Hi

The parade room was all astir, there was a lot of laughing and joking due to all the new officers, myself included, hitting the streets today for the first time. After months of seemingly endless amounts of classes, paperwork, and lectures we were finally done with Depot Division and ready to join the ranks of our department. All you could see were the row of rookies with huge smiles and polished new equipement. As we sat in the briefing room, we could barely sit still anxiously awaiting our turn to be introduced and given our patrol assignment or, for the lay person, our own portion of the city to "serve and protect." It was then that he walked in. A statue of a man - 6 foot 3 and 230 pounds of solid muscle, he had black hair with highlights of gray and steely eyes that make you feel nervous even when he wasn't looking at you. He had a reputation for being the biggest and the smartest officer to ever work in North Vancouver. He had been on the department for longer than ...

EVIDENCE COLLECTION AND YOU--the Public Safety Diver ( PSD) All agencies and PSD teams have their own SOP's and SOG's and I am in no way telling you to deter from the methods outlined in yours, what I'll attemp to do in this brief is to give you all a few hints/pointers that you may already use, or may want to fit into your operating practices. Lets face it, an big wide open body of water is an invitation for the bad guy to ditch and try to evade the finding of things that will put him away. It is OUR job to recover this evidence to the best of our abilities and our teams abilities. The criminal has the mindset of , " if it sinks to the bottom nobody will ever see it again." WRONG, this is where we come in. Even though the evidence is UW it does not negate the need to apply the same crime scene techniques as used above on dry land. Our main goals as PSD's is to collect enough evidence to procure a conviction in court against the accused. And like evidence...

Patrol Officers and Anti-Terrorism Intel....It is needed!! Ever since Sept. 11 2001 the face of law enforcement has changed and each and everyone of us needs to be ever vigilant for the prospect of terrorism whether here in Canada, or helping out our fellow LEO's in the US. And contrary to popular belief terrorism DID NOT start on Sept. 11 2001, many of today's younger LEO's may not remember the taking of the American Embassy in Tehran Iran on November 4 1979, I do, as I was in the Navy at the time! That is when the real threat of terrorism hit the North American ccontinent!! Every ship in both our Canadian fleet and our Brother US Naval ships was put on high alert!! Strange days followed, all 444 of them, until the hostage taking was over. This is where we in front line law enforcement come into play. As good operations against terrorism start on the front line. We are the eyes and ears of the nation, part of the first line of defence. Not to mention the front line on ...

A tool used in some tactical operations is the planning/implementation/use of what are called “phase lines”. Typically used on planned operations where you are orchestrating movement of persons, groups of persons, vehicles, or even entire armies; phase lines are used as markers that signal a change or a necessary action that is supposed to occur. They represent a demarcation where you enter a different “phase” of your mission. In military operations, crossing a “phase line” (many times a physical “line” like a road, stream or other landmark) may mean that your Rules Of Engagement (ROE) have changed. A military unit may acquire different priority for artillery fire or fires may shift as units cross a “phase line”. A fairly common use of this principle in “small-scale tactics” is using a phase line technique to orchestrate SWAT operations. While the labels may vary, many SWAT units use a “Phase Line Yellow” and a “Phase Line Green”. Phase Line Yellow represents your last point of ...

Dear Madam: Thank you very much for your recent letter to my barracks  where you so kindly stated that " all of the cops get paid too much and all I ever see is a cruiser just parked and the officer sitting there". I agree wholeheartidly with you M'am, I GET PAID TOO MUCH. I'll be sure to ask our payroll dept. to hold back some money from my next cheque. I'm sorry if you saw me parked just sitting there, I couldn't possibly have been running the plates on a car that looked out of place in your neighbourhood to help keep you and your family safer. I get paid too much. And I definetly got paid waaaay to much in the beginning of my career when I was stationed all over..no home barracks..and the beautiful tempretures of -60 in the winter months, and only 85 degrees C. in the summer. I was being paid too much, that's why I was able to take the month long holiday to Mexico with your family beside me. And I was paid way too much to be able to purchase th...

Excalibur Syndrome is a term a friend of mine coined for a tendency toward over-dependence on equipment that some weapon carriers have when confronted with physical force. Many knowledgeable practicioners have heard of the Tueller Drill or the “21' rule”, where it is shown that an officer, even with an exposed holster, has difficulty drawing and firing effective hits on a rushing opponent within 21'. The Excalibur Syndrome, while sharing similar roots, is a bit different. Excalibur Syndrome is the overdependence or “talismanic dependence” on the weapon that causes people to singlemindedly attempt to access it even when they are being attacked. You can see it in officers trying to draw while being repeatedly punched in the face, women attempting to get their OC canister out of their purses while being assaulted and other similar events. Weapons are important and effective tools that can make the difference between life and death, but they are only effective when they can be depl...

Although I'm not an SRO, I have given a few talks about cyber bullying to students and teachers of primary and middle schools and thought I would share some information with you should the need arise at your station to make a presentation to a class, scout/girlguide troop/ or at a PTA meeting , and some preventative measures and actions that may be taken to stop this form of on line abuse, which is now covered under some Provincial statutes and in the Criminal Code of Canada. With the use of hand held devices becoming more commonplace in schools, and class rooms across the country this is a very real issue that a lot of students and parents do not want to/ or will not address. In the most severe cases of cyber bullying and stalking some suicides have been blamed on this relatively new phenomonen in the high tech world. School bullies have been around for ages, this is just one of the new tools available to them Let's start with some facts on this matter: Nearly 35% of kids h...