Researching and Applying to (FL) Agencies

[deflave]

I'm not guessing.

But you're welcome to your opinion.

[TheHuntforRedGlocktober]

Yeah, he mentioned the retirement specifically, and said it was a slight difference in management re: backing their guys. He still likes HCSO and thinks it's a good agency, don't let me give you the wrong idea.

As for the other part, I think paying attention to retention numbers is far more important and indicative of the agency than strictly officer:resident ratio. There's a bunch of other stuff that can influence that ratio that might not be apparent, like commuting workers and whatnot. If any employer is hemorrhaging (not just LE agencies), I think that's much more telling than any other metric available.

That's about all I got from him and can offer, though. Obviously very rudimentary info....hopefully somebody on the forum with 1st hand information will reach out to you if they haven't already.

Understood, thank you. I've noticed in looking at TPD vs. HCSO, that HCSO seems to have more in the way of investigative positions. For example, at the patrol level, HCSO has Street Crimes, Latent Investigations, General Offense, and Intelligence Units, while TPD only has Latent Investigations and Rapid Offender Control. They each obviously have their own Criminal Investigations Division. Is that something to take into consideration as well, or at this point am I getting too much into the weeds?

I certainly expect to put my time in on patrol and prove myself for a few years, just like everyone else, but when the time comes is having more "options" helpful? Or do both agencies basically work in the same way but are just structured differently?

Good to know regarding attrition. In the past few years, Pinellas has been losing up almost up to 10% of their sworn LE, while TPD and HCSO have barely broken past 5-6%.

[TGS]

I would definitely consider availability of specialty assignments, but if I were you, I would be wary of making any assumptions about what's available and how fulfilling they are until you talk to someone personally. I'm not saying anything about those two agencies in particular, but lots of places have "paper tigers" where they claim to have umpteen different units, when in reality they're 1-2 dudes each and completely unavailable until somebody retires, or maybe just unstaffed completely. This seems to be a trend these days......departments put all sorts of ridiculous bullshit on their websites about their special "units" that can hardly be classified as such by any reasonable, sane logic.

Whereas another agency might have less units on paper, but doing even better work with a combination anti-crime unit that does fugitive, narcotics, gangs, vice, etc.

Again, all stuff you can only tell by talking to someone from particular agencies, and I'm not making any statements or guesses about the departments in question. Just something to keep in the back of your mind when you come across agencies.

[TheHuntforRedGlocktober]

I would definitely consider availability of specialty assignments, but if I were you, I would be wary of making any assumptions about what's available and how fulfilling they are until you talk to someone personally. I'm not saying anything about those two agencies in particular, but lots of places have "paper tigers" where they claim to have umpteen different units, when in reality they're 1-2 dudes each and completely unavailable until somebody retires, or maybe just unstaffed completely. This seems to be a trend these days......departments put all sorts of ridiculous bullshit on their websites about their special "units" that can hardly be classified as such by any reasonable, sane logic.

Whereas another agency might have less units on paper, but doing even better work with a combination anti-crime unit that does fugitive, narcotics, gangs, vice, etc.

Again, all stuff you can only tell by talking to someone from particular agencies, and I'm not making any statements or guesses about the departments in question. Just something to keep in the back of your mind when you come across agencies.

Very well put and helpful. Thank you!

[jnc36rcpd]

I had never heard of either Latent Investigations not Rapid Offender Control. I went to the TPD website to see what these unusually named units might actually do. Truth be told, I wondered if you had jacked up the names, but you were spot on.

That said, I'd second the caution about getting details about specialty assignments in an agency. The descriptions of the units suggest that they could either be the coolest assignments available to a patrol troop or absolute nonsense.

If you do get on with TPD, let me know the cost of a Latent Investigations or Rapid Offender Control t-shirts because I'll bet they are really cool. Good luck and be safe.