How would you like to die?

Living well is best. Dying well is next best. Living badly is worst.

On Valentine's Day of this year, a horrible person murdered 17 people at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, kicking off an enormous clash about gun control, almost immediately.

The murderer was 19 a years old man, and had been identified as a dangerous person before. In fact, friends and counselors had called the FBI about him. He slipped through. It happens. He committed these crimes, and no one else is blame.

During the murders, there were heroes. A coach who shielded the bodies of children as he died. A 15 year-old ROTC student who held the door to get more kids evacuated out of the building. There were others.

One of those heroes was not School Resource Officer Scot Peterson, who "took a position" outside a door of the building where 900 students were, and listened to the shooting continue for four minutes. To make this clear: this man was an armed, sworn deputy, who was made aware of shooting in a school, where his primary duty was to see to the safety of students there, and he did nothing.

There are those who would argue that a man with a pistol has little to no chance against a man with a working AR-15. As a rule of thumb, it is true that any rifle is superior in a gunfight to any service pistol. And I could argue right back that in a majority of the cases in which a shooter was confronted by armed response, the shooter has either given himself up, or killed himself, ending the killing in either instance, for the vast majority of the cases.

But the odds are not the issue. The duty is. Each shot is potentially a student dying. Each moment's delay can mean yet another mother's child being taken. It is imperative to not-walk-but-run toward the sound of that gunfire, and stop the killing.

This deputy has trained with his weapon for over twenty years. If he hadn't settled this in his head beforehand, he was criminally negligent in his duties.

Some might say that the issue was his training. Back when I went to police academy in 1994, the training was to form a perimeter, and wait for SWAT. Certainly a single officer wasn't supposed to go in alone. (I clearly remember sitting in the back of the classroom, and thinking that this was a hill that I would die upon; I would take whatever write-ups they cared to throw at me, but I was going in.) The massacre at Columbine High School in 1998 changed that doctrine forever. The doctrine since the turn of the century has been to go in hard and fast and take the shooter out. We are specifically trained to step over and past the wounded, to rapidly close distance with the shooter, and take him out without any warning. This is as it should be. It is not a secret. It is how you help the bleeding and those yet unwounded.  How could a man or woman assigned to the duty of being a School Resource Officer not have studied this topic?

It is rare in one's life that one can recognize such an important crossroads, illuminated so clearly as this one.  One could absolutely guard one's own life, forsaking his moral duty to act, and die several decades later in one's bed, aware for the remainder of his life that he was living the life of a coward. One could swallow one's fear, and attack the killer, and fail. This would be horrible, because it would mean that one didn't stop the killer. But it's a worthy death, to die in the attempt to stop the murder of children. In fact, if an officer stopped the killer, but the officer was killed as well in the engagement, that is not a failure.  It is sub-optimal, but the goal was achieved: the killer was stopped. Dying while SAVING the lives of children is so much more preferable than dying of old age, after failing to even try. I am not suggesting that one should martyr one's self; I'm simply saying that one should fear the long life of a coward, rather than the quick and worthy death of a peacekeeper.  

My excellent friend and colleague LawDog said it better, here.

I was discussing this with friends recently, and one good friend cautioned (correctly, of course) not to give the impression that one should hope to find such an event occur. I agreed, but shared the following:

Back when I was a rookie working evening shift, I caught my first Sexual Assault case. My chief happened to drop by the police department at that time, and he took it off my hands. I had been flustered and out of my depth. My chief at the time was an expert at such cases. He said afterwards, “I am sorry that the event occurred, but I am so glad that it happened when and where I could do something about it.” He had skills that the average beat cop did not. He applied those skills to take care of the problem (the actor got 20 years, IIRC). I probably would have muffed it.

Living well is best. Dying well is next best. Living badly is worst.

Choose wisely. And train.

Gotcha.

It was 01:30, and I was doing some serious neighborhood patrol. We had recently been hit with a series of overnight car burglaries in our neighborhoods, and I was damned if I was going to let it happen again, even though I had case reports stacking up on my desk. I was slowly driving up and down the neighborhood streets, shining lights into parked cars. Either I was going to find some car burglars, or I was going to scare them into stopping their activities. Or I was going to waste my time. It was so far looking like the last possibility was the most likely.

As I slowly approached a car parked on a corner of a residential street, I saw that it was occupied, and that the person in the driver's seat was in his late teens or early 20s, and was facing lighted screen in his lap. He cut his eyes at me as I passed. He looked scared. I turned around and parked behind him. I got out and approached, making sure that my body camera and car camera and body mic were all turned on. At the driver's door, I opened with, "Whatcha doin'?" This isn't actually part of the 7 Step Violator Contact, but this wasn't actually a traffic stop, and I had no evidence that the young man sitting there texting was actually a violator of any kind. He was actually free to leave, without answering my question. This was what we call a Consensual Contact. That he chose to roll the window down and speak to me without a stop command was his own decision.

"I'm, uh, waiting for a friend," he answered quickly.

"Oh, okay. A friend. Who is your friend?"

"Nadine."

"Nadine who?"

"Nadine, uh, um, Perez."

"Oh, a new friend! How old is Nadine, sir?" I inquired.

"A-about 16," he answered. You notice that hesitation? That means that she's 15.

"And where did you meet her?" I asked him.

"On the PlayStation Chat Board," he answered, and I believed him.

"And you were just now texting her," I said. He nodded. "May I see your cell phone?" I asked. He handed it over to me. I looked at his text conversation:

Her: "So, are you coming over, or not? I'm not staying up all night."
Him: "I'm leaving the house now, headed down Hwy 830 from [location 35 miles away]."
Her: "Where are you...??"
Him: "I'm coming around the loop toward you."
Him: "I'm now on Farm Road 1234, headed toward Smalltown."
Her: "OK."
Him: "I'm outside your house, parked on the street next door."
Her: "OK. I'm coming out in a sec."
Him: "Wait. Someone is coming down the street, really slowly."
Him: "I think that it may be a cop. If it's a cop, I am soooo busted."
Him: "OMG, it IS a cop. He's about to pass me. Oh God, he passed me and looked right at me!"
Him: "He's turning around!"

I asked him, "So? Let's go meet Nadine's parents!"

He got out, and we walked up to the door of the house. I knocked loudly on the front door, and found that it was standing ajar. A minute later the lady of the house answered. I introduced myself, and asked her if her daughter Nadine was permitted to have visitors at 1:30AM. She answered no. I asked that she go fetch her daughter as well. She returned with her husband, but no Nadine. Nadine was missing from her bed.

We found Nadine hiding between two cars in the driveway. She was in fact 15 years old. My young Lothario was almost 18. I demanded of him, "So you chose to take it upon yourself, to tempt this girl whom you have never met, into leaving the house and protection of her parents, after they were asleep? Just WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, MISTER?!!?" I glanced at Nadine's father, standing  shirtless, wearing just a pair of pajama bottoms. For a middle-aged man, this guy was in great shape. His chest rose and fell a little bit too rapidly for the boy's safety. Big puffs of steam entered the cold night air from the man's lips. Nadine's papa was pissed off.

"I'm nobody," answered the boy. "Nobody. I don't know why I'm even here. If you will permit me, sir, I will go, and never come back..." He was beginning to babble. I filled out a Criminal Trespass Warning on my clipboard, and witnessed Nadine's parents' signatures on it. I had the boy sign receipt of it, and gave him and the parents each their copies of the document which ordered my young Lothario to leave the property and to never return, under penalty of being arrested should he return again.

My junior officer had by this time arrived, and asked if I wanted to do anything else with him. "Write him for violation of Restriction G on his driver license," I answered. The boy wasn't yet 18, and was driving after midnight for a social visit. The boy signed it gladly, declaring that he would pay the citation the first thing in the morning.

I think that it's important for parents to know who there children are dating.

Warrants: how you serve them. (For the cops out there.)

I'm a garden-variety cop. My phone number is not zero, and I'm not a Billy Badass. I believe that I am competent at my job, though, and one aspect of that job is case development and evidence-gathering. Another is making arrests of those whom I have proven had sufficient probable cause to be taken to jail. If the event was on-view, I arrest them then and there. If I put the P.C. together after the fact, I get a warrant, and go arrest them later. 


I list here the steps to getting a warrant, because it seems like there are those who don't follow them, sometimes, and they make the news. Maybe we need to publish a primer, or something. So here's mine:


The first step in getting a warrant is to soundboard your plan against a competent cop. Sometimes this is your boss. Sometimes it's a peer with another agency. But explain what you're trying to do, and what evidence you have, and ask him or her to review your plan to check it for blind spots or subjective assumptions.  This is not just about being a professional-- it's about being fair to the suspect and to the system. Sometimes an investigator will miss a glaring reason why either:
1) The charge is incorrect or less appropriate than another charge,
2) The suspect is exempt from the charge due to statute or case law
3) The investigator needs to recuse himself from further investigation due to a conflict of interest.
4) Reason X, which hasn't been thought of yet.
Lots of cops don't do this, because they don't want to look like they're not capable of handling it by themselves. I used to be like that. Trust me: the seasoned cop soundboards, and does a better job because of it.


A second step (which is not necessary in my jurisdiction but which is a very good idea) is to run your proposed action by the local assistant District Attorney. He or she can often give advice about the procedure which is helpful (after all, they're the ones you're asking to prosecute the case in court). Just as importantly, though, you're getting a D.A. to sign off on your case, and take ownership of the case. This definitely helps.


A third step, in the service of a Search Warrant or Search And Arrest Warrant on a property is to go get photographs of exactly what you plan to search. Is it the shed behind 101 Main St? Get a few digital photos of it. Attach them to your Probable Cause Affidavit for your search warrant. Describe the property carefully in the first paragraph of the Warrant Affidavit.


Go take the affidavit and the warrant (You should have a generic warrant form on your thumb drive and on an office computer. Don't have one? Get one, right now. Save it. Make it editable. Don't wait until you need it; that's too late. Ask your D.A.) to the judge or magistrate. Swear to it, and get the warrant. Attach the photographs to it.  Make a copy of the warrant for the property owner/manager/tenant.


SERVE THE WARRANT YOURSELF.
I'm not saying "serve it all by yourself." But you will physically be there. Even if you need to assemble a team of 20 snake-eating Professional Operators (tm) to help you, you will be present when that warrant is served. You will brief everyone helping you on what to expect, and what you're trying to accomplish.  "They got the wrong address" is not an acceptable excuse. In such an instance, you, the investigator obtaining the warrant, have personally failed.


You will see that everyone on the warrant service team is attired in an easily-recognizable police uniform. Warrant service is not the time to go Office Casual. This is the time for badges displayed, patches displayed, and large patches with the name of your agency presented prominently. You will all carry police identification as well, which you will gladly present if at all possible to do so safely. Every officer present on the warrant service team will be identified, and their role given, on the call for service or incident report.


You will make contact in a courteous, professional manner with the homeowner or resident or manager, and state your business. You will present them with a copy of the judge's order to search the specified property. You will then make clear that you are going to follow that order at that time. While there is a clear imperative, here, this does not have to be an adversarial dialogue. Be respectful to that citizen; you work for him or her.

Document how you go about this. Roll video, with audio. I like car video, backed up by body cameras.


Secure the scene. Be courteous but direct. Screaming "Get On The Ground" and pointing weapons at people who happen to be there is not courteous. Don't point weapons at people just because you're serving a warrant and they're present. You need to be able to articulate why they were a threat before you point a weapon at someone.  I'm serious about this.


As I've written before, don't serve No-Knock Warrants unless there's a hostage present.


Leave a list of what you took as a receipt for the resident or manager. Have a scribe keep the list during the search, and photograph what you took and what the condition of it was.


Get out.


Send a return to the judge or magistrate, showing that the warrant was served, and what you seized.




Lots of cops say, "that's above my pay grade." "That's for the detectives." "That's just the way I was shown how, and we don't have time for that." 


Fellow peace officers, a search warrant is a very specific exception to rights held by our citizens. Take it seriously. Do it right. Even if you don't do them, know HOW to do them. If learning how is too much trouble, then go find other work, please. We've got this.


Let us be professionals.

Guns and video.

--And now I must go to Tahiti. Sure, Paul Gauguin had kinda implied that I oughta go, but those were dated images. Devin Graham says that it's still worth going. Now I've got to figure out financing.

--Speaking of Graham's videos, he does some fun bulletcam stuff with dogs at a dog park, using an array of GoPro cameras set in a semicircle, here.

--I'm really thinking about getting a GoPro camera. Older generations like Hero 3's can be had for under $200, and newish used Hero 5's are just around $400. When you consider what they'll collect for you, that's pretty amazing. (Waterproof. Lightweight. Virtually shockproof. High definition. Good color saturation and frame rate.) Of course, then I've got to learn video editing.

--Speaking of video, check out this FBI training film, from 1969: "Shooting For Survival." Some points are actually not too bad. Some are horrendous. http://blutube.policeone.com/videos/2751205980001-throwback-1969-shooting-for-survival/
Good gawd, WHY would you teach someone not to shoulder a shotgun when taking on a guy thirty feet away?  The stuff at the end about indexing off the hip (AKA "speed rock" is fine. The crouch at intermediate pistol distance is odd.) (Yes, Caleb, I'm mining our conversation where I brought this up to you.)

--Why does Colt offer the 1911 in a Series '70 Mk IV, but doesn't offer their Gold Cup with the non-firing pin interlock trigger? They're missing a bet.

--Speaking of Colt 1911, has anyone messed with one of their Rail Gun 1911's, like the Marines reportedly contracted them to make? I'm mildly interested.
--Ender's Game is out. I may go see it tomorrow. Well, today, now. Dad, you wanna go with?

--I also want to see Gravity.

--The shooting of the TSA agent in LAX was terrible. The TSA union is calling for armed security at each checkpoint.  I've seen people trying to get traction for the TSA agents being armed, now. I'd rather question why they're on the federal payroll, doing the work of basic security guards. We do NOT need more armed federal LEOs.  I will agree, though, that if you're going to insist that a population in an area be disarmed, you'd better provide broadly for their security.

--In Texas, even CHL carriers can't carry at sporting events and school functions. I did a walk-through of a high school football game recently, and saw a middle-aged man standing to the side of the stands, talking to another guy. I didn't recognize him. I walked up, shook his hand, and asked what agency he worked for. He introduced himself as a detective at a local medium-sized police department. I laughed and mentioned that, in his .511 pants and untucked shirt over a pistol on his strong side, he basically was in uniform. I don't think most people would have made him, but I was looking for the pistol. Nobody heard us, and I didn't ask for ID. Why should I?

--I'm thinking about next year getting a moderately-used Tundra.

--I made a superb pot roast today. Maybe I'll post the can't-miss recipe. It's surprisingly good and easy. I used to be pot roast-impaired.

  

And cheap at twice the price.

The only reason those two women injured in the inappropriate shooting during the manhunt for Dorner are taking the $4.2 million is because attorneys behind closed doors said, "Would you rather take the four point two million now, or wait five years to collect ten million dollars, by which time the attorneys have gotten the bulk of it?"

Yeah, L.A. would like to get that behind them, indeed.

Amazing article in the Huffington Post.

Radley Balko does a very nice job of presenting the readily-obtainable facts from the FBI's U.C.R., which are easy to digest and which clearly refute our vice president's contention that police today are outgunned.

"There were fewer police being murdered, fewer police being outgunned when the assault weapons ban, in fact, was in existence," Biden said.
That last sentence simply false, on both counts. So is Biden's general premise.

Go read. This is a very clear, very easy-to-understand article, with simple graphs.

By the way, Los Angeles PD? We're distancing.

As with the Rampart scandal, and with the Rodney King thing, the vast majority of us police are distancing from the Los Angeles Police Department's actions.

I would LOVE to read that report, in which the officers shot two paper delivery ladies, who happened to be driving a pickup similar to the one that  a former-LAPD-officer-turned-rogue-murderer had been driving.

You read the story, and you understand that things are tense in LAPD right now. But that doesn't excuse violating The Four Rules:


Click to embiggen.

Rules 2 and 4 of this list are applicable. But mostly Rule 4.
We don't shoot at sounds in the dark. We don't shoot at the BoogieMan. We don't shoot someone because he MIGHT be dangerous. And I'll throw you one more bombshell out there: We don't even shoot positively-identified murder suspects to apprehend them, absent imminent threat to human life.

Perhaps Tennessee v. Garner (1985) rings a bell? The use of deadly force to apprehend a fleeing felon is not a constitutional seizure.

Now, I realize this guy (I still hate to use his name, because he's gone nuts putting out a manifesto, in which he gives shout-outs to Joe Biden, Ellen Degeneres, Tim Tebow, and Martin Sheen. Unstable, much?) has said some scary stuff, such as:

"The Violence of action will be HIGH. I am the reason TAC alert was established. I will bring unconventional and asymmetrical warfare to those in LAPD uniform whether on or off duty. ISR is my strength and your weakness. You will now live the life of the prey. Your RD's and homes away from work will be my AO and battle space. I will utilize every tool within INT collections that I learned from NMITC in Dam Neck. You have misjudged a sleeping giant. There is no conventional threat assessment for me. JAM, New Ba'ath party, 1920 rev BGE, ACM, AAF, AQAP, AQIM and AQIZ have nothing on me. Do not deploy airships or gunships. SA-7 Manpads will be waiting. As you know I also own Barrett .50 s so your APC are defunct and futile."

He describes various groups within the LAPD that he declares high-value targets. He mentions knowing their routes to and from work.

So, scary, right?

That's part of the job. We get threats. It sucks. You go to work, and you do the job professionally, and you try to protect the citizens. And if your number comes up, then it sucks, but that's the job.

If there was ever a time to NOT oppress the citizenry, this is it. There are people that will actually take this kook seriously, and question everything about the LAPD, and declare that the LAPD is now trying to assassinate him to suppress "the truth." And if you gun down occupants of a similar pickup, they'll use that for fodder.

I remember looking for the participants in the Texas Seven gang, who murdered Officer Aubrey Hawkins about 30 miles down the road from where I was working. I remember how tense that was. I remember how we who worked deep nights checked the backs of vans, and trailers, and trucks, working alone.

I have felt that tension.

And still I say that we must now more than ever function with complete professionalism. It is at these times when it is most called for.

BR4 The Road Trip.

My departure was not well-planned. I threw some stuff into the car haphazardly, and forgot some things, and brought some things that I didn't need. Fortunately, when one takes a Subaru Outback station wagon all by himself, good packing isn't really necessary. Ambulance Driver came by the house on the afternoon, and we convoyed all the way to Sooper Sekret Site together.

Passing through some construction on the outskirts of Amarillo, I thought about how there was a helium plant nearby, and idly wondered, as a volunteer firefighter, if there were any special considerations for first responders there, with regard to what was basically an inert gas. I began giggling as I imagined the 911 call there:
         Dispatcher: "911, what is your emergency?"
         Caller: < Lollypop Guild voice > "Come quick, there's been an accident
                at the helium plant!" .< /voice >
 Well, it cracked my sleep-deprived ass up. I started to call A.D. in front of me, when we topped a hill, and drove through a scene of carnage.

Clothes all over the road. Debris. I swerved to miss what looked like a body. Already a silver SUV was parked on the right shoulder, with no lights on. I stopped, backed up carefully, and pulled in behind the SUV. I could see someone inside it. As I backed, I called Ambulance Driver, and told him that I was investigating and calling 911. He said that he was turning around and coming back.

I called 911 while looking over the car. No apparent damage. I've seen some cars roll pretty badly and still be drivable after the wreck, but you could see something that indicated that it had seen a wreck. I could see nothing. The female driver looked at me in her rear-view mirror as I made contact with Potter County 911. "What is your emergency?" she asked, causing my recently giggling mind to stop down for a beat with self-inflicted deja vu.

"Road blockage. Possible 10-50, unknown type. Copy out-of-state 28." I gave her the tag number and the location.  

"Oh, that. We've already had a call about that vehicle" the dispatcher said. 

"Well, send me a deputy again anyway, please. There's a bunch of debris in the road just beyond the crest of a grade, and someone is going to have a wreck avoiding it. At least one pile of clothes looked like a body in the road," I said. "It's not, though. I don't know what I've got. I'm going to make contact with the driver, and I'll call you back."

The driver was recoiling within her car, away from the window, as I approached. I could see a dog inside, and hear it barking through the cracked open rear window. I badged her and identified myself as a peace officer, and asked how I could help her. She flung open the door and began yelling at me. Without quoting here, I will tell you that she told me that she had been there for two days and that no one had stopped to help her. She said that her car was dead, and her cell phone was dead. She said that she had no food and no water during that time, and that her poor dog's stomach was rumbling from lack of food. I put my hand to the little dog's nose, and found it very moist. The dog licked my hand (I had been eating beef jerky as road food). Its tongue was very moist. That dog wasn't missing water. No food is bad, but it's water that I worry about.

We were on a significant highway, just outside of a city of more than 120,000 people, in a metro area of about a quarter million people. It wasn't like she was in the middle of the boon docks.

I interrupted her to ask about a traffic accident. She said that there had been none. I asked about someone else in the car. No, just her and her pooch. I asked her how all the clothes and debris got in the road. She got evasive and looked away as she told me that she didn't know how they got there. She amended her statement to say that they were like that when she got there. I looked at the SUV packed full of boxes like the emptied one on the ground. I looked at the slender women's clothes that were at a rough guess appropriate for a woman like the one that I was talking to.

I listened to the woman rail on a bit more. At about this point, Ambulance Driver came forward. He had his tactical light out (where was mine? Didn't I tell you that I packed poorly?), his hand was back behind his hip, and he gave me an eyebrows-up questioning look. I could tell that he had already at a distance been able to deduce what I had figured out: This woman was disturbed. She wasn't making sense.

I asked the woman if she was hurt or ill. She said no, and then said, "Well, I'm not feeling too well, right now!" I almost referred her to a paramedic that I knew nearby. But here's the thing: She was physically fine. She'd been moving around* just fine in that SUV. She gave NO indication of any kind of physical injury or trauma. She might have been emotionally disturbed, but she had made no indications that she was going to hurt herself or other people. She was clearly not telling the truth about it having been two days that she had been there, or of her having no clue about the clothing and stuff in the road.

"Ma'am, I'll get help. Stay in your car." I told her, and muttered to Ambulance Driver that she was 10-96.** I went to the back of her car, called 911 back, and updated them on what I had. They told me that a deputy had already been there, and left. "Well, send a deputy back here, please. She seems to have strewn things in the road, probably to get people to stop. You have a road blockage and a disturbed person here," I said.  I looked over to Ambulance Driver. "But we're leaving." He nodded. I hung up.  I hollered to the woman that a deputy was en route, and we proceeded on.

Back in the day, I would have stayed on scene until the deputy got there. I would have involved myself more. Possibly hours of my life I would have devoted to a person that didn't specifically ask for my help, when it wasn't my job to provide it.

As it was, I alerted the local authorities. I checked on her welfare, and on that of her dog. And I disengaged. It was my vacation.

__________________
*Some might say that she was gesticulating.
**Although he nodded at that statement at the time, A.D. later told me: "I didn't know that 10-code before, but figured, given the context, that it meant 'Crazy Person.'"

Lest we forget...

Daniel Harless' disciplinary hearing is scheduled for December 1, 2011.
The guy he threatened and cussed out has been cleared of wrong-doing (beyond a traffic offense), when the judge threw out the State's case against him on November 9th.

There's still time to write the Canton, OH PD to express your disgust and concerns as to what message they're sending if they don't dismiss Officer Harless.  Remember to address it also to the IA bureau.