Published a fiction novel about IA/OPS

For the past year I’ve been busy writing a fiction novel about Internal Affairs cases, along with my full schedule of training, audits and expert witness work.  This book has allowed me to discuss issues in a way that’s difficult when I’ve written professional journal pieces.  It’s pretty raw and rather uncensored.  I see that it’s already on the Ebook sites.  The print version should be out next week and it’ll be available from patc.com.

Broken Badges: cases from Police Internal Affairs Files

IA/OPS functions get a pretty bad rap in the movies and TV.  Maybe this can help those of us who know the value of our task and respect the stakeholders – citizens, cops, agency and the community they all have to live in.

If you like what I’ve been doing these past several months on this blog, I think you’ll like the book.  A quick, engrossing read!  And if you like it, give it a good rating.

Works' comp: our forgotten loss!

Last week I participated in the first annual Risk Management Seminar for the Legal and Liability Risk Management Institute in Indianapolis.  This is the company for which I do my consulting.  We brought risk managers and insurance pool personnel in for three days of presentations.  I did two sessions.  The first dealt with auditing special operations units and the second addressed how IA/OPS operations can predict the health of a police agency.

A surprisingly interesting presentation was done by Mark Filburn, KY League of Cities, concerning law enforcement workers’ compensation.  It’s the cause of more insurance loss than excessive force claims.  Unfortunately, we don’t spend enough time or attention to workers’ comp.  Consider the loss of personnel time and the overtime necessary to overcome this loss. 

I was surprised to find out that the 5 most common instances of workers’ comp in law enforcement were slip/fall not involving arrests, training injuries, motor vehicle accidents mostly during backups, strains during foot pursuits, and injuries related to arrest incidents.

Mark demonstrated the significant importance of using a safety officer during all training practical programs, not just those on the firing range. In slip/fall cases one thing that could assist in reducing the occurrences is wearing better shoes.  Shoes with a good griping sole and ankle supports.  Wearing seat belts and controlling backups would significantly reduce injuries in vehicle accidents.

I don’t think we pay enough attention to the workers’ comp issue in law enforcement.  We simply allow the officers to write out their injury reports and sometimes a supervisor has to lay another one on top of that.  But rarely is there a reasonable investigation done to validate the injury and the job relationship.  Then when the employee is off they’re often forgotten after a couple of weeks.  Not feeling loved or appreciated, the employee just looks for a way out and some extra money and, hopefully, good medical coverage.

What might be a reasonable answer is to expand the focus on what we now use for fleet safety and shootings.  We do a pretty good job evaluating whether the traffic accident was preventable and then what was necessary to remediate the employee.  We do a good job similarly with officer involved shootings.

What if we expanded that concept of the safety committee to include worker’s comp injuries and other uses of force?  Require this committee to designate a buddy for the injured employee to maintain continuous contact.  That might help the employee feel loved and want to come back to work even earlier.  It seems like an easy win-win!  We should be able to get some valuable information to reduce our overall losses from workers’ comp injuries on top of that. 

Rambling musings

I’ve been doing this blog for 9 months now.  I’ve seen that it has received nearly 1500 hits and have heard that several of you regularly access it.  What I have found interesting is that I’ve never had any comments.  Maybe the site from Google doesn’t make that convenient or it could be that nobody has been stimulated to that extent.  Regardless, I would appreciate hearing from you either through the site or directly to my Email: loureiter@gmail.com.  Thanks

Here are a couple of rambling muses:

I was at the AARP Convention this weekend in downtown Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Convention Center.  Sure, I’m old, but I still learn each time I attend one of these.  But, my comment regards an issue with law enforcement at the Center.  I noticed a strange black plastic box in one of the large planters alongside the roadway at the entrance.  Being on somewhat high alert these days I mentioned it to a young Georgia State Trooper directing traffic.  He thanked me and I left, but I noted that neither he nor the Center officer went over to the suspicious package.  The next day the ‘suspicious’ package was in the same place.  This time, however, I looked closer and it turned out to be an exterminator mouse/rat trap.  Sure, I was somewhat amused and a trifle embarrassed.  In retrospect I imagine the Trooper had a decision to make: should I tell this guy he’s a dumb ass or should I simply say it’s a mouse trap.  Either one would have been okay.  Not saying anything could have resulted in another person making a big stink.  Like the Fire Chief I mentioned in one of my last posts…”Be Nice!”

My wife had a similar experience with a different ending.  Marilyn, who is an attorney and was a certified officer and reserve deputy in Florida, noticed a K9 unit outside a restaurant she and one of our daughters went into.  It was one of those hot and humid days in Northern Georgia.  She asked the deputy whether he had any concern about his dog partner out in the SUV.  The deputy pulled out a smaller device and showed her that he could see the vehicle was running, what the inside temp was, and how long he had been away from his partner.  She and I didn’t know they have these neat devices to protect their partner.  A simple explanation resolved the issue.

Another incident she had with a Georgia State Trooper shortly after we moved to George occurred during a traffic stop.  Marilyn tends to have a lead foot.  She mentioned to the trooper that she had been a deputy down in Florida.  He politely asked if she was carrying.  Marilyn told him she wasn’t and didn’t know the carry laws in Georgia.  The Trooper told her it was rather easy, if you didn’t have a gun you could go by any police station and they would give you one.  Of course he was joking.  Surprisingly she didn’t get a ticket.  Blondes and cops, what can I say?

You must feed your brain now and then.

Here I am in Santa Claus, Indiana.  It’s really in the middle of nowhere amongst cornfields already harvested but waiting for the rigid, orderly stalks to be removed.  This is the 4^th annual meeting of the Emerson Society Summit.  Bill Westfall, an old friend and training colleague, has again gathered 35 police professionals and budding young up and comers in the public safety field from all corners of the country to this idyllic neighborhood for a weekend of sharing and growing professionally.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson, who used to have these meetings with his closest colleagues, would say, “Tell me, what has become clear to you since we last met?”

This is a rare meeting where everyone can share ideas, new directions, network with other professionals, and maybe ask for help with some new challenge or discuss a heartache of a problem left unsolved.  It’s casual with absolutely no distractions!

Alan Brunacini, retired, longtime Fire Chief of Phoenix, was the featured presenter.  He talked about his opportunity to change the culture of his 2,000-person agency.  The turning point for him was when he realized that “being nice” and consumer-oriented was as important, if not more so, than efficiency and effectiveness in firefighting.  On a sad note, he acknowledged that his agency reverted to its past autocratic ways almost before the door hit him in the ass on his retirement.

A young Connecticut State Trooper who was a lead investigator in the Sandy Hook school shooting made a passionate presentation.  This tragedy forced every law enforcement officer even indirectly involved in this investigation to face personal conflicts.  He strongly made the point that everything anyone did during this investigation was prefaced with the thought, “What impact will this have on the survivors.”  What the police might have thought was important for the investigation was really not that significant when considered against the impact it might have on the surviving family members.  Troopers and police officers were assigned to each family who lost someone in this tragedy.  While this may now become the norm for agencies experiencing this type of tragedy, he cautioned us to ensure that these uniformed men and women need to be prepared for the psychological trauma they themselves will face. 

Pat Gallagher, my old best friend for the past 36 years, forcefully proposed that our police agencies must service two communities – the external one and the community within our agency of our employees.  He and several other presenters stressed the point that we need to reexamine our basic beliefs in what we are in business for.  Are we just law enforcers, or are we guardians of the peace and helpers for those who need our help.  This is a significant cultural change.  Can everyone in your agency define what the culture of your agency is and what direction it’s going?

Pete Sarna, another old friend and longtime retired Captain from the Oakland CA Police Department, harped on the need to seek purpose in what we’re doing.  Are we doing the right thing at the right time?  He lamented the problems perplexing his old agency, but knows it was foreseen and not addressed when it could have been. 

A young trainer from Raleigh Police Department talked about the need for situational training based on learned habits.  He asked that at the conclusion of a field incident how would you answer the question, “Was I good or just lucky?” 

This two-day meeting of aged and new thinkers in law enforcement and public service was reinvigorating for even an old-timer like me.  But it’s something that should be replicated throughout our ranks.  We can never sit contented or rest on today’s successes or our past laurels.  We need to learn from our histories and our shared experiences.  Tomorrow is here and it’s time to build each person’s and each agency’s legacy.  How about yours’? 

Is decentralizing IA/OPS a good idea?

Last week I taught an IA seminar in Kansas City.  By the way, they have one of the finest police training facilities you’ll find these days.

One of the students offered a suggestion that I quickly gave a knee jerk reaction to and dismissed.  But the thought intrigued me as I chewed on it for a few moments. 

His suggestion was whether it might be beneficial to assign an IA investigator to decentralized police stations as a local resource.  It may only be practical in an agency with more than one station or maybe a statewide agency.  Progressive agencies today do that when they insert a local prosecutor into the station.  In that case the attorney helps with search warrant applications, legal questions and provides some roll-call training.  Some agencies currently have a victim advocate in-house who can help with difficult emotional cases including child sex, rape and domestic violence.

Now what would an IA rep in the station house do?  You might rush to say it wouldn’t work because s/he would simply be considered a snitch.  In some agencies that might be true.  It would be a constant challenge for the IA investigator to build trust and show that IA expertise can be beneficial.  But, s/he could become a valuable resource for local supervisors and the station management.  The vast majority of citizen complaints are usually delegated to the field sergeant.  The IA rep could be a resource to help that supervisor and could even assist with a critique of the completed investigation.  Local station managers are often the ones who have to review administrative investigations done by IA and make recommendations.  The local rep could assist and the final product will most likely be better.  The IA investigator assigned to this local station would still carry a normal workload; just do it at another location other than the IA/OPS office.  This might encourage the investigator to make more face-to-face calls to complainants and civilian witnesses rather than wait for them to come to the central office or conduct them on the phone.  It could also cut down on the overtime or loss of field time by not having agency witnesses and targeted employees going to the main administration building.  

I must admit that I find this an interesting concept.  A couple of years ago the Texas DPS began a program of decentralizing its IA process.  It trained sergeants to conduct IA investigations and assigned a cadre to each of its seven district areas throughout the state.  I’m not sure how the DPS program has worked out and it seems to be still in the developmental stage.  NYPD has integrity lieutenants in each precinct house who are supposed to do checks, audits and other types of oversight; but it appears to be less effective and they spend most of the time with trying to ferret out accepting gratuities, checking on overtime usage and officers who are sleeping on the job.  New Orleans recently has placed compliance officers in each of its stations to do some IA type tasks as well as audits and training.

Maybe we could take this decentralized IA/OPS concept a little further and even use it in an agency with a single station.  Too often the IA/OPS function is either in some office down the hall from the Chief or in some outside location away from the station.  The only time the uniformed cops see someone from IA is when they’re under the gun either as a target or witness officer. 

We’ve continuously worked to get detectives to visit uniformed officers’ briefings and roll calls.  The idea was they could share current crime trends, offer some suspect information and answer any questions.  Unfortunately, most of those attempts have failed.  We can all argue why and come up with a bunch of reasonable answers!

What could regular visits to uniformed cops by an IA investigator do?  One is that the uniformed cop would now see the investigator without being under the gun.  The investigator could discuss completed administrative investigations where the work of the officers and the IA investigation ended up clearing the accused employees.  Or the IA investigator could grab some case from the Internet where an officer got jammed up in another city and use that as a catalyst to discuss agency protocols and safeguards.  IA gives an investigator valuable experiences that most cops never get.  Sharing these can only make everyone a better cop and further professionalize the police agency.

It’s an intriguing concept; something we should not rush to kick aside.  At least it’s something to chew on….

Oversight needed or we may have too many Rambos!

I imagine many of you saw the YouTube tirade of the Chief of Gilberton, PA.  After his profanity laced tongue lashing, he shows himself firing three different types of fully automatic weapons.  The interesting part of this is he’s the only cop in this borough of 769 people.  The news articles say he bought the weapons with his own money and donated them to the town.  The town council acknowledged that they approved this donation.  An unanswered question is, “What the hell does a town of less than 800 people and one cop need with this armory?”  Other unanswered questions are whether the Chief has been trained and certified to use these weapons and whether the town has any written policy covering their use.  You and I know that the answers are no and, again, no! 

A few years ago I conducted an audit of a 40-officer police department in Georgia.  The first thing that struck me as unusual when I initially visited the agency was the large black van with ‘SWAT’ painted on the side positioned the parking lot in front of the agency so everybody passing by could see it.  I later found that the Chief had also taken possession of an APC (military armored personnel carrier).  I asked him whether it had ever been used.  “Not officially,” the Chief answered.  What did happen is a couple of his officers on the graveyard shift took it out one morning and filmed themselves riding in it which they then posted on YouTube.  Again, training and policy was lacking.  No one from City Hall apparently had objected!  This agency had the use of the County SWAT unit by just a phone call.

I’ve referred you to an interesting site for constant updating of what’s happening throughout the country in the arena of police misconduct – PoliceMisconduct.net.  The CATO INSTITUTE runs this site.  Another publication of this group is the 2006 report “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America” by Radley Balko.  You can download it from this site.  You might not like the subject matter, but you should be aware of this line of questioning occurring throughout the country.

My good friend Harry Dolan, retired Chief of Raleigh, NC, gets on his soapbox when the issue of officers wearing BDUs comes up.  “Now they want to wear them black pajamas!” he retorts.  I remember the fight by field officers to eliminate wearing police hats during the 1970s.  But when baseball caps suddenly appeared everyone wanted to wear those. 

Now there’s a need for all of these police tools and tactics.  The problem, however, is that often they are done without some detailed thought.  What’s the problem these tools and tactics are going to resolve?  What’s the risk management potential?  Do you have reasonable written policies, training and supervisory oversight?  Until these questions can be answered reasonably the Chief, city officials and the community being served must say no…or at least slow down the process. 

Sexual misconduct involving on-duty officers

I continuously recommend that anyone involved in Internal Affairs matters should daily check out a website: policemisconduct.net.  This site was taken over by the CATO Institute about a year ago.  Every day it uses twitter to capture news reports concerning police misconduct.  Every day there are 7 to 15 incidents summarized in a one or two line narrative with a link to the actual news story and/or video.  Most of these incidents are investigations, arrests, pleas or convictions of officers for various acts of misconduct.  Unfortunately, it seems like sexual misconduct is the most frequent.  What are some of the lessons that can be learned from this nationwide perspective?

            First, it is not an infrequent event.  The age of officers involved does not seem to be a significant factor with senior officers being charged as often as newer officers.  The size of the agency also isn’t a factor.  Small, medium and large agencies as well as urban and rural are commonly involved.  One common denominator appears to be the victim – vulnerable women.  Most of the time it’s a male officer and the victim is female.  Occasionally it is a male on male incident.  Rarely do these accounts involve a female officer.

            What do I mean by the victim being a vulnerable woman?  In some way the authority of the officer is used to facilitate the sexual encounter.  It might be a traffic ticket, DUI arrest, heavily intoxicated person, drug addict, street prostitute, suicidal person or student.  Of course there are the cases involving police groupies.  Probably the most despicable is the victim of domestic violence who is consoled by the investigating officer who later flips it into a sexual relationship. 

            I’m sure that some of the officers would simply contend that these are consensual encounters.  That’s from the officer’s viewpoint.  The fact that the victim doesn’t scream, fight or protest doesn’t mean that it’s not an abuse of authority by the officer.  The officer has control of that woman.  Any subsequent sex is not consensual!

            The other common element in these occurrences is that rarely do they involve just one victim.  Once the incident is out of the bag, more victims commonly come forward.

            What concerns me the most is that this misconduct is rarely done in isolation.  Others on the police or sheriff department know or suspect what’s happening.  During our agency audits we frequently know within days who the “skirt chasers” are.  If those of us on the audit team can learn that in just a couple of days, why don’t those on the department step forward?  When this misconduct is discovered, it’s a black mark on everyone in the agency.  There is commonly a breakdown of field supervision when the officer can engage in this type of misconduct on duty and not become noticed.  The supervisor is not looking or is simply not out on the street where s/he should be.

            This is something that should not continue!  This is a scab on professional policing.  It’s time to stand up and be vocal.  It’s time to use real life examples during basic and in-service training, rather than philosophical points of view.  This is the dirty side of law enforcement and it can be stopped!