I’m afraid that if I ever made Chief somewhere I wouldn’t be very popular with the troops.  I would try to get them the very best patrol cars on the market, but then they would be subject to modification to make them even better. Some fixes I have in mind:

1.  All operating windows tied to the ignition, when the ignition is on the windows are down, no override.  The only time the windows can be closed is when the car is parked and locked.
2. Good times radios removed-even if it has to be done with an ax.
3. GPS units installed with memory.
4. Artificial Intelligence robot installed to offer motivation based on sequences of events for example: patrol car stopped, spotlight on, MDT runs registration =computer generated voice saying “aren’t you going to get off your fat ass and check that car?

How hard can it be missing girl driving a known vehicle.  She is found dead in that vehicle. It was parked in the same spot for three months. It’s called PATROLLING not cruising.  The buzzards circling should have been a tip off.

This is a lick on WalMart too, but I don’t expect anything of security guards.

I was taught the only time all the windows in a patrol car were up was when it was locked.  If you were in it a window was down. Something as simple as that and somebody on patrol would have caught a whiff of her rotting corpse.

It’s neat that we can get so much information from a computer, but looking in the car has value.  A popped ignition says stolen while a transposed license says clear.  If while you’re out looking in one side of the car a trip to the other side gives a different view.  How can somebody expect to perform well in a job that requires curiosity, if they that have none?

All I can come up with is that police administrations looked at all the traits that made my generation such pains in the asses and told the psychologists to cull those traits out as undesirable.

What you wind up with is officers who are risk adverse and afraid of unpleasant people and confrontations.

In a discussion I had with a Chief last week, he said there is a move to ban foot chases, because officers are getting hurt.  I asked if this was an admission that police departments were hiring candidates that couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time?  I did not receive an answer.

I offered the following, and place it in the public domain for any Chief to use:

Foot Pursuits:

1.1 Prior to initiating a foot pursuit the involved officer will spit out his chewing gum, this to eliminate confusion and ensure peak performance.