Now Ye're Talking to a US Police Officer III

Hello all, good to be back, thought there might be interest in answering a few more questions/comments.

Some ground rules: I'm in Texas, and that's all I'll say about my location, don't ask. These are my opinions of course, take it for what it is. I'm an expat Dub who's been over here for a while, work uniformed patrol, soon to retire. The other two AMA's have a lot of good questions & answer if you have the time, worth a look.

it's been an interesting few years all right since I last posted. We're no policing in what I refer to as the "post George Floyd" world. We've survived the "defund the police" "reinvent the police" etc. etc. There has been a lot of good community dialogue about policing which is shining more light onto the profession. Naturally there have been some over corrections, be it budgets or legislative and we, as a community now bear the fruit of those efforts, good and bad. Here locally, we have a reformed "police oversight board" who looks into misconduct allegations, a new DA who has made it his mission to go after cops, a few new state laws (nothing startling, it's Texas after all, no one is going to call the Lone Star State a bastion of reform are they?), a bigger budget (yes, we got a bigger budget), finally got body cameras, thats about it.

Day to day, life goes on really. Morale, however has tanked, especially with the new DA going after cops. he has even dug up old cases (alleged excessive force) from years ago which were unfounded, and has sought indictments on those. Some of his ideas are good, not prosecuting low level marijuana cases & traffic tickets, but he's hammered morale on the force. Don't get me wrong, we still come to work and do our job, more of a sense of "watch your back, DA is out to get you" sort of thing. Officers who used to be reasonably pro-active are no more. Now you just take the calls you are sent on, no point in looking for trouble. Thats a loss, IMHO, as it fosters an "I don't care attitude" sadly.

What has really hurt, was the two year hiring freeze while the council hired a consultant to "reimagine the police". Now that we've been reimagined, we are woefully short of officers. Not hiring for that long is going to take years to overcome, and the uncomfortable truth is the public suffers. To keep minimum manning on patrol, the majority of our specialty units have been disbanded. No more Gang Unit, Animal Cruelty, Traffic Unit, Auto Theft, Parks & Lakes, Mounted & Bike patrol (on the park & trail system), they are all on the beat. In fact we are so effing short, our detectives are now tasked to suspend cases for two weeks while they rotate onto patrol.

We can retire at 25 years on a basic pension, it was common to stay for 30, better pension and it was sustainable. Not so much, lot of talent is hitting the 25 year mark and bailing. Easier to go do something else for a few years and protect the pension. It's sad to see it really.

There is even the uncomfortable consideration of shifting our roster to 12 hour shifts just to cover the holes. IE Work 3 12 hour shifts, and one six hour shift. That will crush whatever family life we had, as it becomes work/sleep for four days straight, less than ideal.

Anyhow, fire way with the questions.

Have you traveled internationally?, and what was your thoughts on how those police forces interacted with it's citizens.?

Yes, we try and travel internationally as much as we can. I can't really speak to it as other than the occasional chance encounter, I haven't had the opportunity to interact much. I'd like to see more of other forces, but it's a time/language issue and a desire to not make it a busmans holiday. Did a informal rid-out with the Gardai, had a mate there, that was great to see how they work. Otherwise, I leave the job at home when on hols.

And separately what do yourself and your colleagues think of the Uvalde police department?

I'll always preface by saying I wasn't there, so there is that. However, based on everything released, it was a failure at every level. I'm an Active Shooter LE instructor. The fundamental tenet is "stop the killing". Use whatever means to make entry and confront the shooter. Yes, that means going in harms way. As I say to student, "this is your moment, this is what you signed on for, it's going to hurt".

For all of the slagging they get, as an Irish person I’m proud that our Police force are literally “the Guardians of Peace” and not the jumped-up, under-trained, trigger-happy thugs they seem to have in the US.

That is a provocative & declarative statement, and you are entitled to your opinions. If you have a question ask it, otherwise this doesn't contribute anything to a reasonable debate.

My question for the OP is this: how can you look at yourself in the mirror when you button up the same uniform the murderers of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Daniel Shaver wore?

I don't, I don't work for that agency. I'm proud of what I do, I serve and protect my community, I help people and make every effort to apply the law fairly & equally. As said above, there are 900 000 of us, vast majority doing a hard job. The officers in those case get what they deserve, its not defendable.

What do you think would happen if an unarmed police force, like the Gardaí, say, attempted policing in an American setting?Suicide mission?

It wouldn't work. For a long and complex series of historical, social & political reasons, guns are a fact of life in this country. In dealing with a population that is armed, and thus armed criminals, armed police are the only reasonable solution. An unarmed officer can't safely confront an armed subject.

Are cops allowed to become so fat and unfit? Should there be more stringent on going fitness testing?

I don't think they should be, but this is an expensive and complex labour law issue in this country. Without getting into the legalities of it, the short version is: if an employer has a job fitness standard, it must be employment related, and the employer must provide the means to prepare for a standard. IE the job would have to pay for time to work out, a gym and make sure the test can survive a legal challenge. In most agencies, fitness programs never make the budget. We're struggling to meet minimum staffing, very few chiefs have the appetite to pay for us to work out on the clock where we struggle to answer calls for service. I do not like fat cops, they are a danger to me, the public and themselves.

Is 21 weeks of training really adequate?

Well requirements vary by state/agency but it hovers around 21 weeks. My agency academy is 25 weeks as we do a lot of Mental Health Officer training. I know in Europe many agencies require a degree which I don't disagree with but then a reasonable balance may be in the middle. Gardai spend nearly two years in Templemore, and yet they can't drive a patrol car until they've been to the drivers course. We go from civilian to cop in 25 weeks, including firearms, driving, the lot. So it's probably in the middle somewhere.

This would require a fundamental shift in what is still generally perceived as a blue collar job to a true profession. This opens other doors, should cops get paid more then if they have degrees? How do you address minority recruiting, that's already a struggle. We tried that for a while, required the degree. Our chief was fired over it as it was deemed it was a tool to exclude minorities. Should they be paid for a year in the academy? How will that effect budget, personnel shortages? It's a knotty problem.

Are you actually saying that the DA is fabricating excessive force accusations against “cops” you work with? For what end, exactly? I think it’s more likely that that the police are actually going under scrutiny for abusing their power that they have been getting away with for years.

No the DA is not fabricating anything, this is life, not a movie. These are cases that happened some years back, were investigated, officers were cleared of wrong doing by Internal Affairs, the Police Board and the previous DA. These cases were re-opened, not because of new evidence, new accusations etc, but because the DA "was not satisficed with the previous investigation" This is a dangerous slippery slope, regardless of whether it's a cop or not as any new DA could use the same logic in any criminal case. Sure, fill your boots if it was a sloppy investigation, new evidence, new facts, but this is not the case. Now there are 10 officers back under the microscope, suspended from duty while this is dragged out again.

The saying is “one bad apple spoils the bunch.” Would you agree that if there is such a significant minority of crooked bullies in the police forces in the US then the whole force’s reputation suffers?

Of course, everytime one of these idiots does something, it harms us. It fosters mistrust and reinforces an "us vs. them mentality". None of us want our job to be any harder than it is.

Do you not think policemen who “step over a line” should go to prison rather than simply fired?

It's not as simple as "lock 'em up". Just like anyone else, they have rights if accused of a crime. Those rights should be protected just like anyone else's. Employment law, different, you violate dept. policy, yes, they can be fired (and should be in my mind, but only after a fair and open investigation. Just because we're cops, doesn't mean we have less rights than anyone else.

What do you imagine happened before the filming started that would justify the use of excessive force? By which I mean when do you think “excessive” force is ever justified?

I don't know and won't speculate. One open source mentioned the encounter had been fine for a few minutes, then it went downhill. There is no lawful justification for excessive force. The law allows for words to the effect of force which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances and the minimum amount of force necessary to effect an arrest or protect the officer or other person. This is very subjective, thus very circumstance driven. Was the guy high on meth? Did he have a weapon or history of violence? Was he reaching for an officers gun? etc etc etc. Punches, strikes, blows are a permitted use of force, even to the head in some circumstances. Now if the guy was cuffed (like George Floyd), then all best are off, how do you articulate a threat? More will come from this I'm sure.

With all the focus on LE, much of it well deserved, there is a rush to defund/reimagine/dissolve/whatever the police. A question which gets lost in the narrative is "What do you want YOUR police to be?". Policing is very complex, and we show up at the intersection of history/race/poverty/social & political policy/mental health/crime and have to make decisions there and then based on the laws that were enacted by the people. As it stands, the unstated expectation of a cop is that he/she can drive like a NASCAR racer, shoot like an Olympic shooter, fight like a MMA champ, be a paramedic, a social worker, a mental health counsellor, write at a graduate level and have the legal mind of Perry Mason. All for about $45K/year 24/7.

I'm not saying being a cop is hard, its very complicated. Most people essentially haven't a clue about the law and base their understanding of what we do on movies/TV. And we're thrust into the middle of generational poverty, racist housing & education policies, historical prejudice, and so on. I would submit, as a profession, we're struggling to get our heads around it too. But we're a product of society too. We don't write the laws and make the policies. Sure, we have discretion, but that can only go so far. I think all of us have to have the uncomfortable conversation about this, not just the police.

So look at this as a discussion point and watch the whole thing from start to finish. And ask yourself, what would/could a reasonable officer have done different? Not all that much I submit. Why? Encounter starts pleasantly enough, the officers were polite and doing their job. A neighbour had called (911 tape at end of broadcast) reporting a suspicious person. Cops show up, and ask they guy wazzup? Now, is he suspicious, well watering the plants is not inherently suspicious but as a cop, we still need to know who is this guy and what is he doing here. The officer made a reasonable demand for ID to figure out who they are dealing with. The Pastor refuses to talk, ignores them to the point of rudeness and forces the issue. Yeah, he gets cuffed and finally tells them who he is. But now it's a thing...and I'm sure the law firm of Dewy, Chetham and Howe are already filing motions.

What is the root cause here? The 911 caller? The pastor or the cop? Historical race prejudice? (It is Alabama after all) If he'd said "Oh hey guys, I'm Pastor Bob Jones, this is my neighbor Timmy's house, I'm looking after the place while they are out. Oh, ID, sure, here ya go. And if ya want to call Timmy I can give you his number" It would likely have ended up with a "thank you sir, we appreciate your cooperation, have a good day" and we'd all be better off. As a cop, I can't just go, "Oh, ok, well you must be who you are because you're watering plants" and leave without figuring out who he is and whats going on, I would be derelict in my duties of protecting the public. And here we are, another issue. And while I normally like the BBC as reasonably objective, the headline is a bit sensational. They don't run the story in chronological order, probably because it's less exciting. This is all what we have to deal with as a society on a daily basis.

Yeah that was my vague idea that the whole thing was very fragmented, even as an observer I think it must be massively frustrating to say the least. So transit don't communicate with patrol as an example? That's why I wonder how anything gets done!

Well it's not as bleak as that, more a case of overlapping boundaries. Say a fight kicks off on a transit bus, people call 911. Bus is at a junction between city/county boundary. County SO, City PD and Transit PD will respond as we do have a mostly combined 911 center (which is epically cool BTW. it's some Star Wars kit in there...massive). Odds are County SO/City PD will get there first and deal with the fight (more County SO/City PD than transit). As cops, we have universal authority in the state, whoever gets there first will cuff people, get names, whatever. Then someone will decide, if it all happened on the bus, then it's a Transit PD case, it's handed off to them on scene, and they deal with it. But, if all three agencies wrote reports (you better if you cuff someone), then Transit PD have to track down that officer/deputy, get his/her report for the follow on investigation. But we don't just had reports off to anyone, that has to be approved by legal, so it just slows things down. Day to day, we can jump to each others radio channels, but we don't see their MDC notes, and depend on their dispatcher to tell ours something like this or a pursuit is going through our patch. It's clunky to be fair, and it's not impossible an officer on scene will do the "hey, it's on your side of the road, you deal with it" Not a row or anything but it can get pissy.

How/Why did you leave Ireland, and what was your career journey before police?

Moved over here as I got married to an American. Worked on the buldings, then was a paramedic for a while, moved to LE. Rest is history.

I remember your last AMA and towards the end, you had a great female detective answering questions. She had a very tough role and rotated to various sections at (I think) 2 year intervals. Given what you know about her role, have you ever considered a move to detective ? Is there anything she outlined that would have you saying no thanks I’ll stick to my role. I seem to remember you did a lot of traffic corp type work.

Yeah, thought about it. Never made the move for a variety of reasons, family, money, etc. that would bore the arse off people. After my last military leave, I was assigned to CID, albeit not as a detective, that's a promotion for us. I was basically a helper as CID were swamped and patrol manning was OK. I enjoyed, it, working through the investigative piece. I worked mostly Property Crimes, Child Abuse and Sex Crimes, enjoyed it. Basically the deal was I told the boss, "no child porn". Sure, I saw my share of "broken babies" as they are called, unsettling but nothing I couldn't handle. It's interesting work, has a routine of it's own. a lot of time on the phone, email and digging through medical, phone records and writing warrants for social media.

A bit of a over generalization but I would think the primary qualification for a role in the gardai (regardless of rank) is to be a GAA player with no other qualification. Is there a over generalized type of person to at joins the cops in the US? Ex-college football players? Ex-military? How does the employer (state or local - I’m aware it varies by location as you said) decide on who is suitable and who shouldn’t be allowed to join? Background checks? Nod and wink? Genuinely curious and not having a go at you.

Can't speak for AGS, other than I know their application process takes a long time, and the few Gardai I know don't play GAA :-) As for over here, we're a broad as the population really. The only common thread seems to be a high number of current or former military are on the force, I think it's around 30-40%. I get it, I'm Army myself, I like the structure & the idea of service. Despite the eye rolling and grumbling, cops like serving their community at some level. Otherwise my colleagues were previously in IT, Admin, teachers, builders, military, banking, finance, farming...all over the shop.

Hi. Is there still a strong contingent of folk with Irish roots within police forces in the USA? Thanks.

I think more in the older, northeastern depts where there is a stronger Irish community, think NYPD, Boston, Chicago, etc. Here locally don't know any fellow Micks on the force.

Pretty shocking comment from an LEO sworn to uphold the Constitution, especially one serving in one of the most militarized police forces in the world.

Why? It's a personal opinion, there are other things I don't like about America, just like anywhere else, it's a free country.

And I'm curious about the comment "most militarized police". What do you mean by this, what is your basis for comparison? How do you define a "Militarized police force"? The Gendarmarie Nationale of France are a component of the French military with a LE role to include a significant fleet of armored vehicles. How do we stack up compared to those hommes & filles? Curious to hear your logic.

Does it feel awkward that police forces are now under a greater degree of supervision than before?

Not really, it's part of the background noise to be honest. We've had cameras in the cars since the late 1980's, so being under scrutiny is not new. Sure, there are more people with cell phones now of course, but so what? I have nothing to hide and if that catches the Derek Chauvin's of the world, well good. What does frustrate me is some of this stuff ends up online with tight editing, no context before I've even written my report. It can draw a lot of resources when a seeming bad encounter was actually justified, when the whole story is told. It's a lot of energy devoted to addressing a perceived outrage.

When it comes to being overly aggressive and violent towards people of colour do you have a graduated scale or is the same level of disdain shown to all non-whites?

This is an inflammatory and unhelpful comment. I'm professional with all my encounters. If you want to comment on policing, fine, come do a weeks' worth of ride outs with a busy urban department, learn some context.

Seen in quite a few movies/shows where a long serving police officer in U.S does something wrong, sometimes minor, gets fired and loses his pension. Does this really happen? As in, do you pay into it yourself for years then boom, 1 incident and you've lost it all.

Yes, it can and does. If you haven't reached pension eligibility and are terminated, no pension. Most pension systems here don't transfer from one agency to another. It's "stove pipes of excellence". However, if an officer is being fired, it's generally not for a "minor" thing. I value my pension, so I don't do stupid sh*t.

You sound incredibly intelligent, for a gun toting Trump loving Texan. I'm joking except for the intelligent part, thanks for doing this, it's really informative and a great read.

No comment on politics, but, yes, I also consider myself dashingly handsome and witty too.... :-)