Happened to me more than once with rifle slung across my rack of magazines on my kit. Just the way my mag release hit the corner of one magazine, simple fix once I analyzed it - that mag pouch stayed empty...Originally Posted by TheNewbie
Happened to me more than once with rifle slung across my rack of magazines on my kit. Just the way my mag release hit the corner of one magazine, simple fix once I analyzed it - that mag pouch stayed empty...
Kind of makes me understand why *some people* might prefer the AK style release.
Well, no. I went to elementary school with this serial killer. First switchblade I saw belonged to him. Lucky for me; he thought I was cool.
https://www.missingpersonsofamerica....rders-in-1978/
This was nothing new, in 1978, as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, and their associated thugs, would come to our area, to lay low, 44+ years earlier
Retar’d LE. Kinesthetic dufus.
Don’t tread on volcanos!
I don’t even know what to say anymore. That officer needs to find a new line of work though! And the officer at the intersection puttting himself in the line of fire was unimpressive.
Finally - why are they all walking with the subject and no cover!? Someone should have run dude over with a cruiser.
A Metro friend of mine said most of their recent OIS’s have been rookies and they’re suspecting deficiencies in the hiring process and training academy (which means they’re just like most places these days).
It certainly didn't go perfectly, but the second officer ran toward the fight. She raised her pistol a couple of times when she shouldn't have, but seemed to realize she couldn't shoot and lowered it. Not impressed with the rounds from the back of the bus that zinged by her brother officers, but she didn't hit them. No harm, no foul, but likely a training issue that should be addressed, perhaps with her specifically, but I'd suspect with the entire agency. The officer parking down range of the likely shooting took some risks, but in today's world, I'm hard pressed to be overly critical.
They teach kids not to do this in hunter safety courses, so it should definitely be addressed. Waiting until an officer takes one to the back of the head is negligent.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
I think another point to make is opportunity to get good. A cop who came on in the 70s, 80s and 90s had ample opportunity to be exposed to serious work compared to today, where there's a lot more restraint on officers, less aggressive policing, and I'm just talking out of my ass on this last point but I'll also danger the quality of FTOs is probably declining as well as many of the good ones are either naturally retiring or hanging up their hats prematurely. So, whereas a new officer back then may have already been in several "sentinel events" before they even got out of FTO phase, a new cop today likely isn't getting that same amount of exposure.
My generation is handicapped in that regard, so I would fully expect "us" to perform less desirable across the board compared to cops of yesteryear that did some pretty legendary work on a weekly basis.
I don't think we've hit bottom yet, either.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
A lot of the FTO’s now at my old place barely have any experience (2-4 years) because no one else wants to do it anymore. When I went through, FTOs normally had 8-10+ years on.
18 year FTO here. 23 years total. A year ago we increased pay for FTOs; before we were rewarded with comp time. Now it is 8 hours of comp a week (when assigned a trainee) + $1.36 an hour (addition to base pay year around). The retirees who never had the slightest interest started jumping out their asses to go find 20+ year old certificates. So the dept went from 3 FTOs to eight overnight. After a year the numbers are in. Those of us who were doing it because we believed are rated significantly higher than the ones clearly motivated by money. They are still retired, though. This year I have had three seperate trainees for phases 2 and 3 (so 1-2 months working the street with other training officers) who wrote their first criminal complaints and citations with me! I did, however, make them write a lot of them while they were with me.Those rookies did, in all fairness, know the shortest routes to and operating hours of the nearby Panera Breads, Dunkin' Donuts, Stripes Burritos, and Satellite Coffee houses.
Our admin is no longer supporting us though. Correction fluid is not allowed, nor are line through corrections. Typos, minor misspellings, and small grammatical errors are no longer tolerated on our Daily Observation Reports. Like everyone else I bitched about the zero defect policy until a co-worker pointed out that we are paid to set an example, to teach attention to detail, and properly document training records that may end up in court or the public domain in the future. I cannot argue with any of those points. We do need to be held to a higher standard. But I don't think perfection should be the standard. Our DORs are archaic Excell spreadsheets that require narrative commentary, but the rules of the spreadsheet do not allow words to wrap from one line to the next when typing. Depending on the content of the cell, as few as three more characters on a line means you have to essentially rewrite everything in the document after the correction. Cut and paste doesn't work. No word wrap. No on the fly spelling and grammar checks; the spell check is to be done after writing is complete. The corner of the form reads [nearby agency redacted] '00.
I had two DORs kicked back in the last two weeks by the FTO sergeant because I chose the phrase "take a decision" instead of "make a decision" and "follow on citations" instead of "follow up citations". I know the differences and selected the grammatically correct phrases for what I wanted to convey. FTO sergeant wanted corrections because she thought they were typos and couldn't ask or Google before making me rewrite the things.
I had a deputy chief, who demands to sign the DORs, kick one back because rather than write Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z.." I wrote "Messers X,Y, and Z". The converstation went like this:
Me: Ma'am, that is a grammatically and stylistically correct option, and it made sense given the space considerations.
DC: I have never heard of that before in my life and I have a college degree. (you could hear the bold, underline and italics).
Me: Yes ma'am. So do I. In fact I have two of them and am going back to school to get my masters.
DC: Change it.
Me: Yes ma'am.
Last week I had a meeting with the Ops commander, telling me that race should not play such a huge role in my evaluation narrative; it made me sound racist. He wanted a lot of changes. I flipped over the form and showed him that the category eliciting the narrative was Category 30: Relationships with Minorities he then admitted that he was just reading the narrative and had no idea why I was making the comments I was. Now that he had context, no changes are necessary.
I had to take an hour off the street last week training my current rookie to re-print fully half of the DORs I generated for a specific rookie that stopped being my responsibility almost 9 weeks ago. Because the chain of command in trying to get the required signatures "lost" them. Rookie, me, shift sergeant, FTO sergeant, Patrol Lt, Ops commander and DC all have to review and sign DORs before they are "completed". They can be returned at any point for corrections. The FTO sergeant admitted in an email that she received them, and passed them up the chain. So not my fault, not my problem, but I had to drop everything to remedy it. I then burned all the DORs to a CD, closed the documents and CD so the documents were protected from being changed, put the CD in the rookie's training file, and told her not to bother me again with this. She can just print out whatever "gets lost".
This zero defect nonsense has me seriously reconsidering my role as an FTO. The department needs me to be an FTO waaaay more than I need the headache of being an FTO. I am the only FTO on my shift.
pat
Last edited by UNM1136; 08-07-2021 at 12:02 PM.
Reply With Quote