Police Chief Interview
 

As a long-time Pelican, most of you know that I am a peace officer and have risen through the ranks during my 30+ year career. I am going to interview for a Police Chief position and would like your input.

First, no condemnation of law enforcement please. I am seeking your collective advice as to what qualities you would like to see in a Chief.

How would you involve the communities?

How would you reduce crime?

How would you deal with homelessness and the issues that are created?

What are your biggest concerns that a Chief can actually impact?

What other concerns do you have?

I am open to any suggestions, but please do not start criticizing law enforcement and your perceptions. I am looking to make positive changes to protect the good people of our communities.

Thank you!

I apologize for not having great ideas, but thanks and good luck!

I don't even have any bad ideas....but good luck!

Tough gig. I applaud your service.

Big city? Little city?
Crime rate?
Perception of the operation? Internally and externally?
Your current city or another?

Even answering those questions probably won't help me much....

That said. Openness, honesty, and 100% body cams. Oh, don't forget openness and honestly.

Don't know the answers, those questions make my head hurt. But good luck!
I was gonna make one suggestion to reduce crime but don't want to PARF this up.

For those that don't know David, I've met him and he's a stand-up type, nice guy and straight shooter.

No Idea either but best of luck!

It's already been said, but, More whisky, bullets, and fresh horses for my men!

And free donuts for good behaviour.

Police today, by sequestering themselves behind rolled-up car windows, too often appear unapproachable to the common citizen - particularly to mid and high school students. Smart phones and in-car computers serve only to assist in that separation.

Get `em out of their cars and into the community.

_

Thank you. I work for a large agency in Los Angeles with many substations. It will be one of the substations.

Body cams are the future, but there are some inherent issues that the public may or may not have considered. The biggest gain is the viewpoint of the officer during critical incidents. It shows a perspective of the incident but does not capture the additional information. It does help clarify what law enforcement did well and what was not done in the best interest of public safety and trust. However, there is another negative portion that the majority has not fully examined. If an officer has the camera on full-time, he will regularly enter people's homes as results of calls for service. Inside the/your home, everything is recorded. If you have children, other adults, elderly people, or whomever inside the home, their image will be recorded. In some cases, people feel comfortable dressing in manners while inside their home that they would not go into public. For example, a male wearing boxers or a woman in a nightgown, or whatever else you can imagine. During a "Freedom of Information Act" request, anyone can request footage from the officer's cameras. These videos would be required to be released. Some of the images would have to be blurred (juveniles) prior to release, but that would require someone to view the entire footage in its entirety. Now imagine an individual requesting footage for multiple officers over the course of a month...or a year....or longer. How would that footage be redacted? There is software out there that may have the capability of blurring some of the images, but it has not been perfected as of yet.

As for myself, I would not want the interior of my home to be recorded or my family members recorded and provided to the public.

This is something that has to be explored as technology evolves.

I appreciate your input!

Never been in Law Enforcement so what do I know.

I answered the best I could as I believe you are looking for perspective from the other side?

Good luck with the gig. Hope you get it and make a positive difference for your community.

This is one of my pet peeves! I cannot stand when officers drive around with their windows rolled up. It disconnects them from the community. It limits their ability to hear and smell what is going on around them. I always told them to roll down their front windows, turn on the AC or heater to full blast and actively seek the bad guys. When it rains, I had them roll up the front windows, but roll down the back windows unless of course they had someone in custody. Each and every one of them knew to never let me catch them with their windows up, unless they were in a pursuit or driving with their overhead lights and siren activated because we cannot hear their radio transmissions.

It doesn't snow in LA, so I am not sure how that would work in those areas.

It would Really depend on where it is. Obviously, certain principles of policing apply everywhere but from my outsider's perspective, it seems like there would be different set of tactics for policing a high-crime, major city as opposed to a small or medium size town in the Colorado mountains where crime is low and people can legally carry guns, etc...

Depends on the prevailing culture. Congratulations of being considered to lead a Police Dept. but knowing you, I'm not surprised. You are an exceptionally good person and would be a great leader! Good luck. :cool:

Originally Posted by DavidI View Post
As a long-time Pelican, most of you know that I am a peace officer and have risen through the ranks during my 30+ year career. I am going to interview for a Police Chief position and would like your input.

First, no condemnation of law enforcement please. I am seeking your collective advice as to what qualities you would like to see in a Chief.

How would you involve the communities?

Holding regular Town Halls, listening to their concerns which will often involve counting to 10 in your head as they tear you a new one then inviting the most vocal ones for some more private time and use it to help you help them.

How would you reduce crime?

Tough one as I'm not entirely convinced that reducing crime is an enforcement issue. We see crime rates ebb and flow in with economic indicators. The better the economy, the lower the crime rate. Put another way, I don't believe it's solely Law Enforcements job nor is it reasonable to put that responsibility solely on Law Enforcement. The need for LEO's exists because of crime. How does the result of something eliminate what creates it? I would advocate for more officers on the street dealing with the community vs sitting on the side of the road being forced to give soccer moms tickets for rolling stop signs, read, priorities.

How would you deal with homelessness and the issues that are created?

With as much compassion as possible but honestly, LEO's are not empowered to fix the problem, just to deal with the consequences. Tough one.

What are your biggest concerns that a Chief can actually impact?

This is really a subset of your first question

What other concerns do you have?

As is this

I am open to any suggestions, but please do not start criticizing law enforcement and your perceptions. I am looking to make positive changes to protect the good people of our communities.

Thank you!

Fantastic feedback!

Thank you for the compliment Denis. We had a great time rolling through the streets of Compton together many years ago!

Community Service
 

Hold a forum, open to the public, discussing the drug and/or homelessness problems. People want to help but lack direction believing their tax dollars will solve their civic issues. Prevention is always the best course of action.

Get rid of bad actors in the department. People need to know you are serious about protect and serve. No knock warrants are bad especially on the wrong house or by bad information. Shooting dogs is frowned upon by their owners and can result, like in Houston, people dying and officers being wounded.

Schools are in need of common sense policing. Get your officers to teach a weapon safety, drug independence, sex trafficking and common courtesy rules for driving on public roads. Kids need to know someone actually cares about public safety.

Get to know the County Sheriff and discuss criminal activity that both of you can resolve in short order. Send a message you care and things will change.

I understand the concerns with body cams. My brother in law is a cop.

But you gotta get em. One incident without body cams and you get raked over the coals these days. Even if you are in the right without body cams the very vocal judgemental police will make your life miserable.

As far as in the home. They don't have to let you in. If circumstances dictate mandatory entry you damn sure want the camera rolling. If you are asking to enter then you should state you must have cameras on.

These days you need encounters recorded.

I realize I have over simplified but they are damn sure important technology that the public is basically requiring.

I sent you a PM

Dave.

Statistics based deployment of police walking the streets of high incident areas has been shown to reduce crime rates as well as positivity impact those communities by restoring normality.

A chief can impact the integrity and ethics of those who serve under him by standing as a role model. A zero tolerance policy should be established for dirty cops, harassing behavior or activities which tarnish the badge and the department. You will have their backs as long as they have yours.

Best of luck and endless respect for the extremely difficult job you and your brothers and sisters perform.

1. Tell the council/committee that you plan to implement a "walk and talk" directive to patrol officers. Twice per shift, they will check out of service for 10 minutes at a location of their choosing. Ask that they choose a different business, park, business, school, business, street, business, apartment complex, (or a business lol) for each "walk and talk". Do not audit the walk and talk for location compliance, but do audit to make sure that the walk and talks are actually taking place. Mention audit results a few day's per week, encourage compliance without nagging and make sure to mention any successes (business owner's whom were overtly receptive).

Ask the officers to be forthright with the business owner/community member.

"Hi, I'm Officer Joe Friday, this is my partner, Officer Bill Gannon. We work this area almost every day and our department is asking that we get out of our police cars and meet the people who pay our salaries. Obviously the police can't be all things to all people, all of the time, but what can we do to help you today? This week? This month? We will do our best to stop by again next week to see how you are doing. Thanks for talking to us. Have a great night."

2. Sins of the mind will not be tolerated. Sins of the heart will be dealt with case by case.

3. My officers will drive hard but will drive with courtesy and always use turn signals. Response times matter. When you call the police, the police need to come. right now. This is our pledge to the community. So Please excuse the officer whose pace is a little too brisk for your liking, who parks on the sidewalk, or who blocks your driveway for a few minutes. He's trying to cut down on the time it takes for him to get from point a to point b. Please give the officer the benefit of the doubt. We ask that the officer's obey all driving laws and always set a good example. When they fail, please remember that they are human.

4. We cannot solve the "homeless problem." It is unconstitutional to use force to compel a homeless person to "leave" or to "move along." We can ask them to leave. We cannot make them leave. We can write them a citation but we cannot take them to jail. They will ignore the citation. The ignored citation will turn into a warrant. We cannot arrest them for the warrant because there is no room at the county jail. Please understand that. I will not put pressure on my officers to solve a problem for which I cannot give them the necessary tools to do the job.

5. I promise not to use my authority to stroke my ego or to create useless task forces, additional community policing teams, school resource officers or any other unfunded drain on patrol manpower so that I have something to point to and say, "See what I did about that? I'm awesome!!!'" I will not decimate the number of officers in patrol in order to staff pogue positions just to shut up some other city department or official with the city manager's ear, council member, special interest group or whomever is the acute political emergency of the day.

I count some two dozen or more police chiefs and former police chiefs in SoCal as acquaintances and/or as friends. I do not understand how any right minded person could be interested in law enforcement. God Bless and Protect your Families.

DL

First. Congrats!

Second, I agree with above. If you can succeed in integrating the force as part of the community, you have won.

Police officers help us. We need everyone to understand and believe this.

Third. the other side, policing is hard, difficult work. It reinforces stereotypes.

My uncle is a retired officer and policing turned him into a bigot and a jerk. He is naturally a pleasant, lntellignt person.

You may have signed up for one f the most difficult roles there is. There are no simple solutions.

Best of f luck. I am rooting for you.