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Question: How do you tell the difference between a Canadian Police Officer, an Australian Police Officer, and an American Police Officer? Pose the following question: You're walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, a dangerous looking man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife, and charges. You are carrying a Glock 40, and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do? CANADIAN POLICE OFFICERS Answer: (Immediate thought processes) Is the knife a ceremonial kirpan? Does he prefer to communicate in English or French? Will this negatively impact my chances of promotion? Is this just his way of telling me that he pays my wages, and wants my job? Would this be an appropriate time to hug him and sing Koombaya? Will the media do a profile of him and how he was loved by everyone including his dog? Is the alleged "client" a...

This is how I spend my days off, writing training tips to help out the new kids on the block!! HANDCUFFING!!!! Some Basics you may have forgotten!! It is impossible to count the number of times I placed suspects in handcuffs during my law enforcement career. I recall being aware that it was possible to pick the cuffs, but fortunately, I never actually encountered anyone who managed to do that. That does not mean it could never happen though. There are individuals out there who possess the knowledge, skill and motivation to do this and the information is freely available on the internet. As law enforcement officers we need to be aware of how one would pick a set of handcuffs so we can limit the suspects opportunities if they happen to be so inclined. And, what if the worst should happen? What if you find yourself taken hostage by your suspect; and, you end up wearing your own cuffs? Hope for the best, but plan for the worst by having a contingency plan. Here is what you need to know ab...

R.C.M.P. A Mountie pulled a car over on the Trans Canada about 2 miles West of Winnipeg . When the Mountie asked the driver why he was speeding, the driver answered that he was a magician and a juggler and he was on his way to Brandon to do a show that night at the Shrine Circus and didn't want to be late. The Mountie told the driver he was just fascinated by juggling, and if the driver would do a little juggling for him then he wouldn't give him a speeding ticket. The driver told the Mountie that he had sent all of his equipment on ahead and didn't have anything to juggle. The Mountie told him that he had some flares in the trunk of his patrol car and asked if he could juggle them. The juggler stated that he could, so the Mountie got three flares, lit them and handed them to the juggler. While the man was doing his juggling act, a car pulled in behind the patrol car. A drunk, good old boy, driving through from Alberta got out and watched the performance briefly. He then we...

Before we get started, here’s the disclaimer. The following is a really gross story of cops finding a dead body in Germany. You have been warned. So don't complain to me. OK, I had to comment on this one. I know it has nothing to do with American law enforcement. But it’s a great story, it does involve police action, and, besides, I do this blog in my spare time—so if a story hooks me, it’s going to be grist for this mill. Here’s the deal. It seems that the friendly neighborhood Polizei were recently summoned to an apartment in Dortmund. They were summoned by the call that many cops worldwide have come to dread: “Neighbors report foul smell.” Upon opening the door, they discovered the body of Mark Voegel, 30. And well, Mark had looked better. You see, Mark collected really deadly critters. His favorite pet was a black widow spider named Bettina. Unfortunately for Mark, Bettina did not feel the same way about him. Or maybe she did. After all, black widows devour their loved ones. An...

If you have to work "old clothes" (Undercover) As a drug enforcement officer/detective, working undercover (UC) is the grass roots of what we do. This can be as complex as interjecting yourself into an organization or as simple as pretending to be a drunk passed out of a bench in order to conduct some type of strategic surveillance. Either way you are pretending to be someone you are not and have to alter your tactical options accordingly. Due to operational security it would not be prudent for me to go into to much detail on this subject on an open website. But, there are a few things that that can be addressed that are relevant. Obviously, as a UC you cannot go into operational situations with a gun belt containing all the tricks of the trade. At most your only weapon is going to be some type of firearm. What that weapon is and how you carry it could be the difference between life and death of the UC. With everything going on during a UC buy it is a challenge to stay in the...

Admin OptionsEdit Post Add Tags Cancel Delete Post Manage Blog GENERAL PATROL TIPS I'm going to write this column in a generally amusing way as I know from experience that when you fail to keep a recruit or rookie's attention, their memory retention goes from 10 to 0 in no time flat!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Carefully choreograph your traffic stops as much as possible to minimize danger. If patience is the virtue by which police are going to be evaluated in the hereafter, I fear for their well-being. Some cops are in such a rush to get a car stopped that they'll let the driver they're attempting to detain dictate where the traffic stop will take place. Worse, they'll allow suspects to choreograph what happens once the cars have stopped. Bad Location Given the opportunity, suspects will lead you as far off the beaten path as possible, or at least to a location that provides them a situational advantage. Example: ...

Can your traffic vest be more important than your bulletproof vest during an active shooter? During an active shooter training scenario (See end of blog for the scenario) one point became pretty clear. Cops are probably going to shoot cops. During our realistic scenario almost everyone shot another uniformed officer. The fact is cops are ramped up and speed to shoot instinctively becomes the most important issue for them. To increase speed, shortcuts are made by officers and one is obviously target identification. Part of the problem comes from the traditional methods of training. We drill officers to watch the hands and then identify bad guys during scenarios by putting weapons in their hands. We have neglected to teach looking at the whole person first. This causes friendly fire incidents when speed is paramount and all the good guys have weapons in their hands too. Beliefs vs. Reality: During training we take for granted that we will identify the other police officers because: Beli...

Everybody will be happy to know that I am rubbing off on FreshMeat and he is starting to follow in my footsteps now. My blood pressure is down, I have even let him drive the squad 3 times now and I don't have to worry about him doing what the photo shows...... I won't let him sign out an X-26 YET!!!!

"When a Cop Sleeps" Sometimes when a cop sleeps, the demons come. The demons bring all the things you want to forget. The demons bring the tears and sweat, the spit and the blood, Oh God the blood. The demons bring the broken bodies from the wrecks the sickening smell of death and the kids...Oh God please, not the kids. Mainly the demons bring the eyes... the hatred and desperation in the eyes of the people you fight, the pleading and pain of the people you try to help, and the quiet and blankness in death of the ones you couldn't. The demons bring sounds too.... the sounds of tires skidding and metal crunching from the wrecks, the gunshots that seem so loud on TV yet so muffled on the street, the screams and crying that all blend together after a while. The demons won't leave... Alcohol and sleeping pills work for a while but they come back. Some have used their own deaths to flee from them, but most of us are scared that in causing our own death.... we'll be wi...

It has happened again and I'm getting fucking sick of hearing how our Brother's in the United States are losing their lives daily. And this is another pre-planned attack on LEO's as the shit-bag was wearing body armour when he answered the door to the officer's he murdered. They didn't stand a chance!!! I think it is high time that the training academies across our nations quit teaching going for the "critical mass" area and going right for the good old kill shot in the head. Now this fucker that killed our Brothers has the chance to appear before a jury of his peers, drag the case out forever, file appeal after appeal and live out more of his life than our fallen Brother's will. This wonton acts of violence against the police has got to stop and I honestly believe it is time every individual officer on the street's start thinking, hey I'm going to live, screw this scum bag and go for a head shot. Even our trusty X-26's are no match for ...

And the bitch about it is, SHE'LL MAKE MORE MONEY!!! LOL!!!

Well Fresh Meat and myself have successfully made it through another day and at least it was filled with my shouting, but mind you if a person could laugh their ass off today would have been that kind of day. Well thank the heaven's above that in the first 2 hours of the shift we didn't have to answer any gun calls, or 11-99's, as Fresh Meat found out about 120 kms. from the station house, ( I have a 520 km. square radius patrol area), that he accidently left his gun in the weapon's locker,he made sure he had a fresh cite book, his coffee, a fully chrged portable radio in case the squads crapped out, his OC spray,baton, but not his weapon!! Needless to say I had to radio dispatch to put us out of service as we were returning to the station to "retrieve" an item left behind. When arriving there was no explanation needed as his weapon's locker was the only one that had the door closed and locked on it with a note in bold bright red letters " FORGET SO...

Yes the headline says it all. I've got myself a new youngster as of today so all of my normal sermons, and printed out handouts that I give them on " my way of doing things" have been taken care of. The greatest job ahead of me now is to teach him that I drink Ice Tea and not a large double double. Hate coffee, always will. First day went fairly well, mostly HTA violations, posting Road closed signs due to over road flooding in my area, one drunk and disorderly call, (thank God not a domestic one), and one " family notification". Even I hate doing those but it is part of the job, not pleasant but has to be done. And hopefully fresh meat will now have learned something after the ass chewing I gave him on handling sensitive matters. It went down like this: At 13:00 we had a request from a department on the West Coast to go to Mr. and Mrs. XXX's house and inform of the untimely passing of their 24 y o son of a multiple MVA at VGH Hospital in Vancouver. At 13...