Now Ye're Talking to a US Police Officer III

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.... :-)

The mood this time round is not very nice towards you. It’s a bit “all US cops are bad”.

Oh, I'd say its about the same really. People form their perceptions from however they consume information. Bad news stories outrun the good ones, as good news is boring. I don't think there is a media bias, I just know "if it bleeds, it leads". I have two reporter friends, and they agree with me on that one.

How is the mood in the police department with regard to “defund the police”. Does the general public understands the concept of what they are asking for and it’s consequences for their safety. Is there a mood in the cops for change or is it just noise ?

Well morale is down right now and has been for a while. Don't get me wrong, it's not like we'll all depressed, muttering and kicking rocks. It does however wear ya down from the relentless onslaught. Protests and pickets go away once people make their point and get bored but the name calling & stuff can get old. I really don't care personally, if I did I would have quit years ago. Look at this AMA, that's the sort of tone we deal with daily and it does get tiring.

There is a lot of appetite for "police reform" but that is a loosely defined term with no real meaning. What is "police reform"? Yes, more oversight is useful, and so is more training & resources, but the larger structural issues are way beyond the control of the police. I'll use homelessness as an example. What is the police role in dealing with the homeless? Being homeless is not a crime, but in some places sleeping on the sidewalks is. So do we make an arrest for a crime or are the police responsible for finding this person food, shelter, healthcare and so on? Remember, society (be it city/county/state) passed a law of some kind making sleeping on the streets a crime. So, where does that fall in the remit of police reform?

There has been a slow move to shifting some resources away from police into things like mental health & social services which I submit is a good thing. I'm not a mental health professional, so good. 911 callers are asked "police/fine/EMS/mental health?" and there is a Mobile Crisis Outreach Team (MCOT) of mental health professionals who respond. But if the mental health consumer (the current preferred term), turns violent, MCOT calls us. So is this a LE problem, a mental health problem or a social problem? And the answer is "yes, all of the above". We work with MCOT with dedicated officers, but it won't solve a larger society problem.

Locally, as part of "defunding the police" we didn't hire for two and an half years. Resources were diverted to the MCOT and some other programs. However, we're now 100's of officer short. Violent crime, especially gun crime has surged since the pandemic, murders are way up locally as are deaths from fentanyl as are traffic fatalities. Now there is increasingly vocal pressure for "the police to do something about crime". We've gutted all our specialty units, disbanded the traffic corps, we have detectives working patrol (while not working their child abuse, family violence or property crimes, auto theft) and we're struggling to answer calls for service. If you house is burgled, and the perp has left, 911 takes a phone report, gives you a case number and suggest calling your insurance company. Eventually, weeks later, you might hear from a detective, but you won't get a patrol response. We just dont have the resources. I know I sound "pro-police" but reality is, this is what a defunded police department looks like.

Racism and prejudice in LE do exist, I'm not stupid. And I'm all for more training & screening, and when this happens, those bad apples deserve to be punished. Put another way, after the Rodney King beating in the late 1980's, the Christopher Commission dug into the LAPD. They found out of something like 8000 officers, 183 officers had more than two excessive force complaints from 1986 to 1990. Empirically, a reasonable person would say, "well lets focus on the bad actors, and take care of them". However, there was no way in hell the city was ever going to say, "Oh, we looked, it's just 183 bad cops". Why? As a society, we don't always want uncomfortable truths do we? A lot easier politically to say "we had a commission, we're taking all these steps, and have revamped our training". You get my point.

Do cops want change? Most of us don't have strong feelings one way or another. Cops are generally suspicious of changes, it can be a conservative culture. Change is sometimes perceived as "Oh, here we go again, we're getting screwed". What is see lacking in some cases, is involving police and/or their unions in the change process, you'll get buy in that way. We live this sh*t every day, so we do have opinions, ask us, we can help. Sadly, there is a mood in some quarters of keeping the "evil cops" at arms length because "they are the problem". You wouldn't try and determine best way to repair your car by assembling a group that didn't include a mechanic would you?

Just wondering are cop shootings down your way common ? Guards have had there fair share of it over the years but I'd imagine there's no comparison to the US unfortunately.

Reality is, cop shootings arn't that common. Most of us will never hear a shot fired in anger, but then it does happen. And that's why we're careful, I'm not risking my life or the publics on the statistics that it will probably be ok.

I only recently seen the video of Darian Jarrott in New Mexico and found it horrifying. It's also opened my eyes as to why cops are so cautious and nervous when carrying out traffic stops in the states.

Yep, thats why you stay cautious. And I get it, our approach can seem robotic and overly tactical. This is why, will it happen, most likely no, could it happen that day, that call, maybe....what would you do>

You see a car next to you at say 8pm on a Saturday night while out on patrol, no stolen vehicle report or suspicious owner reports, you decide to stop and search it, what makes you decide that you need to stop the car and search it?

Not that simple. If there is no violation of the law, I have no reason to stop them. Before I can do anything I have to have at least reasonable suspicion or Probable Cause (PC) to make the stop. I can't stop someone just because I want to. If the vehicle breaks a traffic law, then I can pull them over to investigate the traffic violation, say illegal lane change, speeding, whatever. I make my approach, talk to the driver, figure out what's the deal. At this point, I still can't search the car, unless I have probable cause to search the car. And probable cause is not "I think you've committed a crime". I have to have very clearly articulable facts I can explain to a judge in my Affidavit as to why I searched the car.

Now, I can ask the driver for permission, if they give it, then I'm free and clear, that's a lawful search. If they say no, then, off they go. A hunch is not PC. Now I can follow them for a bit, if they violate traffic law, then I can make the stop and see how it goes as above. But I'll need more than the hunch.

1 . I wonder if you see much evidence of right wing extremist views among your colleagues? Across Europe in recent years there has been a rise in right-wing extremist views in police forces, particularly in Germany and the UK.

I think its out there. Some off duty cops got rolled up in the JAN 6th fiasco at the US Capitol. And I'm not naïve, I'm sure they are out there. It's very tricky though, especially for the agency. Where do you draw the line between protected, free political speech and extremism? Most of us keep our politics to ourselves. Those groups are under a lot of scrutiny, so it's likely cooled a desire to be members at least openly. But, I'd bet they are out there.

2 . I also often wonder how much of the violence we see from US police is the result of PTSD and a reaction to years of serving in situations where you feel physically under threat on a daily basis?

There are some thoughtful studies linking a career in public safety (police/fire/EMS) to chronic PTSD. And yes, it does make you cynical as we tend to see humanity at its worst and dumbest. I'm not qualified to speak to a connection between a violent officer and PTSD, it's too individual. There was an analysis some years back discussion how one study determined that 40% of retired police officers die at their own hands within 10 years of retirement. As a profession, we're only beginning to address mental health.

In Ireland the police very very rarely come across a person with a gun and life threatening situations are dramatically less likely to be encountered than in the US. It's just hard to believe that these US cops that wildly overreact are ALL "bad guys". Do you all receive much psychological support for dealing with the pressures of policing in the US? I actually feel very sorry for US cops. I can't imagine getting up everyday to encounter situations of the gravity you tend to. It must take a hell of a toll on every aspect of your life.

I'm not saying they are all bad apples, but it's a complex problem. Our training relentlessly stresses officer safety because of incidents like the Darian Jarrett above. Some advocate that training be shifted to make it less confrontational, but it's striking the balance where the rub lies. It's hard not to be constantly on your guard when your life has been threatened. And life/death decisions have to be made in seconds, it's a tough nit to crack. Do we get much support, it depends, we have a pretty piss poor Officer Mental Health Program here. Chief barely supports it, she is "old school" and doesn't believe in "that touch, feely stuff". Sure, she'll talk it up in public, but try and take a "mental health day" and you'll be asked for doctors notes and explanations. We have a dept. psychologist, but she doesn't get agency support. We can do better.

Over time it does take it's toll. I have an amazingly supportive spouse who gets it (she's a retired firefighter), and I've used private mental health for my PTSD to help work though things. It's not easy, but I'm ok. As a profession, we're just now starting to understand mental health.

How can an guy in Ireland become a police office in the states?

If you can sort through the immigration/citizenship and otherwise meet the agency requirements, sure.

Could you expand more on the pay please? You said 45k earlier? That sounds incredibly low. But most of my experience of the US is California so perhaps TX is different?

Pay is hyperlocal, you really have to look at it though local living expenses, cost of health insurance (we have to pay for that here), where ya want to live, lifestyle, family etc. Then add in local bonuses, specialty pay, language pay, degree pay, rent assistance, take home car, etc.) Policing in America is not a monolith. A random sampling of starting salaries:

Local city PD: $60K, small town north of here: $50K, Small city in our county, $45K, State police $45K, LAPD $74K, our county sheriff, $60. NYPD $42K. Yes, that's $42 000/year to be a day 1 beat cop in New York City!!!!!! FBI Special Agent, $51K. Think about this.... the FBI agents who served the Trump warrant were on about $60K/year...now they are being doxed, harassed, and cyber stalked, all for $60K a year. And people wonder why we're short cops....

These are all starting salaries, and like I said, it's hyper local. If you want to be rich, don't be a cop, but we do get to wear cool polyester uniforms and get slagged off near daily for doing our job, don't we. :-)

What's your opinion on border controls in the USA and IRELAND

Complex question. And it's very political. I'm generally of the opinion that any country should have a degree of control over its borders. Easier said than done of course. I don't think it's unreasonable, being a compassionate society to accept refugees from conflict/whatever. How many, tough call. I submit, overall, a diverse population is a better one. How do ya get there, different story.

I'd also offer that the US is too focused on race-based immigration policies focused on trying to secure a very porous, land border of thousands of miles. I'd be for a more structured legal migration process, allow people as vetted as one can, to come in, work legally, pay into tax & social security without being able to benefit from it. This way we take money from human smugglers & cartels, move a huge amount of money from the black, cash economy to the regular economy and take the crime out of being in immigrant. I'd add caveats, of commit crime, you are deported, etc. We spend billions on trying to stem a problem that is as old as time, so why not regulate it and have our economy profit from it. I assure you, immigrants are not "taking our jobs", they are doing all the shi**y farm, labor & service jobs we don't want to do.

In Ireland we basically have no border, and we are letting in untold amounts of refugees unvetted. Do you think this is going to lead to bigger problems down the line? Would you like to be policing these people in ten- or 15-years' time?

I'm policing them now. There are third & fourth generation immigrants everywhere. Like anything else, most of them are fine, law abiding, some aren't. I've meet plenty of illegals who've been here over 30 years, they own houses, have cash businesses, and send their kids to school. All while terrified they are one traffic stop from deportation. Are some criminals, sure, just like the rest of the population.

I imagine Texas gets a lot of action in terms of people coming to the border.

Yep, border is busy. I was detailed to a border task force in a non-front-line role. Basically, a liaison between local LE and US Customs & Border Patrol (USCBP) AKA "la migra". It's depressing TBH, these people get treated like garbage all the way to the US side, then if apprehended, are sent back to the misery that is south of the border. But, a note of caution, immigration is a very political issue be it Ireland or the US, and I won't be drawn into the political debate beyond what I've said.

What kind of requirement would I need to meet? I know in New York you have to live in New York and be a citizen. I would love to be a cop

You have to be legally able to work in the US however that works for your situation. Most LE agencies require you be a US citizen too. Beyond that, each agency has its own terms & conditions, IE age, residency status, background, blah, blah, blah, blah....checck out the recruiting sites.