Its probably the single piece of equipment that every officer anywhere in the country has in common, no matter what his/her assignment, duty or rank.  I really didn't think about it past, hoping that it was true to its advertising and would actually stop a bullet as it was intended to.

Stephanie Kwolek was the inventor of Kevlar when she was a Dupont Scientist in the 1960's.  I should have thanked her when she was alive, instead I'll pay my respects.

The article I found in the USA Today dated June 20, 2014
Author: Aaron Nathans, Wilmington (Del.) News Journal
The Link USA TODAY

Kevlar inventor Stephanie Kwolek, 90, dies


WILMINGTON, Del. -- Stephanie Kwolek, the DuPont scientist whose invention, Kevlar, has saved countless lives as the essential ingredient in body armor, has died.

Kwolek died Wednesday in Talleyville, Delaware following a brief illness, said her friend, Rita Vasta, who is handling Kwolek's affairs. She was 90.

Kwolek had no remaining family, Vasta said.

"We are all saddened at the passing of DuPont scientist Stephanie Kwolek, a creative and determined chemist and a true pioneer for women in science," DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman said in a written statement Thursday. "Her synthesis of the first liquid crystal polymer and the invention of DuPont Kevlar highlighted a distinguished career."

Kwolek developed Kevlar, a substance five times stronger than steel, by spinning fiber from a liquid crystalline solution. Kevlar's lightweight, durable qualities have made it a long-lived material used in body armor and other protection equipment used by police and the military.

The discovery came in the mid-1960s when Kwolek was 42, working at DuPont's Experimental Station outside of Wilmington to develop a super-strong fiber to reinforce radial tires.

She invented a solution of rigid-chain polymers that fell from her lab spatula like water. The substance was much thinner than most polymers, and when put into a machine could be spun into strong, stiff material.

She told The News Journal in 2007 that DuPont management "didn't fool around. They immediately assigned a whole group to work on different aspects. ... It was very exciting, let me tell you."

Kevlar's use over time broadened to other applications, including sporting equipment, as it minimizes vibration and can bend without shattering. DuPont recently agreed to serve as a sponsor of the ESPN X Games, where sporting equipment makes liberal use of Kevlar. DuPont will celebrate Kevlar's 50th anniversary next year.

News of Kwolek's death came a day after DuPont Protection Technologies announced that a million bullet-resistant vests have been sold using DuPont Kevlar XP since that version of the product was launched in 2008. Today, most police agencies have adopted mandatory vest requirements.

"When you think about what she has done, it's incredible. There's literally thousands and thousands of people alive because of her," said Ron McBride, former manager of the Kevlar Survivors' Club, a not-for-profit partnership between DuPont and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The group has documented 3,200 lives saved through use of Kevlar in body armor.

McBride is a former chief of police in Ashland, Kentucky. A vest with Kevlar saved the life of his son, who was serving as a naval operative in Iraq.

"She could look back on her life and say, 'Yeah, I made a difference,' " he said.

Kwolek held just a bachelor's degree from the institution that preceded Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh when she joined DuPont as a chemist in 1946.

Coming from humble roots, and having studied in a one-room schoolhouse, she found an opportunity at DuPont because many men were in the military at the time.

"She was stubborn, she clung on, and she did the work because she found it interesting," said Caroline Angel Burke, project manager at the Museum of Science in Boston, which chose Kwolek as one of a handful of engineers featured in a permanent exhibit.

Kwolek, who stood just 4 feet 11 inches tall, never married.

"In those days for chemists, when you're hot on the trail of something, there's not a lot of time to go dating," Vasta said. "She loved outdoor sports, she had plenty of friends, she socialized. But when it came to lab work, that was 100 percent of her focus."

Vasta, who counted Kwolek as a mentor when they both worked at DuPont in the 1980s, said Kwolek continued to develop Kevlar over the years before her retirement in 1986. She went on to mentor women who wanted to go into the sciences, Vasta said.

Kwolek got a nice lab at DuPont after the discovery, but recognized she was in the company of many other distinguished scientists, Vasta said. Kwolek always said that DuPont compensated her properly for her discovery, Vasta said.

In the 2007 interview, Kwolek was careful to take credit only for the initial discovery of the technology used in the development of Kevlar, crediting the team for taking it further, especially DuPont scientist Herbert Blades.

Kwolek was proud whenever first responders approached her to tell her that her vest saved their life, Vasta said.

In 1996, Kwolek won the National Medal of Technology "for her contributions to the discovery, development and liquid crystal processing of high-performance aramid fibers, which provide new products worldwide to save lives and benefit humankind." She was only the third DuPont scientist to win a National Medal of Technology or Science, Kullman said.

"She leaves a wonderful legacy of thousands of lives saved and countless injuries prevented by products made possible by her discovery," Kullman said.

In Kwolek's later years, she enjoyed being in her home, Vasta said. She left behind her lab notebooks, and "oh my gosh, they're like literary pieces," she said, noting her fluid handwriting and sketches.

Kwolek was inducted into the the Hall of Fame of Delaware Women on March 27.

Kwolek kept spools of Kevlar fabric at her home, she told The News Journal in 2007. "I never in a thousand years expected that little liquid crystal to develop into what it did," she said.

(Contributing: Maureen Milford)

Oh and just for fun...


Thursday, April 24, 2014

Motivation Part 3

We had a major incident that occurred almost two decades ago in which our town was linked to the crime but we were never able to discover where the crime had actually took place. A number of the affected departments set up an informal task force in order to solve the crime, but the leads were just not there and it went cold.

Recently the lead department received new evidence that pointed to a hitherto unknown suspect. They came to our department and coordinated with our investigation division to pickup and go speak with this new suspect.

So three-fourths of patrol is in the break room eating lunch, watching NASCAR on the flat screen television, when a senior member of our command staff walks by the room pushing a double-decker food cart. We let that go. A short time later he returns with a bunch of pizza boxes on the cart. The smart-mouth of our group, says, “Hey boss, that for us?”. He chuckles and says no. Then he and the cart disappear into the elevator and he goes up a couple of floors to the dick's offices. He and the cart return empty handed, followed by a return trip that contained drinks and finally a dessert run.

Right after the dessert run, the on-duty shift Sargent pops up and we ask him if any of the pizza that is going to our investigators and the outside department personnel is going to find its way to us. He tells us that he had not heard of the pizza and then walks out of the room. A short time later, he returned and said, yes there is pizza (like we would not recognize pizza as it went past us) but no, it was not for us. I then point out that it would take maybe 2 or at the most 3 pizzas to feed patrol and after they had bought all the other ones, how much more would it really cost to do that. A conversation soon breaks out between the three of us in patrol and the Sargent, in which we eventually concluded that in the command staffs' mind we are not worth the cost of three pizzas. I concluded the conversation by stating, “Well I for one am glad to know my actual dollar amount worth to the department. Now I can go get replacement insurance and know I am not going to overpay.” We all laugh and hit the street.

Fast forward to the next day and I am speaking now to the shift lieutenant about a different matter, when the same Sargent from the day before walks up. The lieutenant then says, “Oh that reminds me I found out about that pizza thing from yesterday.”

I think, crap, I shot my mouth off and irritated someone enough that the Lt is involved. The lieutenant then says, “If it makes you feel any better, our detectives didn't get any pizza either, they had to buy their own lunch. That was just for the officers that came in from the outside for this case.”

The Sargent and I just stare at our Lieutenant waiting for his mental bulb to light up. A few beats later it does. He sighs and states, “Wait, I think that worse. It means we care much more about a bunch of strangers we will never see again, then the actual people that work here. It makes you feel all warm and gooey inside.” And with that final statement the pizza topic was permanently shelved as an approved conversational topic.


I guess going down on the sinking boat is a little more comforting when you have company on that cruise, but then again I think we all would rather not be sinking in the first place.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Motivation Part 2

     Anyone that has read this blog for any amount of time quickly realizes that I hate traffic enforcement. Unless I need a reason to stop a load of gang bangers or a drug load, I really hate pimping the general public on silly traffic nonsense.

     The problem with my attitude is that in patrol it is an expected part of my duty day. So I decided to refocus myself now that I am back in patrol and at least fulfill my basic patrol duties.  We, as a department, are currently having a problem with our county. The court fees keep getting raised and the judges are feeling sympathetic to our traffic offenders because the fees are double the maximum possible ticket fine.  As a local department only get a percentage of the fine and nothing of the court fees. The judges are still finding the traffic offenders guilty but instead of the max fine they are taking it all the way down to twenty, ten and in one case, five dollar fines. The bottom line is the county is making bank on all of our work.

    Our administration, rightly, decided to try to keep as many tickets within the city as is possible, so that we can reap the work of our hands rather than the county. This making sense, I dedicated myself to local ordinance, equipment and parking tickets. Fast forward a year and I am getting my annual review. I have full points. Further, he lets me know that he is pleasantly surprised that I am second on my shift in total tickets written, knowing full well that it was not a passion of mine.

     However, sheepishly my Sargent, lets me know that there is one thing we have to talk about. He goes on to say that he was asked to do an audit of the total traffic stops for the department. In that audit, I am the last one on the shift in total traffic stops. So he asks me nicely, to commit to more traffic stops. I then foolishly ask if he is going to talk to anyone else about this ticket/traffic stop issue. He tells me no. So I say, “Okay, you are not going to talk to the guys who wrote less tickets than I did because they did more traffic stops than I did.”

    He says, “yes”. 

     I then ask, “But didn't our Chief rightfully say we needed to write as many as local ordinances as we possibly could. So if I write more of my tickets as moving violations, the city will get less money.”

    He responded, “Yep, that was my take away from that conversation. But remember making traffic stops, not just writing tickets are an important part of your job.”

   
I rejoin, “But hasn't every study from the seventies till now shown that traffic stops have little to no effect on the public's driving behavior?”. He again nods yes. I finish with, “So if I understand this, I need to do more of a thing that doesn't change the public behavior or increase safety, does not raise money for the city just to hit a magic number that someone above you has arbitrarily set, that we don't know what that is? When they have asked us to do the exact opposite, via roll call training, email, and personal visits to roll call?” He sighs, give me the shoulder shrug, that universally indicates, look its not my idea I just have to tell you about it.


    I let him know that I certainly would make more stops and just walked away shaking my head. Policy is the right thing to follow, you know, until they don't want you to follow their policy. Fun on the job.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Christmas Time-Motivation Part 1

 I am still here. I took some time off from the blog in order to achieve some fresh prospective on law enforcement. In other words, I got banged around a bit and got pissed and had to take five. The following expressed memory is not anything that made me angry, just thought it was amusing.

Any-Who, last Christmas, our DC came into the patrol room a week or so before Christmas with a big box of booze. I just happened to be there and in seeing the big box of booze and knowing the proximity to our blessed Lord's birthday, asked what purpose the box provided (hoping of course...free booze). He said, “Oh this? Its nothing.” Disappointed I went back to my squad.

A few days later I had to ask the Sargent a question and there sitting on his desk was one of the bottles of booze with a jaunty bow on top and a card close by. I asked the Sargent if that was his Christmas present from the DC and I was informed it was. So what did patrol get? A Christmas card? Nope. A merry Christmas email? Nope. Acknowledgment that it was the holiday season? Nope, zip, zilch and nothing.

So I look in my mail box and see that the Chief had given each of us a personalized Christmas card. Okay, some love for patrol, finally. I opened the card and was wished a merry Christmas among other positive Christmas suggestions and holiday desires. It was at this point, I noticed that the Chief's name was spelled wrong in the salutation section. Thinking this was inadvertent and not at all put aback by a printed signature rather a personally signed one, I found a group of us loitering around the station and pointed out the mistake. We all had a lark and a laugh, until the Sargent came over and said, “Oh I asked him about that. He said he realized that the printers had screwed up so he had a fresh corrected batch made. He gave us the misspelled cards so that the cards that go out to the real people are spelled correctly.”

I responded by telling the first story of the DC and booze. I then pointed out how all warm and fuzzy a Christmas in patrol was and said, “Merry (insert your departments name here) F'n Christmas everybody!”, and walked out into the night.

Ah if every company cared as much about the workers' personnel feelings as our departments care about ours, it would all look like a a scene out of the back room of a post office in the eighties.

Merry belated Christmas everybody.


PS: I really said F'n and not the full word, just for a point of order there.