TexasCHLforum.com

flintknapper wrote:tfrazier wrote:

Like a salty old sergeant at Greenville P.D. told me when he was blemishing my beautiful stack of commendations with my first reprimand, "Get over it. If you don't have a stack of reprimands at least as thick as your stack of commendations, you ain't been doing your job."

I'm guessing the sergeant said that more for your benefit than anything else. Surely, he does not support the practice of poor performance (the basis of the reprimand) on a 50% scale as compared to good procedure. To say otherwise is to admit he "expects" behavior worthy of reprimand at least half the time from his officers. Worse yet, he condones it.

Well, anyone who has been in law enforcement any length of time, especially in a smaller department OR in a politically charged Sheriff's Office will probably agree that reprimands are not always appropriate, and are sometimes used to make an officer a scapegoat. Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, etc are human, too, and sometimes they lose their objectivity just like everyone else. Just like sometimes the commendations stack up for the "golden boy" who happens to be the Captain's son's best friend from high school.

And 50/50 reprimands vs. commendations is actually pretty believable if you work in a department where the top brass is regularly giving officers three-day suspensions without pay because they exceeded the "20 mph over the speed limit maximum" pursuit policy in chasing down an armed robber. Or ordering commanders to write up officers every time a released prisoner showed up claiming the officer put the hand cuffs on too tight, IMMEDIATELY after hearing the complaint and without giving the officer any opportunity to respond. That's the sort of thing that causes 30 of 32 officers to form the first ever patrolman's union in a town...and gets the K9 officer on the front page of the paper as the president. Having served under three different chiefs, two were outstanding. One gave me an indefinite suspension without pay (that means "fired" in Civil Service) because my dog chewed up the seat belts in the K9 unit and I refused to pay for them (that means I organized the troops and formed a union). Then I got fired again over trumped up stuff when they discovered it wasn't legal to fire me for not paying for the seat belts (meaning for forming a union). I was reinstated and received back pay. Twice. And I was still there when he turned in his resignation. So there you have it, the background on why I tend to so aggressively defend individual officers and try so hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But the point I'm trying to make over all is that I have suspicions that this whole episode may have been a bit unfair. The media vilification of this guy just nauseates me. He did a 'bad' thing...that doesn't automatically mean he is a bad person and should have his entire career destroyed.

And yes, I am a political conservative, and don't like to admit that I was once an AFL-CIO Union affiliate president, but when you need union attorneys, you need union attorneys.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:...What I saw was a 26 year old "kid" who has only been with DPD for three years. I suspect that he will never act that way towards a citizen again.... ...For me, I guess it goes back to something said 2,000 years ago; "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Chas.

[flack vest on]

I'd also like to add: Nobody gets better without making a few mistakes (except for the Originator of the "first stone" statement Charles quoted) and learning from those mistakes; even though the bar is justifiably raised when it comes to the law enforcement profession, people should consider the fact that these guys spend a lot of time putting themselves in harm's way. If every cop was fired immediately for being rude to a citizen or using 'poor judgement', we'd be out of officers in record time.

Like a salty old sergeant at Greenville P.D. told me when he was blemishing my beautiful stack of commendations with my first reprimand, "Get over it. If you don't have a stack of reprimands at least as thick as your stack of commendations, you ain't been doing your job."

The job of a patrol officer is so full of split second decisions and legal complications nobody on the planet has the ability to do it perfectly all the time.

I'd be shocked if Powell hasn't done a lot of good things and even risked his life to help someone out over the past three years or so.

One 'uh-oh wipes out a thousand 'Attaboys!'...and nobody is digging for those facts anyway, are they?

At least Charles was smart enough to put on the flak vest...I forgot mine when I waded into this thread.

stevie_d_64 wrote:...the media is driving the bus now, and is pushing buttons that I do not believe need to be pushed...With the intent to get Powell fired, which may happen without their help...

Is Officer Powell salvagable???

I think the answer is "No". Had this case been handled internally and not become a media circus, Powell might have gotten away with a psych review, upaid suspension and remedial training, or he might have been fired.

But with the public scrutiny and the whole thing being tried in the media, and various cut and un-cut versions of the video playing on Youtube, this 25 year old officer has no chance of keeping his current job for much longer, and he'll have a difficult time finding a job with any other agency.

If he does manage to find one, it won't be with a department that pays anything near the average (which is lousy pay to start with, considering the job).

Perhaps he deserves it, it's just a shame that so much objectivity in determining whether he deserves it or not has been lost.

If I we're Powell I'd be hunting for work in another state in a very different career field right now.

Purplehood wrote: ... I think overall the Officer failed to handle this correctly. But the notion that he needs to be beaten silly, or that by default he must abuse people physically is spurious reasoning at best.

Well, I believe you've sunk my battleship! I don't mind losing...as long as it isn't a gun fight!

Okay, I give up after this: Show me where it gives a peace officer any warrantless arrest authority above what is stated for peace officers AND citizens.

And yes, it was a small class, but it still sounded good!

jbirds1210 wrote:The arrests made by citizens are limited to the things that you guys posted....basically a felony.

A peace officer can make an arrest for any offense (with the exception of speeding only and open containers).

I believe that is the biggest difference.

Jason

Read it again: A peace officer or any other person, may, without a warrant, arrest an offender when the offence is committed in his presence or within his view, if the offence is one classed as a felony or as an offence against the public peace.

This is the standard by which peace officers decide whether they can make an immediate arrest without a warrant. "Offence against the public peace" is very broad in definition and includes many non-felony offences, even disorderly conduct. This is what I was taught in Texoma Regional Police Academy, and it was covered in multiple questions when I took the Texas State Peace Officer Certification test.

I'm pretty sure I passed it, otherwise I wouldn't have graduated fourth in my class and been a police officer for the following eight years.

frazzled wrote:A simple civilian cannot stop a vehicle at gunpoint, demand everyone get out of the car, at gunpoint, and then arrest them. A simple civilian trying to stop a vehicle at gunpoint can lead to the occupants in that vehicle employing their right to self defense against a perceived lethal threat. They cannot do so against cops...

A simple civilian can definitely do all these things. In the State of Texas, peace officers have no greater powers of arrest than any other citizen...unless the law has changed since I got out of law enforcement in 1995 (if they have, someone post the applicable section of the penal code and I'll apologize and clam up). The only difference is that a 'simple civilian' does not have the training or confidence of knowing it will start raining police if it all goes south.

For instance, if you witness an armed robbery at a bank, and you follow the robber out to his car, you are perfectly within you legal powers to draw down, demand he stop, and arrest him, whether you are a peace officer or not. I highly recommend against such action, but it is not illegal.

Art. 14.01. [212] [259] [247] OFFENSE WITHIN VIEW. (a) A
peace officer or any other person, may, without a warrant, arrest an
offender when the offense is committed in his presence or within his
view, if the offense is one classed as a felony or as an offense
against the public peace.

Okay, I just want to toss in a reminder that there are tons of other cops out there doing great jobs and going unnoticed. If you come into contact with a DPD officer and want to compliment his or her work, go to this site:

http://www.dallaspolice.net/index.cfm?p ... openid=166" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is the DPD Internal Affairs division. Compliments being reported there can also backfire and get officers in trouble (as in they cut you a break in an area where they actually aren't allowed to use 'officer discretion"), so be careful and think about the possible consequences to what you report.

Example: I once answered a call where a sixteen year old girl reported 'child abuse'. It turned out she had cussed her mother out and her mother slapped her (one time, and no marks or injury). There were no prior incidents at that household on the record; No evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, of any other physical altercations within the family. I informed this young lady that if she'd been my daughter and talked to me that way I would have slapped her, too. I wrote the incident up as reasonable discipline.

The mother thought that was great and called in to the brass to compliment me on my handling of the situation. I got a reprimand instead of a commendation. The brass decided my assessment of the situation was correct, but my comment to the daughter was 'inappropriate', even though the daughter herself eventually agreed with me (and her mother) after she'd cooled off.

frazzled wrote:

CHL/LEO wrote:... Again, my (our) apologies to everyone, and I hope that if you do ever have the opportunity to come into contact with an officer from DPD it will be in a much more professional manner.

Thats all well and good but its irrelevant unless the guy gets fired.

It ain't irrelevant to me. This one numb-skull doesn't represent the majority of DPD officers, whereas I feel CHL/LEO does.

This guy let his ego escalate and couldn't bring himself to back down. It makes me cringe every time I hear the audio or see the video, knowing that great officers out there (who are the vast majority) are going to take an unfair beating over this guy's inability to exercise some common sense discretion and compassion.

I'm not making any excuses for this guy...but there is a disturbing underlying cause for this type of behavior and it's not getting any better.

Over the years, agencies have placed more and more limits on officer discretion. Frustration over that can cause a few officers to discard moderation and common sense and replace them with a robotic "you either broke the law or you didn't" approach. Most officers resist that urge, because they are principled and compassionate. And many of them pay dearly for it. If they chose to 'overlook' a violation, and the brass finds out, they can be disciplined for failing to honor their oath to uphold the law. They can be accused of letting someone off the hook because they were too lazy to do the paperwork. They can be accused of being too soft, bribery...etc, etc, etc.

I had my fair share of reprimands for times I didn't take someone to jail because I felt their extenuating circumstances justified it. After a while some folks start feeling like the best way to keep the brass off your back is to just cite or arrest everyone and let the judges and prosecutors deal with the consequences.

I've never known an officer to be commended for just issuing a warning instead of a citation, or for just letting the minimum wage kid working his way through college pour that six-pack out in the field and go back to his dorm room.

It's a tough business where you are Monday-morning-quarter-backed for every split second decision you have to make.