Washington State Academy trying new approach: Guardians instead of Warriors

[Wayne Dobbs]

Mr. Claxton,

I have no idea of what you do for a living, but I'd bet a chunk that I don't know how to do your job and wouldn't think of trying to tell you how to do it. Conversely, you don't know how to be a cop, except for what you've watched as TV/film drama (just about all of which is bullshit) or by listening to various hysterical media reports of what they call bad LE actions. Most of those reports are agenda driven actions to try and make the police look bad. I've taken folks that are anti-police or simply ignorant and run them through some decision making scenarios and they all "committed" murder or aggravated assault in their scenario testing, to a person. It was very enlightening to all when those folks showed their butts on what they didn't know.

You seem to have little to no idea how the job is done or what the challenges are of public opinion, peer expectations, inter-departmental politics, offender MOs, etc. are. A significant number of us here do and have stood in some Godawful, shitty and terrifying places and had to stand fast with our decisions and actions. It's a challenge that few really do well. It's an ugly mess at times to do a decent job and then you get second guessed literally for years for something you had a few (or less) seconds to assess and act. I heard it once that the public wants us as cops to protect them and make them feel safe from the evil people out there....they just don't want to see how we do that. It's true and it will never look pretty for us to kick some bad guy's ass or kill him on dinnertime TV. Get used to it and instead of being part of the problem, be part of the solution in your community.

[jnc36rcpd]

Clay, to avoid being accused of making personal attacks, I will take the high road and assume you did not read or perhaps have time to reply tomy responses.

You implied that the Washington State Criminal Justice Academy did not receive applicants when it was "warrior-based", if indeed it ever was. You suggested that they now have high numbers of applicants because they are now "guardian-based". The article itself states that agencies were not hiring due to economic shortcomings several years ago. Do you have any evidence that applications have increased due to the "guardian" model?

I also asked if there was any evidence that the guardian model actually works. I do not see it in the article nor elsewhere. Do you have any such evidence? The Washington guardian model has been operational for several years. Can you point to indications that it actually works? While not empirical, I do read reports that academy graduates must be retrained to handle the realities of the street.

I would also ask for your response to the posted FBI violent encounters studies. As I recall, Time Magazine, not known for incredible support of law enforcement, has an article on the studies entitled "Nice Guys Finish Dead". Granted, that was some years ago. Today, media criticizes empirical research into police use of force as the results of actual research tend to refute the media bias against law enforcement.

[Dagga Boy]

Listen and Explain with Equity and Dignity versus Ask, Tell, Make.

Stand by for a bit of a tirade, as this stuff really angers me to watch a noble profession I love destroyed.

Okay, for Cody and those of a like mind, let's discuss this on your terms. I have worked with lots of "Guardians" over the years that are just like the two morons running the Washington thing to make cops just like them. So, lets go over this in regards to if you really want a bunch of cops just like them. Here is why "guardians" hate ATM. They lack the confidence or ability to "Make". What happens is they tend to be the worst offenders of going right to "Tell" when dealing with actual criminals and tend to go overboard in an effort to play a crappy poker hand with a big bluff. The crooks tend to read this. They end up starting fights they can't finish, and then cry when the real police have to come finish the problem for them. Because they suck at this, they love doing a lot of friendly talking to anyone who will talk to them so they do not have to deal with all that ATM stuff. They seek encounters with a lot of listening and explaining with dignity and equity. Here is the problem......cops don't deal with folks who are on the equity playing field. On the other side, the cops who can obviously "Make" don't often have to get past "ask" with crooks. I was the biggest verbal judo user out there......because I could back up what was going to happen immediately after "Sir, is their anything I can say or do to get you to comply with me at this time".

Here are some very memorable incidents scarred in my head that have formulated my outlook on the world from the cop side.

Crack mom puts her baby in the microwave and cooks him to death. While one of our "Guardians" (who's call it was as primary) was outside crying her eyes out, the ATM cops were handling the incident. Explain how we have any sort of equity and dignity conversation with Crack mom? Who handles this professionally when nobody is mentally prepared for microwaved babies?

Juvenile Crip gang member kills a rival juvenile dope dealer by holding his head down and shoving a piece of rebar into his ear until it goes completely through his head. Guess black lives didn't matter to them and a good idea of what children are capable of. So do officers ATM when dealing with juvenile gang members who are always testing their power or do officers have an equity discussion with them? These are the folks that are killing each other in droves.....yet....children.

A heroin addicted couple I traffic stopped. High as kites on heroin, the car had no less than thirty dirty used and uncovered needles their baby was crawling around in while trying to do his best to get the milk out of his bottle, but can't because it has curdled to the point of being a solid. Child Protective Services gave the kid back to them the same day...because it is best for the children to be with their parents. Sort of makes arguments about drug abuse being a victimless crime and should be treated as a medical problem. Additionally, most dope fiends cannot hold a job. A majority of burglars....you know the people who victimize normal people regularly, are drug addicts. Almost all of them have been in treatment numerous times. Many would get their "free" Methodone in the morning, burglarize stuff all day so they could get their real stuff. Discuss Equity and Dignity.

One of our notorious Guardians (who sounds EXACTLY like the folks involved in Washington) was doing a hooker detail with my partners and I as her arrest team in a hotel room. She runs in the hotel room and disarms herself by putting her gun on the toilet because the guy coming to the room is carrying a baby and is trading her crack for sex. When he hits the door, we do our thing, extract the kid without injury and hand the baby off to her while we go full donnybrook with the asshole (a black firefighter). He fought hard to escape as he knew he was obviously "super-screwed" on this arrest. The Guardian was crying in the bathroom with the kid. Crying when she saw the "poor guy" who took his baby out to pick up hookers by offering Crack (he didn't have any and admitted he planned to do an intimidation rip off on her......which is translates to he was going to rape her). The Guardian then complained to our boss about my team being too aggressive and brutal. Funny.......the crook had no issues after he was told why he got tasered and his ass kicked. He knew he was trying to escape and he was going to leave his kid. He actually thanked us for doing such a good job of getting his kid to safety when he panicked. So......how many Guardians should have been in that room? I learned a lesson myself about why I avoided ever working with Guardians. I had another go round with this idiot later when she (as a fast rising supervisor) ordered two rookies to arrest a couple of drunk brothers in their own home for "disrespecting her". I told them it was an illegal arrest and tell her to write the case. I didn't get a Christmas card again. The problem with "Guardians" is once it gets past trying to use LEED to solve problems, when it doesn't work with people who are not equitable and dignified, they have not a clue what to do, and often have no ability to now go to "make".

I could do this all day. Law Enforcement deals regularly with folks outside societies norms. People who are dealing with LE because they have been unsuccessful in dealing with life's adversities with normal societal means. Most of your masters of ATM enjoy interacting with normal folks. Most are uninterested in dealing with them as they are not the targets of what they want to do.....which is protect those folks from bad people. Of course cops are individuals and there is as much good and bad as any profession whether its doctors, dentists, accountants or teachers. Most are trying to do the right thing. Society seems to have decided they know better than the professionals as to what kind of policing they want. Policing is a mirror of the community. Crappy police departments are not the result of "bad cops", it is the result of mirroring what the residents of that area have emplaced as a total package that usually starts within their local government and the residents themselves. If society wants to put the ATM cops out to pasteur as a example of what they do not want anymore, that is fine. What is not fine is when they do not like the results they will get with police agency's wholly made up of Guardians rather than a few of them. Also, you will never get those great ATM cops back. You had to learn how to be ATM cops. You were taught by previous ones. You were taught through example. You were taught by recognizing your mistakes and learning from them. When all that experience is gone, when the ability to learn and survive mistakes is gone, and when "those cops" who, through time, mistakes, successes and experience figured out how to properly use ATM are gone.......you can't re-create it from nothing. You cannot just say.....oops, that Guardian thing didn't work out, we will go back to the old way. It will be a lost art.

[SLG]

ATM is what I was taught as a cop in one of the toughest precincts in my city. Truthfully, ATM meant something different to the guys I worked with, but since Nyeti seems to like it, who am I to judge :-)

I'm not a big guy, and trying to come off like a tough guy, ordering people around all the time, just doesn't work for me. I was as professional as could be, and asked people nicely, and as long as they agreed to be professional too, it all worked out well. When it came time to M, you very quickly made a reputation for yourself as a cop who could deliver or not. I don't come from a police background, and my upbringing was pretty different from many of my brother officers. They saw me as an outsider when I first got out of the academy, but after our first big fight (2nd day on the job), most of them came around pretty quick.

There were other guys who "belonged" from day one, but when the fighting started, they found other things to do. Most were solid, but there were a few guys who looked and sounded like they belong (I still don't look or sound it), but they were usually the ones we were coming to bail out. One very brief story: A guy put out a 10-13 (highest level of officer needs assistance) on the radio, and I was in the station house. I was working a foot beat that night (rookie year) and didn't have a car. I ran out of the house and ran 3 long avenue blocks, and got there just as the first cars were arriving. I'm really not much of a runner, but being willing has always been the most important part. It didn't go unnoticed. the "guardian rookies" spent the evening complaining that they didn't have a car to respond with.

[Dagga Boy]

ATM is not what we called it, but it is their terminology so I used it so we stay on the same page. It sums it up fine. You ask people to do things respectfully in the same manner which you want in return. If that doesn't work, you move on to tell them what to do.....and not doing it is not an option.....and then you enter custody or force world. Learning how to do this takes time. It takes street time working with street people you are not like, didn't grow up like, didn't hang around with, and never seen before to figure out. Starting out with an idea of equity and dignity is cute........but not reality. Most have to learn that they are not like you, and are not playing by the same rules.

[DpdG]

DB, I don't know if you're aware, but SLG was likely refering to the fact that the "ATM" acronym has another meaning which is not used in a polite society. If you choose to google or God forbid, urban dictionary search, you have been warned.

I get and agree with the cut of your jib, but as a midnight shifter who deals with the less polite types within society, the other meaning of that acronym is the one that immediately came to mind.

[Lon]

the other meaning of that acronym is the one that immediately came to mind.

Hahahahaha. Me too. Made me think about Batman and Ra's al Ghul's daughter in this video [not porn, but EXTREMELY NSFW]:

https://youtu.be/enOHraf3LEk

[Dagga Boy]

That is funny. I know what ATM is.........my brain was just not there when on pistol forum. I look at this as a "weapons" forum. The other ATM is for the free "gun" sites.

[Ptrlcop]

The people proposing this crap will point out that not every call involves a baby microwaver. The thing they are missing is that the police likely knew what a piece of shit she was well before that happened. Then take one 15second video out of context and people are up in arms about a cop being rude to a person that he knows is capable of shit like that.

I've been accused of racial profiling for arresting a black dude. The thing is I knew dudes name and birth year off the top of my head due to MANY contacts I have had with him or was aware of him having with police. "Rounding up the usual suspects" is a saying because it works and is no way similar to profiling.

[voodoo_man]

Like the posters before me, ive had a lot of experience with the Guardian crowd trying to walk the walk.

We had an officer who wasnt entirely capable of much, rounding out his career and shouldnt have been on the street (lack of good supervision by another Guardian) who responded to a domestic. His backup, who is now a supervisor, arrived to back him up. He started getting his ass kicked by a 6'4 350 dude high as a kite who just kicked his old ladies teeth in. She is yelling at him the whole to stop, never once put a finger on him, meanwhile, she did not request backup over radio and this went on for about two minutes until my partner and I drove in on the call to see if everything was good since we knew who was responding.

Good thing we did as the old timer went to the hospital and retired later that month. She complained to the supervisor that we put the guy in the hospital for no reason other than racism and using too much force - he and she were black, partner, the old timer and myself white - after we got everything settled we filed a formal complaint against her, which was never investigated by IA, because they arent into the business of jamming up cowards, only hard working officers.

This type of BS repeats itself continuously, to the point we regularly ask for other officers to come to a call when we know one of the "guardians" is coming as backup.

Same type of person gave the "i aint goin in there" during a brief on active shooter response to schools, mil bases and heavy industry facilities.

You can keep your guardians.