There has to be a benign expression for a training vendor that discovers a niche and becomes a sole source provider. You know, the kind of organization that "certifies" professionals to perform a skill or function, dangling in front of departments the cover of "liability protection." It's one thing when the subject is firearms. It's quite another when it is about a bike.
I tried to apply for an instructor class at an internationally-known bike training entity and.... The application package was more daunting than the one I completed for admission to the New York bar. Among the documents I needed to submit was the reccomendation of the geu who conducted the training class I attended in 2001, and proof that I passed the written test with a 90%.
Are they on crack? I have no idea where to find the guy, who has left law enforcement to pursue other interests. And how the hell would I know what I got on a written test eight years ago. I passed, okay? You gave me a certificate, all right? So, what's all the other stuff about?
It's about the sole-source scarcity mentality. It's about income for the organization. It's about elitism.
I have no quarrel with a company trying to be profitable. It employs folks and provides valuable services to consumers. That much I understand.
But, in this case, police departments are the consumers and by definition so are the communities we serve. It is a standing joke that the way to increase the price of something is to stencil "police" on it. I bought a pair of gray gloves at Home Depot the other day for ten bucks that are virtually identical to a pair of $30 dollar gloves I bought for work. The difference? My work pair are black and say "Police" on them.
I ride my road bike about 3000 miles a year, and spend ten or more duty hours a week patrolling on a mountain bike. It is in my department's best interest to have an experienced bike trainer to mentor new riders and provide leadership to officers trying to use the bike to effectively patrol their beats. It shouldn't be this hard to find the training necessary to accomplish the goal. The training organization should be finding ways to help.
How is this serving the greater good of policing a free society?
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Fox News has a report of an Ohio police chief who retired when he was caught kissing and "caressing" a female officer in a police car. Happens.
He was transporting a prisoner.
An anonomous tip directed the department to review the in-car camera.
Okay, this is what we call felony stupid. Chief...dude...I supposed the prisoner's credibility is an issue, and who's the young lady gonna tell, but.... In a car with a dash cam?
Unbelievable.
He was transporting a prisoner.
An anonomous tip directed the department to review the in-car camera.
Okay, this is what we call felony stupid. Chief...dude...I supposed the prisoner's credibility is an issue, and who's the young lady gonna tell, but.... In a car with a dash cam?
Unbelievable.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Awesome - got jerked around today. Me and a riding partner went to back up another cop at a call. Most of the way there (maybe 1.5 miles) dispatch says "The reporting party says if you don't get there soon he's gonna take matters into his own hands." Pedalto the metal, which is a trick on a 25 pound mountain bike. Did I mention that is was 85 degrees and I'm wearing a police uniform? Body armor? We get there and the dispatcher tells us the RP gave the wrong location. So, back where we came from, BTTW, and get there in time to make an arrest. Still almost two miles from the station.
And I volunteered to be a bike cop.
And I volunteered to be a bike cop.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Free Short Story
Here are several pages of a short story. If you want to read the rest, please e-mail me at James.greer2@comcast.net and I'll send you the whole thing. Karen is the main character in a short that Wild Child Publishing is considering for publication. Wish me luck!
The handsome man looking at Deputy Karen O’Neil smiled broadly, and chuckled in a way that sent a chill through her. With deep brown eyes, rich milk chocolate skin and two hundred twenty solid pounds on a six foot frame, he was a hunk in any language. There had been a time in her life, not so long ago, that she would have said something suggestive to him. He would have responded in kind, and at some point after work they’d have found themselves naked, entwined – totally immersed in giving, and receiving pleasure.
But, she had married the next man in her life, not him.
“Marty,” she said to him from inside her police car. “Stop. It’s not funny.”
“Let me get this straight, amigo,” Martin replied from inside of his police car, deep voice and Cuban accent tickling her funny bone even as he made sport of her. “It’s a soft, lovely, seventies February here in San Diego and your husband’s going to drag you to Wisconsin? To do what? Ice fish? Who fishes for ice, anyway?”
“He says he wants some privacy. He thinks I’m too distracted here.”
“What’s wrong with Cabo San Lucas, then? Rent a place and sit in the sun. When your hair is all bleached out… There’s no blonde as pretty as your hair when it’s been in the sunshine.”
“He doesn’t speak Spanish. He says it makes him feel subservient when I have to translate for him.”
“That isn’t your fault. I tried to teach him. He doesn’t really want to learn.”
“I think Spanish, um… It’s what you and I speak to each other. He gets jealous.”
“No way a man can erase his wife’s past. He should thank his lucky stars that it’s him you married.”
“He loves me. I know he does. If it’s Wisconsin he wants, then I’ll do my best to make it a fun trip for him. It’s what I signed up for.”
“My ass. He treats you--”
“Please don’t. I know what you think of him. You don’t have to make an issue of it. Come on, let’s talk about something else. I don’t want to be mad at you again.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Please? The last time we did this I couldn’t face you for weeks. Let’s change the subject.”
“He doesn’t treat you like you deserve.”
“Marty…” The secret she’d kept from him for almost two months wouldn’t make him happy. He would be angry, and she would get defensive and Marty’s friendship meant too much to her. “This trip isn’t entirely about privacy. There’s an opening for a control tower supervisor at the airport in Madison. He’s competing. We’re going there to check it out.”
“You might move?”
“Sorry.”
“From here? You might leave California?”
“I’ll follow my husband. That’s my role.”
“Jesus.”
“You can visit. I hear it’s—“
“No. No. You can’t leave. I’m getting used to having you just as a beat partner.”
“We’ll always be friends.”
“As though your jerk husband will ever let us really be friends.”
“I’m finished talking.” She sat up straight, all six foot one of her. Direct eye contact ensured that he was listening, not just hearing. “If you can’t be supportive, then at least shut up about it. I don’t need you to scold me because I fell in love with someone else.”
“He treats you like dirt.”
“He loves me. I love him. It’s as simple as that. I gotta go, Martin.”
“I ain’t done.”
“Yeah you are. Totally. You’re my friend, but sometimes I hate you. You just can’t ever be happy for me. It’s always gotta be about you and what you want.”
She drove away, before the angry tears betrayed her.
∆
An hour later, Karen’s mobile computer in her police car chirped that she had received a call, this time to back up another officer. A domestic – a woman complaining that her husband had hit her, thrown a picture at her and had been drinking. Dispatch was sending her to cover Marty. Wonderful. Like she ever wanted to see him again. Like she ever wanted to talk to him again. When she arrived at the house, he was waiting by his car.
“I apologize,” Marty said.
“If this was the first time, I’d accept,” she replied. “It’s been almost four years since we broke up, but you still think I’ll come back to you.”
“That’s not it. If you’d married a nice guy, I could handle it. At least, I’d have lost you to...una persona que es muy amable.”
“He is kind, in his own way. If you can’t accept that, then I want you to stay away from me.”
“I can’t.”
“Let’s get this over with, huh? We can say our good-byes later.”
∆
Karen stood in the cramped, dingy living room that smelled of stale cigarettes and spilled beer and hopelessness. It was furnished in a late twentieth century hand-me-down style, every stick of it worn, faded, mismatched reminders of other people’s generosity. The domestic violence victim sat, with closed and distrustful body language, on the edge of a lonely kitchen chair stuck arbitrarily in a corner. When Marty asked her a question she said “huh?” so he would have to repeat it. It was as though she needed time to assume a properly respectful tone before delivering the next evasive answer.
“I’ll just take a quick look around,” she said. “Just to make sure her husband didn’t come back.”
“Always anal about safety,” Marty replied as he sat on a thread-bare green sofa to write some notes. “That’s why I love you.”
“No, it isn’t, either.”
“Suit yourself. When you’re done, go ahead and split. I’ll write this report.”
She turned toward the kitchen. To her right, a noise came from a hallway leading toward the bedrooms. It was the same sound her door knob had made at the Pi Phi sorority house, when she was trying to quietly sneak her boyfriend out after curfew.
“Ma’am, how do you spell your last name?” Marty asked, his attention focused on the woman across the room.
The footfalls and the raised baseball bat arrived in her conscious mind at the same moment the intruder entered the room. He didn’t appear at a dead run – he probably wasn’t sure where anyone was. He was responding to the voices. He was attacking their voices. He held the bat high; it looked like he was up at the plate.
But, she had married the next man in her life, not him.
“Marty,” she said to him from inside her police car. “Stop. It’s not funny.”
“Let me get this straight, amigo,” Martin replied from inside of his police car, deep voice and Cuban accent tickling her funny bone even as he made sport of her. “It’s a soft, lovely, seventies February here in San Diego and your husband’s going to drag you to Wisconsin? To do what? Ice fish? Who fishes for ice, anyway?”
“He says he wants some privacy. He thinks I’m too distracted here.”
“What’s wrong with Cabo San Lucas, then? Rent a place and sit in the sun. When your hair is all bleached out… There’s no blonde as pretty as your hair when it’s been in the sunshine.”
“He doesn’t speak Spanish. He says it makes him feel subservient when I have to translate for him.”
“That isn’t your fault. I tried to teach him. He doesn’t really want to learn.”
“I think Spanish, um… It’s what you and I speak to each other. He gets jealous.”
“No way a man can erase his wife’s past. He should thank his lucky stars that it’s him you married.”
“He loves me. I know he does. If it’s Wisconsin he wants, then I’ll do my best to make it a fun trip for him. It’s what I signed up for.”
“My ass. He treats you--”
“Please don’t. I know what you think of him. You don’t have to make an issue of it. Come on, let’s talk about something else. I don’t want to be mad at you again.”
“I don’t like him.”
“Please? The last time we did this I couldn’t face you for weeks. Let’s change the subject.”
“He doesn’t treat you like you deserve.”
“Marty…” The secret she’d kept from him for almost two months wouldn’t make him happy. He would be angry, and she would get defensive and Marty’s friendship meant too much to her. “This trip isn’t entirely about privacy. There’s an opening for a control tower supervisor at the airport in Madison. He’s competing. We’re going there to check it out.”
“You might move?”
“Sorry.”
“From here? You might leave California?”
“I’ll follow my husband. That’s my role.”
“Jesus.”
“You can visit. I hear it’s—“
“No. No. You can’t leave. I’m getting used to having you just as a beat partner.”
“We’ll always be friends.”
“As though your jerk husband will ever let us really be friends.”
“I’m finished talking.” She sat up straight, all six foot one of her. Direct eye contact ensured that he was listening, not just hearing. “If you can’t be supportive, then at least shut up about it. I don’t need you to scold me because I fell in love with someone else.”
“He treats you like dirt.”
“He loves me. I love him. It’s as simple as that. I gotta go, Martin.”
“I ain’t done.”
“Yeah you are. Totally. You’re my friend, but sometimes I hate you. You just can’t ever be happy for me. It’s always gotta be about you and what you want.”
She drove away, before the angry tears betrayed her.
∆
An hour later, Karen’s mobile computer in her police car chirped that she had received a call, this time to back up another officer. A domestic – a woman complaining that her husband had hit her, thrown a picture at her and had been drinking. Dispatch was sending her to cover Marty. Wonderful. Like she ever wanted to see him again. Like she ever wanted to talk to him again. When she arrived at the house, he was waiting by his car.
“I apologize,” Marty said.
“If this was the first time, I’d accept,” she replied. “It’s been almost four years since we broke up, but you still think I’ll come back to you.”
“That’s not it. If you’d married a nice guy, I could handle it. At least, I’d have lost you to...una persona que es muy amable.”
“He is kind, in his own way. If you can’t accept that, then I want you to stay away from me.”
“I can’t.”
“Let’s get this over with, huh? We can say our good-byes later.”
∆
Karen stood in the cramped, dingy living room that smelled of stale cigarettes and spilled beer and hopelessness. It was furnished in a late twentieth century hand-me-down style, every stick of it worn, faded, mismatched reminders of other people’s generosity. The domestic violence victim sat, with closed and distrustful body language, on the edge of a lonely kitchen chair stuck arbitrarily in a corner. When Marty asked her a question she said “huh?” so he would have to repeat it. It was as though she needed time to assume a properly respectful tone before delivering the next evasive answer.
“I’ll just take a quick look around,” she said. “Just to make sure her husband didn’t come back.”
“Always anal about safety,” Marty replied as he sat on a thread-bare green sofa to write some notes. “That’s why I love you.”
“No, it isn’t, either.”
“Suit yourself. When you’re done, go ahead and split. I’ll write this report.”
She turned toward the kitchen. To her right, a noise came from a hallway leading toward the bedrooms. It was the same sound her door knob had made at the Pi Phi sorority house, when she was trying to quietly sneak her boyfriend out after curfew.
“Ma’am, how do you spell your last name?” Marty asked, his attention focused on the woman across the room.
The footfalls and the raised baseball bat arrived in her conscious mind at the same moment the intruder entered the room. He didn’t appear at a dead run – he probably wasn’t sure where anyone was. He was responding to the voices. He was attacking their voices. He held the bat high; it looked like he was up at the plate.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Urgent request for back-up
No, not the kind where we fight with the external hard drive. I'm a new author and brand new blogger. Oh, I've read a million blogs - some pretty good, some pretty stinky. I've gotten some good info and some real crap, and watched some of them devolve into giant...peeing contests.
So, got any good tips?
So, got any good tips?
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