CHELMSFORD, MA - The grim discovery of 6-year-old Camden Pierce Hughes lying dead on the side of a road in southern Maine and the subsequent arrest of his mother, Julianne McCrery, under suspicion of murder have attracted widespread attention and outrage. In fact, yesterday’s news of the 42-year-old woman’s capture at a rest stop in Chelmsford, Massachusetts may have eclipsed President ...

As indicated previously, basic distrust is the core characteristic of paranoid behavior. Recognition of this is critical to police officers who must respond to it. Because paranoid persons consider significant people in their lives to have been undependable or rejecting, they are apt to view any authority figure or representative of "the system," including officers, as undependable and hostile. Consequently, officers ...

There was a time when an eager officer longing for more training opportunities could blame the training request denial on not being one of the “golden children” of the administration in power. With the advent of the economic downturn and a new era for law enforcement budgeting, denials have become the norm, rather than the exception. Training for law enforcers has ...

When responding to calls for police service, children can at times be our best sources for information. Whether they are sought out as the only English speaker in a foreign language speaking household to give an account of an incident or they're a victim you need to speak with, the junior members of our society can be a powerful addition to ...

Handling death notifications is a necessary part of the job that few law enforcement officers enjoy. It can be traumatic for the officer, as well as for the family members. Delivering a death message is a duty that is vitally important with far-reaching ramifications in people's lives. Handled poorly, extreme situations can develop. Family members and others advised of the passing ...

Target Audience: Law Enforcement personnel who may be faced with the task of stopping and frisking individuals. Objective: Provide officers with essential knowledge of the law relating to stop and frisk. Format: Roll-call/ supervisory training. Time: Five to ten minutes, but this may be expanded where agency resources allow. Materials: Law Enforcement Risk Management Legal Update, March 2004; agency policy relating ...

Over the years we have been consulted on cases in which an investigator was absolutely convinced that a particular suspect was lying when, in fact, the person was telling the truth. In other instances guilty suspects were able to get through an interview without having their lies detected. Behavior symptom analysis is certainly not 100% accurate. However, if proper techniques are ...

Happy 3rd Anniversary PoliceLink! Established way back in 2007, it's time to congratulate Chris Cosgriff (Senior Editor), Kevin Powers (Assistant Editor), the PL Forum Moderator Team....and especially you, the Members! PoliceLink has traversed unique ground as this site has grown. We've been able to move forward even in difficult times. This is a real testament to the manifested strength and motivation ...

As people of faith, we often wonder what we can do for others, especially for those in need. Ultimately, we seek help when things are out of our control and we can’t fix it. Is it a sign of powerlessness when we say, “We must pray for one another”? Spiritual leaders say that to do so is to acknowledge that we ...

In the course of an arrest, law enforcement personnel are often called upon to conduct a strip search of a person. These searches are viewed as intrusive and are subject to 4th Amendment restrictions. While these searches are an important tool for law enforcement, they remain a dramatic liability exposure for agencies and agency personnel. As such, this section outlines the ...

The identification of post-traumatic stress disorder in the context of the police use of deadly force is one example of how mental health professionals have made a major contribution to law enforcement (Zeling 1986). Dr. Michael Roberts, a consultant to the San José, California, Police Department, was one of the first to call attention to the postshooting syndrome. He pointed out ...

Police officers not only must be able to recognize abnormal behavior and mentally ill persons, but also must be prepared to guard, restrain, or take into custody people whose behavior suggests the presence of a mental illness. The following are suggestions for handling these difficult situations. **1. Calls involving known emotionally disturbed individuals should be answered by more than one officer.** ...

Police officers not only must be able to recognize abnormal behavior and mentally ill persons, but also must be prepared to guard, restrain, or take into custody people whose behavior suggests the presence of a mental illness. The following are suggestions for handling these difficult situations. **1. Calls involving known emotionally disturbed individuals should be answered by more than one officer.** ...

To help us honor the fallen and remember the events of September 11th, 2001, We asked PoliceLink members to share their thoughts, prayers and encouragements to the rescue and law enforcement community. We had an overwhelming response and thank each and every person who submitted a response. Read What PoliceLink Has to Say [page] God bless all the police and fireman ...

They call it "suicide by cop", or "police assisted suicide." I prefer the former term because the "cop" is the instrument of suicide. He or she might as well be a bottle of sleeping pills, carbon monoxide or a gun in the hand of the suicide. "Police assisted suicide" to me suggests "doctor assisted suicide" which is an entirely different kind ...

The following letter is from an officer who wrote it in the Guestbook and kindly gave me permission to use it in an article in the hope that his experience will help others. He describes many of the classic symptoms of police PTSD, or post traumatic stress disorder. In fact, every distressing thought, feeling and behavior he relates below is a ...

It has taken a while for me to write this in response to numerous requests from police and fire dispatchers because, frankly, I've never been a dispatcher myself. So I had to do a lot of thinking about what dispatchers have told me about their own experiences with police stress, and my own experiences at the other end of the radio. ...

Police officers are by nature competitive, and law enforcement is too varied to expect all officers to feel and act like they are playing on the same team all of the time in their interactions with members of other departments or agencies. However, it isn't too much to expect that all members of the law enforcement profession behave like they are ...

Police stress and corrections stress arises from two basic causes: the stress intrinsic to the job, and the stress associated with poor or even negligent management. In the former instances, officers may be reluctant to open up to police stress peer counselors (sometimes called "stress officers") because they are concerned about their confidences being shared with management. This concern is heightened ...

From the Thin Blue Line: Lessons for PIOs and Law Enforcement Leaders Last month you read about The Insight, a concept loosely adapted from The Secret. As you may recall, The Insight is nine simple words that should govern every interaction you have with the media and the press: Tell The Truth. Tell It Early. Tell It Often. We saw a ...