'Exodus' continues at the Dallas Police Department

[KeeFus]

Finding quality recruits is hitting small and medium municipalities as well. We currently have 43 officers and of those most have more than 8 years experience. We have hired folks straight out of the academy but they have mostly washed out. One of the current ones is struggling and has already been extended on FTO. Rookies now just cant function at the level we require them to. We pay really well for our area and we have asked that from now on we just hire folks with solid experience vs startong with a fresh boot. Our pay draws a lot of good folks from agencies that dont pay that well. Our retirement is from the State so if theyre local LE elsewhere it all transfers over.

Other larger agencies have a huge void that they will not be able to fill. They are severely short handed. Theyre literally losing more people to retirement etc than they can hire and train. Some leave to come to agencies like mine for better pay. Budget constraints, tied up in BS politics, hurt them as well.

And who the hell really wants to put up with all the bull shit anyway? With all the negative crap society has been force fed by the media I wouldnt do it again. If I were 22 and getting out of the Army again I'd go be a fireman. They (mostly) sleep at night, work about 7 or 8 days a month (granted its 24 hours at a time....but they get to sleep...), and their pay is good. Not to mention they have enough off time to have a second income doing something like cutting grass.

[TGS]

Welcome to big city policing in 2016.

I tell the guys I work with everyday that they are either stupid or thick headed to stay at the PD I work for. Shit retirement, and calling the top brass incompetent would be an insult to incompetent people.

Few more years until I hit a benchmark and I'm out. County spot, federal, whatever as long as it's not here.

Remember, absent prior federal service, FLEO jobs have a hiring age cap of 37, and many of the jobs can take 2-3 years to get hired if you're even in the pool of people they want to hire (obviously more if you need to try again). Better get crackin', or be prepared to take a quick hiring position with BOP or Border Patrol just to stop the age clock until you get the gig you want if you decide to go that way.

[voodoo_man]

Remember, absent prior federal service, FLEO jobs have a hiring age cap of 37, and many of the jobs can take 2-3 years to get hired if you're even in the pool of people they want to hire (obviously more if you need to try again). Better get crackin', or be prepared to take a quick hiring position with BOP or Border Patrol just to stop the age clock until you get the gig you want if you decide to go that way.

I know and have planned on this, I am actually not as old as people think so I have plenty of time.

I also have several job offers from local county spots so I doubt I'll have much, if any, issue moving to another Dept.

[Dagga Boy]

I know and have planned on this, I am actually not as old as people think so I have plenty of time.

I also have several job offers from local county spots so I doubt I'll have much, if any, issue moving to another Dept.

With the Feds.....you may not. My plan was ten years local and then to the Feds. Plan A....US Marshals didn't work out as it was going to be a 50% pay cut, and not knowing where I would end up. Already had a home and lifestyle built around may pay. Plan B was even better. Did some unique work for a specialized Fed unit. Offered dream job. Simply had to go to US Customs academy and would get snatched out at the end into specialized unit that wanted my specific skillset. Only glitch...even though I essentially had a guaranteed job, at the time when I began the process US Customs was not allowed to even give an application to a white male. My discussion with the supervisor in charge of hiring in my area was "you don't understand ma'am, I already have a job"...to which she retorted, sorry we are not allowed to hire or even give an application to a white male unless you are totally fluent in Spanish...to the level you can read, write, and translate a wire." Pretty soon, I turned 35 and it was pretty much over, especially with some injuries. If you are going to punch out....trust me, start working on it ASAP.

[voodoo_man]

With the Feds.....you may not. My plan was ten years local and then to the Feds. Plan A....US Marshals didn't work out as it was going to be a 50% pay cut, and not knowing where I would end up. Already had a home and lifestyle built around may pay. Plan B was even better. Did some unique work for a specialized Fed unit. Offered dream job. Simply had to go to US Customs academy and would get snatched out at the end into specialized unit that wanted my specific skillset. Only glitch...even though I essentially had a guaranteed job, at the time when I began the process US Customs was not allowed to even give an application to a white male. My discussion with the supervisor in charge of hiring in my area was "you don't understand ma'am, I already have a job"...to which she retorted, sorry we are not allowed to hire or even give an application to a white male unless you are totally fluent in Spanish...to the level you can read, write, and translate a wire." Pretty soon, I turned 35 and it was pretty much over, especially with some injuries. If you are going to punch out....trust me, start working on it ASAP.

Plan A for me has always been county department spot. I may put back in for the FBI....maybe...

[LittleLebowski]

So.....they sent out an email to all applicants the other day notifying them that the Physical Abilities Test is no longer required. That's right.....no physical test to become a cop. Now we can tap into that "overweight living in mom's basement playing call of duty covered in cheetos dust" demographic we've been trying so hard to recruit! And remember.....knives aren't dangerous, so no shooting Stabby McKnifeface when he tries to kill you! Gosh....I just don't understand why folks don't want this job anymore....it's a mystery.

Wow. Not good. As in "really bad."

[Wayne Dobbs]

It's been a very sad, yet predictable downhill slide of the Dallas PD. I "felt the calling" for police work while living in Dallas in 1977. I couldn't meet their uncorrected vision requirement or that of my home town PD (Irving PD) which was 20/40 then. They just looked at your DL and if it had a corrective lens requirement, you were out! Those were the days they had hundreds or thousands of folks signing up to take the entrance exam and the quality of that PD was off the charts unbelievable. DPD was the LAPD of the South in terms of training, equipment, culture and competence. I was hired by Richardson PD (northeast side of Dallas) and had a very active, fun and blessed career there for 25 years. And, DPD started to slide.

It slid over politics, class struggles, lowered standards and worst of all, what I term "flavor" hiring and promotions. DPD, and many other places, quit focusing on hiring the most capable, best integrity folks and started hiring based on race and sex. Many of us said that practice would ruin your organization and give you corruption issues but the new buzzword was to have a department that "reflects the composition of the city". That took over and took on a life of its own. By the late 1990s the die was cast and that place was a mess. Corruption welled up and they now have an entire investigative unit that does nothing except work criminal cases on DPD officers! They hired or promoted police chiefs based on race, including one that had pinged the radar of the Dallas Division of the FBI on an extortion/bribery case involving all the skin joints in the patrol division he commanded before being promoted to Chief.

This whole mess became a synergistic force for bad and the DPD is now struggling under all those mediocre folks they've hired and promoted, now to command ranks. Their pension plan, once a solid and attractive one, is in trouble. They can't attract candidates and have cancelled their past three academy classes. When they do hire and train new officers, those officers quickly depart to Fort Worth PD (still a viable organization) or one of the many large suburban PDs around the area. Their pay sucks compared to other PDs when it used to be the standard.

It's a sad and often repeated story all over this country. I'm just sad to the point of being sick that I was witness to seeing something so great become so poor.

[scw2]

It slid over politics, class struggles, lowered standards and worst of all, what I term "flavor" hiring and promotions.

I'm not trying to downplay the very real institutionalized issues that can prevent people from being hired or promoted, but this quote from Charlie Munger is relevant. He and Warren were asked about diversity in their board of directors and they were basically saying that they care about the business experience and acumen of who they have on the BoD. For context, this was when Charlie worked as a lawyer.

“Well years ago I did some work for the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles. And my Senior Partner pompously said you don’t need to hire us to do this. There some plenty of good Catholic tax lawyers. And the Archbishop looked at him like he was an idiot and said ‘Mr. Peeler, last year I had some very serious surgery. And I did not look around for the leading Catholic surgeon.” [Audience laughs]. That’s the way I feel about board members. [Audience applauds. Warren pops open a can of Coke.]”

[GRV]

Finding quality recruits is hitting small and medium municipalities as well. We currently have 43 officers and of those most have more than 8 years experience. We have hired folks straight out of the academy but they have mostly washed out. One of the current ones is struggling and has already been extended on FTO. Rookies now just cant function at the level we require them to. We pay really well for our area and we have asked that from now on we just hire folks with solid experience vs startong with a fresh boot. Our pay draws a lot of good folks from agencies that dont pay that well. Our retirement is from the State so if theyre local LE elsewhere it all transfers over.

Where is a fresh boot supposed to go to get experience? Is your municipality just too rough and under-resourced for rookies? Are you hiring people with "experience" from low-crime podunk towns, similar "small and medium municipalities" as yours, or large cities that have substantial crime but the resources to bring up rookies?

I'm not trying to poke anything here. I'm just legitimately curious. Over the years, particularly when I was in grade school, I've seen a lot of good kids get frustrated and get bit by the whole "you need experience to get experience" thing. There really isn't a good answer for them besides: apply everywhere and accept the fact you'll have to settle; start small and work up. That's just the way life goes. But, it wasn't really something I was expecting to see in municipal police departments. That's a job I've always characterized as hiring almost solely fresh boots; you make the minimum age requirement, maybe get a CJ bachelors, then hit the academy and onto FTO training. I don't have any first-hand experience there though, and I realize I could be way off base. But, I'm curious to know what the process actually looks like and what a rookie is expected to do to break the ice of the career.

[TGS]

It's certainly not universal or the only way people get hired, but it's pretty common for smaller municipalities in NJ to hire guys who have worked as unarmed police officers for a season or two (think beach towns swelling their ranks during summer). That whole starting small and working your way up....I know lots of guys including family who have done it that way.

I'll have to talk to some people I know about these hiring trends and if NJ is being affected the same way.