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 4016 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: MARCH 2016 Letters Here’s your chance to sound off about stuff you’vereadinAmericanPoliceBeat,frustrations with the job, information you need or even something positive. Let’s hear it. E-mail: Cynthia@apbweb.com or fax: 646-657-0162. OPINION/EDITORIAL Continued on page 24 The news can be painful to watch these days for those of us in the law enforcement profession. Many of us are asking if we routinely harm our communi- ties with intentional excessive of use of force or do we save lives at a rate that far surpasses the use of deadly force? I recently contacted 25 agencies in Florida with a survey that was designed to shed light on this question. Six agencies responded (Cape Coral P.D., Clearwater P.D., Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Miami P.D., Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and the Tallahassee P.D.) The six agencies responded that a total of 13 people were intentionally killed by officers during 2014. Those same agencies re- ported that 64 lives had been saved by their officers over the same time period. The number of lives saved was five times higher than the number of lives taken. So what can agencies do to let their community know just how many lives their officers are saving? For starters, the chief execu- tive should make it very clear that they want their officers properly recognized for life- saving actions. Information about life-sav- ing awards should be pub- lished in the local newspaper, Chief is a hero Thanks for running the stories on Chief Campanello of the Gloucester Police Dept. and his efforts to get people addicted to drugs into treatment as opposed to the criminal justice system. My sister has lived in Gloucester for nearly three decades and I’ve been well aware of the drug problem there. It is the tragic story of many hardworking people in the town’s fishing industry who have been thrown out of work and into long years of hard times. Chief Campanello is a true hero. – Terry O’Neill terryoneillesq@aol.com on all so- cial media sites, on the agen- cy’s web- site and in the de- partment’s annual re- port. Another i d e a i s t o h a n g photos of every of- ficer who earned a life-saving award with a brief synopsis of the event in a building like City Hall. Our profession is certainly taking a lot of criticism lately for use-of-force incidents. It’s time to challenge some of that criticism with accurate data about how many lives officers are saving as part of protecting the community – five-to-one. – Stan Duncan (Stan is a former captain and teaches at Suncoast Techni- cal College at their Criminal Justice Program.) Pension scheme stumbles A smile crossed my face when I learned that Chuck Reed and his sidekick Carl DeMaio’s latest attempt to To many Americans, there’s something fundamentally un-American about pledging oaths of allegiance to something besides the flag – and the Republic for which it stands. Even the pledge of allegiance referred to above can be problematic. Not every American believes in a higher power or a god of some kind and have a problem with the “under God” bit that was inserted into the pledge in 1954 during the Red Scare. If you’re too young to remember what that was, ask an old-timer. They may have even had an assignment on the Red Squad. In the old days there were only three “al- legiance pledges.” You pledged allegiance to the flag, you pledged not to lie when you took the stand in a court of law and you pledged allegiance to the Constitution when you went into the military or started a career in law enforcement. Now loyalty pledges are everywhere. How about all those “user agreements” we ignore but click a box to say we read it? It turns out in lot of those the “user” is pledg- ing allegiance to Mama Guiseppie’s Pizza Palace when they click that box. Why is that? Because it contains a clause saying that should the user ever say anything bad about MG’s Pizza online, they can be sued for damages. There are tons of cases like these all over the country. Or consider a recent pledge that San Francisco police officers were pressured to take. The idea is well intentioned, but like a lot of well-intentioned stuff designed to make people feel better, it wasn’t carefully thought out or even debated. The pledge involves cops standing up and promising not to “tolerate racism in the department in any form.” It sounds pretty reasonable until you actually think about it. There may be an older guy that doesn’t have a racist bone in his body but knows exactly one joke. It’s about female, Asian drivers. He retires in less than a year. Does it really make sense that every cop at the agency now has to drop a dime on a co-worker in order to be in compliance with the “diversity” pledge? Or consider the story from North Caro- lina on page one of this issue. Courts in that state have decided that deputies are not county workers. They don’t serve the communities in which they serve apparently, they serve the current sheriff. How else can you explain the fact that deputies in North Carolina are now re- quired to donate money to the current sheriff’s campaign fund? What if the agency’s a mess due to bad leadership and patronage? What if a high-ranking officer thinks he or she can do a better job and wants to run against his or her current boss? As the result of the “pledge of allegiance” that deputies in North Carolina now make to their boss under state law, that’s apparently no longer possible. The act of pledging allegiance is serious business. Such invocations should be rel- egated to the courts and to the Constitution. Pledging allegiance to a sheriff, a pizza place, or some well-intentioned effort to address racism is not only counterproduc- tive – it’s fundamentally un-American. I pledge allegiance to my boss? Our job is saving lives, not taking them Stan Duncan "NFSJDBO
1PMJDF
#FBU VOICE OF THE NATION’S LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMUNITY American Police Beat is targeted to the nation’s law enforcement profession and seeks to give a voice to the nation’s working law enforcement professional. This publication is dedicated to providing a forum where officers can speak out about the numerous issues that impact their personal and professional lives. Articles and pictures are welcome and should be sent to the editor, who reserves the right to edit all submissions. Not all submissions will be accepted for publication. American Police Beat (ISSN 1082-653X; USPS #24948), also hereafter referred to as “APB,” is published 12 times per year. Subscriptions are $12 for one year; $20 for two years; and $26 for three years. APB is published by First Strike Media, LLC, 505 8th Ave., Suite 1004, New York, NY 10018. Periodicals Postage Paid at New York, NY and Additional Mailing Offices. POSTMASTER: send address changes to American Police Beat, 505 8th Ave., Suite 1004, New York, NY 10018. Telephone: 617-491-8878 • 800-234-0056 • Fax: 617-354-6515 Editorial e-mail: cynthia@apbweb.com • Subscriptions: info@apbweb.com Website: www.apbweb.com CYNTHIA BROWN: PUBLISHER DAVE QUIMBY: ADVERTISING SALES JEREMY LANGE: WEBSITE MANAGEMENT MARK NICHOLS: EDITOR LAINI ANDREWS: ADVERTISING SALES BRENDAN J. O’BRIEN: OFFICE ASSISTANT SARAH VALLEE: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER