Police Officer

Police Officer

BlueSheepdog

10 Years Experience

Around the Way, FL

Male, 40

Cheating death and fighting communism: that is how a fellow officer once described our job. It was meant to be funny, but as time went on it seemed all too true.

I spent more than ten years in law enforcement, all of it on the street in uniform patrol. I've been a patrol officer, instructor, sergeant and lieutenant.

Do not report crimes here. Nothing here should be considered legal advice. All opinions are my own.

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615 Questions

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Last Answer on October 29, 2014

Best Rated

can a single father of a daughter younger than five take her in the womens room? theres stuff in the mens she shouldn't see

Asked by Alex over 11 years ago

There is stuff in the women's restroom that you shouldn't see.  Stay out.

 

Does being Bilingual help when applying to a police force?

Asked by Mackenzie almost 12 years ago

Yes.

What is your opinion about video games that allow the player to harm police officers (Grand Theft Auto, Watch_Dogs, etc.)? Keep in mind that the player is not obligated to harm the police and can finish the game without touching a single officer.

Asked by Xatosfx over 11 years ago

The glorification of violence is an unfortunate situation in modern society.  It desensitizes and dehumanizes people.  Marketing such games to children is abhorrent.

I was wondering what could a officer do about this guy who keeps calling me and bullying me in school and trying to get his girl friends to gang up on me and jump me friday he called me 3 times but then stopped and it is messing me up in school

Asked by Carrie over 11 years ago

Call your local police department and ask for their assistance. They will know what to do.

I have a video message saved on my phone of a ex friend threatening to hurt me. If I go to the police to submit a report would my phone be taken away ?

Asked by girl22 over 11 years ago

The video is evidence. They will need to seize the phone at least long enough to take the video from the phone.

Do big-city police radio systems sometimes work like a tree where a dispatcher handles say 20 units in a precinct; another dispatcher communicates with 10 of those dispatchers so an officer can comm with an officer on another district or something?

Asked by Sal almost 12 years ago

I've not had the chance to observe the dispatch center of a very large agency (such as a NYPD, LAPD, Chicago, etc.)  What I've seen in medium sized departments (100-200 officers), you would have a dispatcher on each channel.  A single channel might be dedicated to a specific area or precinct, while another might be dedicated to records checks.  

So if a department had three precincts, there might be four channels (a dispatcher for each of the three precincts plus one for running warrant checks, license checks, etc.)  Then there would be at least one supervisor who would make sure everything is running smooth.  There would be call takers (people answering the phones) who might be cross-trained to dispatch.

Typically, there will be extra people available to bring up an extra channel if a special event happened.  For example, lets say you had a vehicle accident with a death.  The traffic homicide unit plus the officers working that scene might go to an extra channel to work and keep their radio traffic off of the precinct channels.

I hope that helps.

 

When police officers graduate the academy, do they go through a period where they are always with a more experienced officer, or are they trained enough to start off on their own?

Asked by Jacob over 11 years ago

New officers go through a period of on the job training called Field Training.  Experienced officers with specialized training take new officers and teach them how to employ the things they learned at the academy in the real world.  This is also a time when the new officer is closely watched in an effort to determine if they are a good officer/person or if they should be terminated because they are unfit for the job.