Computer vs. Street Smarts ...Sorry that does not compute
The unfortunate thing about writing articles like this is that, the people who they are directed toward don’t read web sites like this. It is like writing an editorial for the paper about criminals who sleep all day so they can go out and rip the rest of us off during the night while we are sleeping. People like that do not read articles that are specifically directed toward their caliber of person …maybe they are afraid that they will see their name in print.
But anyway here goes. I knew at a very early age that I wanted to be a cop when I grew up. There was something about police work that was just plain fascinating to me. It was not the police cars going by with their red lights and sirens on. It was not the idea of wearing the uniform and badge and the fact that you get to carry a gun. It was really much, much deeper than that.
I grew up on the southeast side of Des Moines, a blue collar neighborhood full of hard working people. My father and most of the other men in our neighborhood were WWII vets and they were getting on with their lives and trying to build a good life for their families. Now growing up in The Chesterfield area of the city was kind of a cross between Mayberry and West Side Story …I would not dare to compare The Chesterfield area to the nice suburban area that Ward, June, Wally and Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver lived in. For one thing their streets were all nicely paved; our streets were dirt roads that became mud-holes every time it rained. Most of the ladies of the neighborhood were housewives and were at home taking care of the house, watching over the kids and in general keeping the domestic end of the house up and running properly. I learned very early to have a great deal of respect to those women who took on that immense responsibility. I knew to show respect to them and to never take them for granted.
The men of the neighborhood all had jobs, hard labor types of jobs –there were no suits in my neighborhood. Most of the kids were typical for that era Davey Crockett coonskin hats were the big fashion statement back then (I guess I never grew out of the hat thing), Rin Tin Tin and Lassie lunch boxes, hula hoops, cowboys and Indians, of course cops and robbers and backyard football and baseball games. What about soccer games? What about it? It was not American we did not play it. And we had our neighborhood beat cop who patrolled our area. For some reason even though at that time I did not know his name, I felt a real bond with this officer and it gave me great pleasure to waive to him as I watched him drive down our street, and the best thing about that was he always waived back to me.
Now you really had to go out of your way to get in trouble back then. Everybody knew everybody, people actually socialized with their neighbors. If you were even dumb enough to do something that you weren’t supposed to do, if your parents did not catch you one of the other neighborhood parents would and they would call attention to your indiscretion to your parents. And your parents would thank them for keeping an eye on you. Like I said most of the kids –and you were a kid until you turned twenty-one back then, were good, but just like anywhere you had a few problem types. You could pick them out pretty easily and usually avoid problems by just ignoring them. Every once in a while though one would break loose from the pack and become a little on the aggressive side.
One night my dad and I were walking home from watching a softball game at our neighborhood ball field. As we were cutting through a yard going along side of a house and in between some cars one of those lone wolf types came out of no where and accosted my dad with a knife demanding money. My dad was not an exceptionally big man, but he stood up straight, toe to toe and eye to eye with this puke. He subtly kind of moved me around behind him as he bantered with this guy who was holding the knife just inches from his face. Finally my dad made it clear to the guy that he was not going to get anything from him that would be worth his trouble and the puke ran off.
If there is such a thing as an epiphany moment, for me that was it. I watched my dad stand up to this man and protect me from harm. My dad was not a violent man, it was rare for him to ever even raise his voice, but I saw at that point in time the courage of a man who was willing to stand up against something that was wrong and who was willing to protect his son. I knew then that there would always be a need to have people around that were willing to stand up for what was right and to protect those who could not protect themselves from evil or danger. I was seven or eight years old then and that is when I decided that I wanted to be one of those people.
In 1974 when I was twenty-five years old I joined the police department. It did not take me long to realize just what a close organization I had become a member of. Back then it was just an automatic reflex to waive a hand of acknowledgement to another passing patrol car. And that gesture was always returned in kind. Today I see officers driving around passing each other in their comings and goings without so much as giving each other a nod of the head. They pass each other in the halls of the station and do not even speak to each other. What is wrong with some of you people? No one says that you have to socialize with each other when you are off duty. And no one has ever carved in stone an order that says you must waive at another officer, but for crying out loud people these are the people who are going to come to your aid when your back is up against the wall. When that time comes, and it will, you might not be able to thank them. So by acknowledging their presence when you pass on the street or in the halls of the station you are just thanking them in advance for the assistance that they might render to you.
Back in the day again, when I came on the department we used a primitive form of communication called a radio. We did not have computers. Back then computers were bigger than the cars we drove. Cell phones were Buck Rogers or for you younger types, Star Wars technology.
We did not have AM/FM radios in our squad cars and if you got caught carrying a portable AM/FM radio with you, you got in trouble. K-A-B-2-6-9, the home of crime alert was the station you were supposed to be paying attention to. It was your lifeline to the rest of the world.
I remember being a young officer –vaguely, but I remember, and going out with a traffic violator. I would call in on the radio, a dispatcher would actually answer me and I would give my location and the license plate number of the car I had stopped and a brief description of that car. Within a matter of seconds, at the most just a few minutes, something miraculous would happen. I would look in my rearview mirror or look up from writing the ticket and look through my windshield and see one or two squad cars sitting a short distance from me. They never approached me, unless I signaled to them to do so. They never interfered with what I was doing. And the most important thing was that they were never sent by the dispatcher to my location. They were paying attention to the radio as they were supposed to do, heard me go out with that violator and simply drifted over to my location to be there in case of a problem. I don’t see that type of thing going on today either. We are letting these in-car computers and some dispatcher who has no idea of what police work is all about do the thinking and call the shots. A prime example of that is the recent incident in which Sergeant Larina Blad was drug down the street and ran over by a violator that she had tried to stop. Listening to the recording of the dispatch tape I could hear Sergeant Blad come on the radio with some degree of stress in her voice. She told the dispatcher that she had been run over and a specific location. The inflection in her voice left little doubt that she was in trouble and needed help. But what was the dispatcher’s response to her call for help? He replied to her with; “now, what happened now?” An officer may only get one chance to say that they are in trouble and need assistance. That is why it is important for everyone, officers and dispatchers alike to be paying attention to the radio. Not reading a book or a magazine, not texting or twittering your significant other or talking on your cell phone.
We are becoming way too reliant on these computers. We are paying more attention to them than what is going on around us. If my computer is down then I can function. Come on people you are cops not bean counters.
Being a cop is probably one of the best jobs anyone could ever hope to have. Not everyone can do it. You have to be physically strong and have a mental attitude that allows you to filter and process the things you see and have to do and keep a degree of emotional sanity. And like I said not everyone can handle what is placed in front of them. Computers do not have emotions, they can’t see and luckily for them they cannot smell. There is a lot more to this job than driving or strutting around and looking important. No two days or even two situations minutes apart are ever the same. If you think that the job of being a police officer is boring, and I am not talking about running hot to calls for service, I am talking about the challenges that you face everyday to try to be a band-aid cure for some times major surgery types of issues. If you think this job is boring then you are not doing it right. It is as simple as that.
That is why you all need to take care of each other. This is a career that not just anyone can do. A competent back up is not necessarily waiting in the wings to assist you as easily as is the replacement counter person at McDonald’s is.
Computers are a useful tool but we cannot allow them to take the human equation out of this highly skilled profession. Every good cop I ever knew had a Masters Degree from The School of Hard Knocks and a PhD in common sense.
Sgt. Dave Brown
(DMPD Retired)
March 18, 2009
Sexual Abuse Case – Creston Iowa
As a retired police officer I am deeply saddened by the actions of the two former Creston police officers found guilty of sexual abuse last week in Sioux City. I am sorry for the victim in this case. I am sorry for the two former officer’s families. I am sorry for the community of Creston. But most of all I am sorry for law enforcement in The State of Iowa as a whole. I have no sympathy at all for the two men involved.
A community deserves a police department that they feel that they can look up to and depend upon. Actions perpetrated by the two officers involved in this matter gave law enforcement a black eye that will take a long time to heal. The trust that comes with holding the position of being a police officer will be slow to return to that community, and every officer in this state will be looked upon with a cautious eye of scrutiny for quite some time to come.
When you take the oath and put on that badge that says you are willing to be a police officer, you have just set yourself apart from the rest of the pack. You are supposed to be a police officer twenty-four hours a day, without being a police officer twenty-four hours a day. Confusing? It can be. When you are a police officer you are expected to be able to respond to problems whether you are on or off duty. Now that does not mean that you get involved in every little incident you see, like minor traffic infractions. But you have to be prepared to respond if something really important gets or is brought to your attention. You do not have the luxury afforded to the average citizen who can just turn away and ignore the problem at hand because it does not affect them directly.
The two former officers involved in this incident admit to drinking heavily on the night of the alleged assault. By just that indiscretion that the average citizen thinks nothing about, they made themselves vulnerable and placed their careers, their own safety and reputations and the welfare of the community that they were sworn to respect in peril.
When you are a cop –and there is nothing wrong with that term, unlike the average worker when you end your shift, you just don’t throw your badge in a drawer or hang your uniform in your locker and walk out the door under the disguise of being another John Q. Citizen. You cannot be a police officer eight or ten hours a day and then go out and do whatever you want for the rest of the time.
When I came on the department in 1974 we were taught what was expected of us when we were working and when we were off duty. We were even lectured about how we would keep our lawns looking. Keep our yards mowed, don’t have junk or disabled cars littering our property. In essence what we were being told was that we were to set a good example for the rest of the community. Were we told that we were now tin Gods and to place ourselves on a pedestal and prepare to be canonized? No. But we were told that the community would have us under a microscope and that we should get used to the idea of living in a fishbowl.
When you are a police officer, you are an officer twenty-four hours a day. But, when you are a police officer you can’t be a police officer twenty-four hours a day. Yes it can be very confusing. Cops see a lot of things that the average citizen could not even begin to handle. They deserve a form of release. It is up to them to find that proper release valve and know when and how to open it to keep from blowing their stacks.
Being a police officer is a position that you should be proud of. It is one that most people could not even begin to handle. It is not something that you turn on and off like a water faucet. You don’t use your badge or your status of being an officer like it is a bus pass to get you out of trouble when your own stupidity and arrogance got you there to begin with.
Sgt. Dave Brown
(DMPD Retired)
January 21, 2009
Now that the pageantry, the pomp and circumstance and the rest of the general hoopla of the past couple of weeks is over, I hope that people will take a few minutes to stop and take a couple of deep breaths and collect their senses. Yes we have just witnessed something very historical and something that should be of great importance not only to our country but to the world as a whole.
But we need to stop and look and realize what we are seeing. Somewhere in that crowd of people featuring Beyonce, J Lo, Seal, Bono, Demi and Ashton, Bon Jovi, Tom, Steven, Barbara, Garth, Stevie, Mary Kay, Pete and so many other talented celebrities is a man who seems to have almost gotten lost in the shuffle. In case you need to be reminded his name is Barack Obama. He is the new president of the United States of America. He seems to be very intelligent, very articulate, very compassionate and he seems to possess, project and promote a lot of the values that have been lacking in our society for a long time. It is he, thankfully, that will be calling the shots and making decisions that will affect us for the rest of our lives -not the throng of celebrities some of you almost hyper ventilate over at just the mere thought of.
The trouble with so many people today is that they put our elected officials on a pedestal like they do movie stars and music artists. You seem to be blind to the fact that some of the people associated with the entertainment industry are some of the most dysfunctional people in the world. But yet you or some of you would take a long walk off of a short pier if that is what you thought it would take to get close to them.
We need to pay attention to President Obama and the rest of our elected officials and start holding them accountable for what they do, or unfortunately all to often, do not do. We have a chance now for a fresh start to try to fix so many of the problems that face or nation and the world. It is time that they and all of us start working together and try to salvage what is left of our society.
We need to all come together and support The President by paying attention to what is going on in the White House and the House and Senate. And if those people who we have put in office do not perform in the manner in which they are supposed to for the good of this country, then they need to be showed the door. After all, their Peoples Choice Award is your voice and your vote. Don’t be afraid to use either of them.
David F. Brown (retired police Sergeant)
