Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 4814 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: OCTOBER 2016 King of the diss to roast Boston cops Ross is basically fearless, but so is the Boston PD for inviting him Jeff Ross is known as the “roast master.” Anyone that’s ever seen a Comedy Central roast of Bob Saget or Flavor Flav knows about Ross’s comic chops. He can take pretty much anyone apart at the seams. On his new special, Jeff Ross will be roasting the Boston Police Department. Ross stopped by the Conan O’Brien show recently to talk about the experience. Ross told O’Brien that he wanted to do the gig because he thinks that even though everyone is talking about cops in America, no one is talking to them. “I asked all the big cities if they would let me come and do ride alongs and do a show and roasts cops to their face – the idea is to see what their job’s really like, to see what they’re really like,” Ross said. “I thought if I made fun of them, will they laugh or will they want to kill me, too? I think the answer is a little bit of both.” Oddly enough, the Bos- ton PD was the only law enforcement agency that agreed to let the comedian come. Ross praised Police Com- missioner William Evans for letting him do the special, as well as for his approach to policing. “An unarmed person hasn’t been shot and killed by the Boston cops in 25 years,” Ross said. “It’s all about community policing up there. They know the environment that they live in. The cops live and work in the community. They work where they live, which I think helps too.” How this all plays out remains to be seen. But one thing is clear – anyone that agrees to let Jess Ross grab a microphone and start in with the jokes has a lot of guts. That’s another reason Ross wanted to roast the Boston PD. Ross says he wants to show people that cops are human beings that can take a joke. Needless to say, fitness will be a topic of discussion. “Cops love food more than anything in the world,” Ross said. “The job’s so intense, but there’s a lot of waiting around. They have to be on call to do who knows what. There’s a lot of kind of sit- ting around and they carb up.” According to an article from the Columbus Dispatch, five Franklin County sher- iff’s deputies and supervisors will be suspended after a trainee went to the hospital in March with serious inju- ries. Sheriff Zach Scott said he would suspend the five train- ing academy employees, issue written reprimands to three other deputies and re- move a lieutenant who was working at the academy. “As sheriff, I expect the highest caliber of profes- sional conduct from all of my staff,” Scott said in a statement. “While the depu- ties involved in the training incident may have acted with good intentions, their actions fell outside of the conduct required by the sheriff’s office policies and procedures and my own expectations.” Last March, Dep. Tory Hardesty was part of the sheriff’s inaugural class of deputies who were training to leave the county jail for new assignments. Deputy James Dishong volunteered to play the role of an aggressor against Hardesty during one of the final training scenarios of the class. In the scenario, deputies ran through an exhaustive exercise before fighting to retain their gun from an at- tacker. Hardesty’s protective headgear came off during the simulation but the hits kept coming. Hardesty was left with cuts on his face and bruises under his eyes that required medical attention. Another trainee told su- pervisors afterward that Dishong had told a group of deputies at a restaurant that Hardesty and another trainee would have a “bad day” when it was time for that scenario. Keeping training safe for new recruits a challenge N o one seems all that interested that the end of the traditional public safety model in the United States may be upon us. But that’s no reason not to acknowledge that things are changing fast. According to a recent article from Think Progress, Washington D.C. has 120 private companies that em- ploy 16,580 “law enforce- ment agents.” These are not police offi- cers but they’re not out-and- out mall cops either. D.C. contracts with com- panies that employ 7,720 special officers along with 8,860 guards. They’re stationed at apart- ment buildings, colleges, commercial buildings, and hospitals. So how many actual cops work in D.C.? Official fig- ures put the number at ap- proximately 3,700 MPD officers. That’s about five private cops for every one trained, sworn officer. In some cities the security guard to real police officer ratio is as high as 5 to one  .  .    .  .  .  (((##)# ...,...'. .+ ..  This is the story of one man’s quiet, courageous leadership in helping to transform police and community relations. r Dr. Cedric L. Alexande Public Safety Director a DeKalb County, Georgia