Last night I had the privilege of having dinner with two very good friends, who happen to have very important jobs they never wanted: President of Concerns of Police Survivors, Linda Moon Gregory (surviving sister of Officer James Moon), and Director of National Outreach, Jennifer Thacker (surviving spouse of Investigator Brandon Thacker). You see, they never wanted their jobs because you ...

In Walker v. City of New York, the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit gave law enforcement some direction for determining what training officers must be provided with to do their jobs professionally and with lower liability exposure. Essentially the case indicated that if you know to a moral certainty that officers will confront a certain situation; and ...

Between 5% and 10% of people in the United States will, at some point in their life, have a bout with depression severe enough to be of clinical significance. It is estimated that only a third of all those who are clinically depressed receive adequate treatment. It is not unusual for a therapist, or physician, to recommend a trial on an ...

During most interviews the investigator should develop an open, or narrative account from the subject. It is called an open account because the investigator’s question encourages the subject to relate everything relative to the area of inquiry and once the subject starts talking, the investigator does not interrupt the account. Examples of questions that elicit an open account include, “Mary tell ...

The common phrase used in our mission for protecting our homeland is, "The tragic events of September 11th have made us re-think new ways of defending our homeland." This short phrase is one of many statements that are being made by the government or private training and consulting firms time and time again with the end result being no forward progress ...

In Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S.___, 2004 U.S. LEXIS 8272 (2004), the United States Supreme Court examined a case where officers, with probable cause to arrest a subject, Jerome Alford for impersonating a police officer, instead arrested him for tape recording the officers during the investigatory stop. A previous court decision held that it was not illegal to tape police officers ...

There is a tremendous amount of hoopla about how the world is now a global economy. While that statement is undeniably true, the problem is that the world is still a very big place. Finding a reliable vendor that can deploy and perform in some far-flung locale remains a challenge. What PortGard brings to the table is a historical lineage of ...

Law Enforcement Interview & Interrogation articles and training There is nothing unusual at all about any investigative interviewer preparing extensively for an upcoming interview. There is really no situation that I can think of that I had too much information on hand when I went into the [interrogation] room. The danger may be however that we can become too obsessed with ...

M. Silbert (1976) has described a ten-point checklist of techniques for officers to use in field management of victim situations. Frederick (1986) lists twelve intervention responses that are of use to police officers. We have combined and edited these two lists as follows: 1. **Officers should introduce themselves by full name and title.** This is important in any police encounter with ...

A difficult issue in the school setting is use of force to control students and maintain a safe environment. This issue is more difficult when dealing with students who have disabilities that place them in special education. A recent case from Mississippi provides an example of how courts will analyze such uses of force under state law. In Pigford v. Jackson ...

Since September 11, 2001 the citizens of the United States have been introduced to a type of warfare that they are not very familiar with and not altogether comfortable being involved in. We are now facing groups of individuals who operate in a manner that is concealed, motivated and “group-serving”. They show themselves at will and either die in the carnage ...

Detention w/o Notification OK In the first case, Wofford v. Evans, 390 F.3d 318, (4th Circuit 2004), school officials twice detained a 10-year old after her classmates told their teacher that the girl, M.D., had brought a gun to school. Students at Colonial Elementary School in Botetourt County, Va., reported to their teacher that they had seen M.D. in possession of ...

For those who stay on top of the global threats of our society, you may be still part of the team consistently searching, watching and praying another attack does not hit our homeland let alone another part of the globe. But reality is it looms over the horizon and one must wonder a couple of things: p((. 1. What type of ...

I remember years ago standing guard on a crime scene and hearing detectives lament that the "evidence eradication gremlins have been here." They were referring to first responders. Firefighters and EMS personnel handling emergency medical response to a patient (no offense to them as they are doing a necessary job) have particularly been long joked about in police circles as being ...

Hello and welcome to the May 2010 Edition of the Chaplain's Corner.    I was honored by being invited to speak at the annual LE memorial ceremony at the Veteran's Admin Hospital in Kerrville, hosted by the VA Police Department and will be/was held on 6 May.  I thought I'd share my thoughts here for those interested to hear my talk, but ...

"Alabama Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission":http://www.apostc.state.al.us/ "Alaska Police Standards Council":http://www.dps.state.ak.us/apsc/asp/ "Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board":http://www.azpost.state.az.us/ "Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training":http://www.clest.org/aleta_home.html "California Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission":http://www.post.ca.gov/ "Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board":http://www.ago.state.co.us/post_board.cfm?MenuPage=True "Connecticut Police Officer Standards and Training Council":http://www.ct.gov/post/ "District of Columbia Peace Officer Standards and Training Board":http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view,a,1232,q,541040,mpdcNav_GID,1523,mpdcNav,%7C31417%7C.asp "Federal Law Enforcement Training Center":http://www.fletc.gov/ ...

Hello, and welcome to the Chaplain’s Corner. Spring is almost here in the Texas Hill Country. I saw verbenas blooming last week and the bluebonnets are starting to pop. There are tens of thousands of bluebonnets out there. (I stopped counting at 9,458. Not really. ) It’s going to be a really good year for flowers because of all the rain ...

Hi and welcome once again to the Chaplain’s Corner. It’s June already…time to think about fishing and swimming. Around here a lot of folks head out to the “slab” for both. It’s a good place to get sunburned or a citation for driving in the river bed. I guess the first thing I need to do is to describe “Scott’s Slab” ...

It was about 4:00 in the afternoon when one of our regular clients called and requested an "emergency" polygraph examination for a 19-year-old female employee they suspected was stealing jewelry from a kiosk in their store. In pursuing the urgent nature for the polygraph examination, it was learned that the suspected employee had been unsuccessfully "mildly" interrogated over the last two ...

Anticipatory Search Warrant Valid Though Triggering Event Not Included in Warrant. The United States Supreme Court held that an anticipatory search warrant, that described the triggering event for execution in the affidavit, but not the warrant or the attached schedules that were given to the suspect at the residence, still met the particularity requirement of the 4th Amendment. United States v. ...