07Nov05

An officer's record reveals the following:

"Young, single officer engages in too much late-night partying. Re sult: Subject officer is consistently late to work and sleepy on duty. Confronte d by his shift sergeant and strongly admonished to clean up his act. File updated, administratively corrected.

Sloppy booking procedure jeopardizes important felony conviction. Result: DA is furious. Officer admonished. File updated, administratively correct ed.

Failure to Marandize burglary suspect at the appropriate time, once again, jeopardizes conviction. Result: Suspect agrees to plea bargain and accepts

reduced charge. Officer admonished. File updated, administratively correc ted.

Officer on patrol is unobservant. Fails to take note of suspect vehicle. Result: Suspect was not arrested and is still at large. Officer admonished . File updated, administratively corrected.

When confronting armed robbery suspects, officer is slow, indecisive, and, when he finally shoots, inaccurate. When he runs dry, he is unable to relo ad quickly. Result: Officer dead. Administratively finalized. Officer =99s file terminated."

Comment: Most mistakes and lapses in attitude can be, with good supervision , identified and corrected. We're not perfect, but life goes on. Su dden death by gunfire cannot be corrected, and the officer's life does n ot go on! When our officers are dead, it is too late to update their training. The p oint is that the any one of us could be put to the test before this very day is over! All aspects of police work are important, but none is more important

than skill with guns.

/John