The old-school ways?

[1slow]

When I grew up in rural VA it was different from now.
"If you take your ass home and I don't see you this week, I won't put your ass in jail. After being caught street racing late at night.
Saps were common and used. One old street cop friend showed me a figure 8 motion he had used to break both collar bones with the edge. He also told me do not argue with the officer, yes sir, no sir etc... I always passed the attitude test. It would never have occurred to me to give an officer shit.
Part of this was some of the old mountain guys I knew. The only warning given was "son if I was you I wouldn't do that." After that warning you were getting hurt if you persisted..

[rojocorsa]

Thanks for all the replies. They're fascinating to me! (For perspective I am under 25).

[HCM]

Thanks for all the replies. They're fascinating to me! (For perspective I am under 25).

http://www.activeresponsetraining.ne...ional-beatdown

[FNFAN]

On my first PD I got voluntold to help destroy outdated reports that had been microfilmed. It turned into a fun morning perusing some of the stuff before going into the burster. Favorite was an arrest report consisting of twelve words from a then retired Lt:

"He called me a pig and I laid the wood to him."

[brooklynbacon]

Oh man...just 12 years ago..was very different. My first partner carried a .38 in a "widowmaker" swivel holster. Never let me drive, and I had to take every report. Being a new jack in East New York was rough. My first LT always told us: "no one disrespects us...if they do, they get the wood or motorola shampoo..whichever one you can reach first" and "there's always a reason to collar someone who needs collaring...bring him back to the barn and we got an entire penal code book to figure it out".

[KPD]

Also, discretion was not only allowed, it was expected, along with common sense. You were expected to be kind to little old ladies, small children, and puppies. You were expected to put people who hurt cops in ICU for weeks, to be able to beat criminals far bigger than you into submission by yourself, and to catch crooks far smaller than you by yourself. You needed to be great with creativity and showmanship, as well as with a sap, Maglite, and wood (and your steel revolver). You had to be able to drive like a racing pro in a vehicle with drum brakes and weighed in tons and had no designations in the metric system. You had to have the ability to write....with a pen, and write correctly without spell check. The Justice system was done on the street, the legAl system occurred in the courtroom. It was a different world.

I didn't start until 1993, but this sums up my early years perfectly!
I had a Sergeant who watched me get into a little scuffle with a drunk one night. I had already sprayed the jackass with pepper spray once but that stuff was not working at all. The fight ended when I punched the guy in the stomach while still holding the pepper spray in the same hand I sprayed him with (the cap came off my pepper spray.) My Sergeant never got out of his car, he just watched with the window down. The fight was not a big deal, just a normal Friday night drunk who was always an asshole anyway. Once the jackass was hooked up this crusty old Sergeant looked at me and said "good job!", then he drove away. Our UOF continuum was ask, tell, force. We were expected to be able to back the force part of this up and know when it was appropriate to skip over ask and tell. That "Good job!" was probably the highest compliment I had received at that point in my career!

[Dagga Boy]

Ask, tell, make is probably the one concept that seems to have died and is the single reason we have so many issues today. Two groups are at fault for this.....the public/media who MMQ LE force incidents without an utter clue, and the police executives/politicians who have let the former group dictate how police work is done and either failed to explain to the other group why things are done the way the are for effective, efficient policing with the focus being on the safety of the officer and public rather than the crooks, or simply conceded to political pressure from the group that has not an utter clue.

[lwt16]

It was pretty great in the 90s.

I can recall all of us standing around whining about how "bad" we had it then.

I'd like to go back in time and slap myself now that I see what the job has become. The job was never easy but it was sure not as tough as it is now. I never dreamed I'd see good cops prosecuted/sued for good police work.

I was always big on "if someone wanted a fight, give them one" and was told that as a youngster, I should deal with it and deal with it forcefully. The mentality was that if a bad guy was shown the error of his ways, it would accomplish two things. One, it would correct his behavior and two, the next cop he dealt with would probably not have to go hands on with him if the lesson was taught well. Along with this was once the handcuffs were on, the fight was over and to not take anything personal.

One night while on training (while my FTO was napping in the passenger seat), I see a guy just blow a stop sign in the highest crime area in town. It's like three am so I light him up and do my thing. My FTO wakes up, finally figures out what is going on and where we are, and gets on the radio to call in the pursuit. Pursuits were a big no-no even then so a grisly old sergeant tells us over the radio to knock it off.

No sooner than I kill the code equipment, the dude pulls over and bails from the car. We are basically on top of him at this point with a K9 officer behind us. I chase after the guy on foot and the K9 flies past me and grabs the guy. So I figure the guy will give up but no, he is doing his best to fight the land shark with kicks and punches and whatnot.

I take immediate offense to that and start street fighting the guy forgetting all about the K9. My FTO, the handler, and even the dog are watching me at this point and I get the cuffs on and it's done. Had to call the guy a medic to check him out and that old sergeant shows up probably wondering why we have the guy after he has terminated the chase. I explain all of the above to him and he just takes his arm and puts it around my shoulders and whispers stuff in my ear....lots of profanity but lots of praise as well. This was the same supervisor that pretty much hated everyone and had particular disdain for rookies.....especially rookies fresh out of college.

Proving one's self on the street meant something back then. Nobody cared about any evaluations, awards, commendations.....all that crap......your reputation for going Habeus Grabbus was pretty much everything. If you were willing to get your hands dirty and kept your cool while doing it without going "over the line", that was huge. We all sought out that kind of coolness under fire for our peer group and for the citizens in our zones as well. Folks on the street could smell fear and hesitation and they could also tell who was badge heavy and a bully. Although they would never admit it, they loved a cop that could handle business in a fair, professional way even if it meant that cop had to put someone in their place on occasion.

It was great back then. I'm not sure I would have stayed in LE if it was like it was now way back then. It's too risky as far as losing all your assets, the social media crap, the toll it takes on the family....for what it pays. But back then........

I couldn't believe they paid me to do it. It was a ton of fun.

[Coyotesfan97]

I was told my first day nobody touches you. If they touch you they either go to jail, the hospital, or both. I had a .357 Magnum,18 rounds, mace (never used), handcuffs, radio, Maglite, and nightstick on my belt. I worked with one guy who carried a five or six D cell Maglite that looked long enough to hit someone on the other side of the room. Saps were out of policy but some guys still carried them.

Choir practice is a lost practice...

One of my funnier old school stories is my friend who was a couple classes after me. He was working for a Sergeant like lwt16 described. One Friday night the Sergeant tells my buddy to go in early and make a beer run. So he takes off to n his blue pants and a white shirt to the local CM. Meanwhile we get a call of an armed robbery at the local CM but the clerks got the suspects gun and is holding him for us. We set a perimeter around it and then dispatch says there is an Officer inside. We all look at each like WTF? It turns out my buddy walks in the store, gets the beer, and walks to the counter. The clerk tells him this guy just tried to rob me with this, shows him a huge revolver, and I'm on the phone with the cops....

LWT16 that sounds like a handler who's really confident his dog knows Officers and will run by them or one who didn't care if a rookie got bit.

[Gadfly]

Our line was "ask, tell , compel"...

In 96 at the Sheriffs Academy, they would repeatedly explain that "bubba with a 4th grade education is not impressed by your college degree. Bubba bails hay all day, and lifts 200lb bails over his head all day. Bubba is only impressed by how hard you hit him." It was...interesting times.

I ended up in the INS, and my first post was arresting illegal aliens at a County Jail on midnights. No jail cameras. First night there, I saw someone bounced HARD by the deputies. The Sgt called me into his office to ask me what I thought of that. He went on to say "you know, there are 6 deputies out there, and about 150 guys in the booking tank. They are kind of like dogs. If you let one of them get to barking, pretty soon they ALL get to barking. We cant let that happen. So you got to let them know early on that we don't play around in this jail."

Still a bit new I asked "so what, you just randomly pick someone to thump at the beginning of the shift?" He said "no, someone will volunteer to be made an example of every night".... He was right. Every single night, someone would piss on the floor, spit on a deputy, tell one of the female staff something profane, etc. Someone volunteered to be made an example of every night. And typically, there was only one fight per night. Word spread quickly among the new arrivals that you don't ass up in this jail. Then cameras came in to the jail. Now the inmates kind of run the asylum.

Times have changed.