By Andrew G. Hawkes
As officers age and gain more experience they often find themselves in the midst
of an ever changing world of technology, laws, training and equipment. I
remember when I first started out we were the first real generation that did not
even consider carrying a wheel gun as a duty weapon. We would look at veteran
officers and their revolvers as dinosaurs that needed to change. I told myself
that I would never have a problem with adapting to innovations and new things
because we had the latest and greatest equipment and little would change over
the course of my career. Boy was I wrong!
Since my rookie year, I have seen the likes of major adaptations to the job. Now
we have computers in the cars, our pistols have "rails" on them to add laser
sights and flashlights, we have GPS in our cars that tell dispatch were we are
at all times, and the innovative "OC Spray" is fastly becoming obsolete with the
invention of the Taser. Racial profiling stats, civil liability and the end or
at least the beginning of the end of "professional courtesy" is upon us as well.
Young, educated, already technology advanced recruits are looking at my
generation thinking the same thing I thought so many years ago. But it's
important to realize that all these changes are not only inevitable, but good
for our profession and good for our safety. We must always look toward the
future and be able change as things improve.
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By Andrew G. Hawkes
Ask any good, seasoned patrol officer the importance of maintaining your everyday equipment and you might get a response like "Do cars need gas to run? Or, does a marathon runner need shoes to run in?" Having clean, up-to-date equipment such as a charged Taser or a full can of OC spray is important, but not nearly as important as maintaining your duty weapon. You don't have to be an expert firearms instructor, a Tactical Commander or even be a gun crazy cop to know how to maintain a clean duty weapon. Ask any field training officer if he stresses the importance of a clean, functional weapon to his or her rookies, and I bet you will be hard pressed to find one that does not.
Basic skills should have been taught to you in the academy on weapons upkeep as well as upkeep of your everyday duty gear. A veteran officer knows that maintaining perhaps the most important piece of equipment that you may have to rely on to save your life or the life of someone else doesn't take an expert, only consistency and responsibility.
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The average citizen, even the average patrol officer, often fails to realize what type of criminal element is driving down the interstate highways of our country. If you do not work highway interdiction, or as some call criminal interdiction then this element doesn't really exist to you, all you see are thousands of cars driving on the road daily.
Over the years that I worked the highway, not only did I seize thousands of pounds of dope, hundreds of thousands of dollars in dope money, but also ran across just about every type of criminal imaginable. While looking for dope, the list of other types of criminals and offenses mounted.
Stolen vehicles were recovered, child molesters with kiddie porn loaded down in the trunks were arrested, bank robbers with automatic weapons and bullet proof vests were taken into custody, white supremist transporting guns across state lines, murder suspects, rape suspects and others were all caught when they felt they were safest, in-transit on the highway, several states away from their fugitive state.
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 TOP 10 Things You Should NOT Purchase:
- Pink Tasers
- SWAT Panties
- Less lethal slapping gloves
- Skin tight uniform shirts
- "Undercover" deodorant
- Kevlar hair comb
- Camouflage car keys
- Anything with the phrase "homeland security" attached to it
- TSA operations manual
- Laser tie clips
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