Edged weapons defense often takes a back seat in our use of force training. After all, just three law enforcement officers, all working in correctional facilities, have been killed by edged weapons attacks in the past five years. However, countless cops are injured every year by knife-wielding subjects, and we can’t allow the low number of officer deaths to make us ...

The percentage of women in law enforcement is hovering under 15 percent, according to the National Center for Women & Policing, and it's not increasing. Here's straight talk from current and former female police officers as to why we'd all be better off if that percentage rose, what's been holding the numbers down and which women are needed to fill the ...

Think you've seen more than your fair share of intoxicated motorists? Did you know that there are two million repeat drunk drivers on the road at any given time? Always be aware of your surroundings, especially if you live in or near the following twenty cities. This list was based on the top 20 cities by population, according to the ...

Those who have been in law enforcement for a while surely remember the stressful, anxiety-provoking period of their career spent under the watchful eyes of paramilitary police academy instructors. Much like Marine Corps boot camp, the training stint evokes memories filled with physical performance, emphasis, loyalty to the organization and fear of the training authorities. More recently, some police organizations have ...

A ten-year old girl cowers in the corner of a dirty dark room. Standing in front of her is a full-grown man. It is not her father, brother or friend. He is not there to punish her for a wrongful act or comfort her in a time of crisis. He is there to commit an act against her that few of ...

When you write promotional tests for police agencies based on the latest and greatest supervision and management textbooks, you sometimes shudder when one of your colleagues opens your office door and comes in with a package. "Which 700+ page behemoth is it this time?" you ask. You know the monster books I mean - where the authors are paid by their ...

Are you serious about your officer safety and survival? No really, are you? We all read the officer killed summaries, lament the tragic circumstances, vow “that will never happen to me” and then within a week or two we often go right back to work and engage in the same habits and tactics that have always allowed us to “get by.” ...

On January 28th 2000, the Providence Police Department received a call that would irreversibly change the lives of three officers forever. Officer Carlos Saraiva, a three-year veteran, and Officer Michael Solitro, a rookie who had completed his field training just days earlier, were riding as partners due to a shortage of police vehicles. Officer Saraiva and Solitro monitored a call of ...

Law enforcement officers across the country share information everyday about suspected police impersonators that are roaming our streets, conducting traffic stops, committing crimes, often violent in nature, and then driving off into the abyss with little information other than "A white car with lights and a male in a dark uniform with some unknown type of badge". Stopping these offenders, or ...

The first rule of surviving a gunfight is to have a gun to fight with. As we discussed in the previous article that means not only having a weapon, but also having it accessible to you when you need it. That does not mean under the seat of your car or inside of a briefcase. It means where you can put ...

No administrator, except perhaps the police chief of Beverly Hills if one believes the portrayal in Beverly Hills Cop I, II & III, is immune from the budget pressures of the nineties. Administrators are scrambling to garner federal grants, stretch city and county resources, and recruit private dollars to support their departments. Many savvy administrators are turning to the time-honored police ...

I really think it’s time that we in the police community need to stop sugar coating hand to hand combat. We create all of these politically correct terms and phrases that really lead officers away from what is really going on out there on the street. What is defensive tactics? When I am attacked as a police officer I am trained ...

h4. Description A police officer / deputy sheriff serves on the front line and is the first responder to all types of emergencies. h4. Testing Requirements Orientation, Written Exam, Physical Ability Test, Oral Interview, Polygraph, Psychological Exam, Background Investigation, and Medical Exam +Orientation+: Probationary Police Officer testing usually follows cycles where a law enforcement agency advertises a police test in order ...

It has been eight years since those tragic events that affected us all so much. We wish to send our prayers, thanks and blessings to the heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice on that fateful day. The following pages provide the names and photos of those brothers we have lost. They will forever be in our hearts. Meet America's Heroes ...

Some interviews are free-flowing and spontaneous. Often, these interviews are conducted in an uncontrolled environment such as a street corner, an employee’s office or over the telephone. Because the person being interviewed in these situations is generally telling the truth, the investigator does not have to carefully structure an interview strategy. However, when interviewing a person who is motivated to lie ...

Many officers are of the belief that if they have the legal right to detain a suspect, they can automatically frisk that suspect “for officer safety.” However, in 1968, the United States Supreme Court held that an officer may conduct a limited search (frisk) of a suspect for weapons when the officer reasonably believes that the suspect, who is detained pursuant ...

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," according to Shakespeare. Methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs by any other names smell just as bad, particularly when sniffed by a trained and certified narcotics detection dog, according to the United States Supreme Court. Somewhere way back when, someone figured out that a dog is man's best friend. ...

“Garbage in, garbage out.” That old saying captures why the recruitment of quality people into law enforcement is so important. After all, all street-level law enforcers want their backup officer to be good at a complex and dangerous job. Now, that’s not to say that training doesn’t have its priority, but we all know marginal officers who’ve somehow slipped through the ...

Through the past 4 years of conducting active shooter instructor training programs as well as basic operations programs for all law enforcement, we have been privileged to work with some of the most highly motivated and best officers in the world. This is due to the fact the majority have attended the programs with an “open mind” which gives an added ...

During an interrogation, an investigator attempts to persuade a suspect to tell the truth, oftentimes to provide incriminating evidence that will be used in a subsequent prosecution. Further, interrogations are generally conducted in situations where there is insufficient evidence to assure a conviction and, in many cases, the suspect's actual guilt may not be 100% certain. If an investigator was required ...