“What was the scariest moment you ever had on the job?” When PoliceLink posted this question on Facebook and Twitter, it really gave me pause. I started my law enforcement career as a dispatcher at age 17, became a cop at 21, and retired as a sergeant two years ago after 29 years on the job. I’ve had plenty of frightening ...

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.” ...

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 ...

Read the original article on the Officers Down Memorial Page Blog The good news first: Overall, line of duty deaths are down by 12% this year compared to the same date last year. As of February 25, 2011, America has lost 30 law enforcement officers in the line of duty (compared to 34 on February 25, 2010). The bad news: We've ...

Law enforcement officers throughout the United States recognize their ability to search vehicles incident to the arrest of an occupant. The foundation purpose of such searches is to prevent the subject from reaching into the vehicle for a weapon or reaching into the vehicle to destroy evidence. These searches have, for many years, been limited to the passenger compartment of the ...

In the wake of the recent Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s transportation deputy’s death here in Florida, I thought an article on transportation mandates would be in order. For some, these bullet points will be an eye opener. For others, they may serve as reminders of things told to you by your academy instructors and your field training officer (FTO). Many of ...

Much has been said about the Tueller drill which addressed the reactionary gap and how a subject could succeed from a distance of 21 feet when assaulting an officer. The reality is that a person attacking an officer can cover 21 feet in less time than the officer could draw and fire two aimed rounds from a holstered weapon. It is ...

I know that size does matter because an attractive waitress once told me so. At the time I think that we were talking about the size of the dinner plate that my meal was being served on, but I’m not sure. I do suspect that she was not talking about a peace officer trying to conceal a pistol under their clothing. ...

So much is written in this and other venues regarding officer safety. It's also a topic that police trainers cover extensively. Even with the popularity of of the officer safety topic, many law enforcers end their officer safety thinking when they're off the clock. As with other tactical issues in law enforcement, planning is the key to successfully accomplishing the public ...

Training is a fundamental component of success. My years in the military training soldiers as well as my time in law enforcement have confirmed, time and time again, the importance of repetitive training. Training is not a one-time occurrence. Rather, good training is consistent over time and is filled with repetition and building advanced knowledge upon basic knowledge. In other words, ...

When I teach Vehicle Operations in the Basic Law Enforcement Academies, I tell the recruits that the second police vehicle through the intersection during a priority run or pursuit is not the safer one; rather it is the more dangerous place to be. Drivers hear the sirens and see the patrol car go through and then assume the coast is clear. ...

"Oh %%@@##!, not another burglar alarm.!" We've all said it. All working cops know that the vast majority of burglar alarms calls are false. The problem has become so bad that some jurisdictions are levying fines against owners with repeated alarm activations. And of course, any storm with hard rain or strong winds will surely get that dispatcher to call stack ...

Law enforcement folks love gadgets and the various accoutrements that go with the job. When I ran police academies in Ohio and Florida, police equipment catalogs littered the desks at lunchtime and cop supply websites were must reading among the cadets. Not surprisingly, conversations on breaks often revolved around the newest device or gadget. All aspiring and newly minted officers covet ...

Around ten years ago, as a patrol division deputy sheriff with the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I walked up some porch stairs to knock on the door of a mobile home. Suddenly, I was tackled on the front porch by a 175-pound sheet rock hanger who was annoyed that I responded to the repeat domestic ...

In the 90's we saw the introduction of stab body armor that used soft technology, brought to us by Dupont®, the leaders in fiber technology. As the years went forward we saw imitation technology that labeled their technology as soft body armor... only to discover that these vests were made of very thin sheets of metal that had limited flexibility. We ...

Most discussions on law enforcement's use of deadly force focuses on those circumstances where an officer is faced with an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death to him or herself or some third party who is present at the scene of some law enforcement event. Little time is usually spent on discussing when an officer may use deadly force ...

Room entries, officers do it every day, but how do we train for this common action? It seems so routine, yet like a motor vehicle stop, is far from routine. The common denominators of any room entry is a point of entry to gain access, the other side of the entry point, (the room) which is really an unknown, and ...

"*Return to Page 1*":http://policelink.monster.com/training/articles/8388-room-entries-and-occupation h4. Body Position Size up the area around the door before getting there. Getting too close to a door creates extra risk of being detected prematurely. Keep off the wall. As long as the first one approaching the door is focused on it, there is nothing lost being a foot away from the wall. It just means ...

2010 was a bad year for cops. 2011 hasn’t started out well either. I recently came across a startling anti-police blog that exclaimed, “2010 was the year of the riot and 2011 is set to be the year of the insurrection.” I’m not going to choke you with statistics because so much is already out there on the assaults and killings ...

In 1997, the United States Supreme Court held, in Maryland v. Wilson, that it is reasonable for officers to order passengers in a lawfully stopped automobile to exit the vehicle.i The court reasoned that there must be a balance during a traffic stop between the need of the police to maintain officer safety and the Fourth Amendment rights of passengers. The ...