Okay, we know how cops talk, and we know how cops walk, but what on Earth do cops do? Is Miami Vice realistic? Ha! I have never had occasion to roll over the hood of my patrol car and open fire on a bad guy, nor do I see the opportunity in the near or distant future.
That's TV, folks.
In real life, police work is both routine and unpredictable, sometimes exciting but often tearfully dull. Although there is no true "average day," I will give you the bare bones of a day in the life of a patrol officer.
All shifts start with briefing (or roll call, or shift meeting, depending which department). Briefing, as we call it, is a meeting led by the sergeant, shift commander, corporal-- whatever the senior officer in charge is called. During briefing, we are given our shift assignments (i.e. which district/detail and patrol car we're assigned to) as well as many important bits of information we need to know. This may include the following:
1. Extra patrols. Citizens can request increased patrol of their homes or neighborhoods if they feel suspicious activity has occurred or will occur there. Additionally, extra patrols are placed on businesses, parks, schools, motels, bars, etc. as the need arises.
2. BOLOs (BOLO is an acronym for Be On the LookOut). We BOLO for all kinds of things: missing persons, suspects in crimes, vehicles, dogs, and horses at large, and anything else that we or someone else can't find. Other agencies put out metro or statewide BOLOs via the Colorado or National Crime Information Computer (CCIC--all states have their own similar agencies--or NCIC), and these are provided to us as well.
3. Any shift or departmental news or information. This is pretty self-explanatory, news about pension, training days, etc. Occasionally we get humorous announcements like, "To all officers: please do not book vomit into evidence, as it is extremely unpleasant for the evidence techs. Photograph the vomit, book the photo into evidence, and dispose of the vomit appropriately."
4. Updates on previous shifts' activities. This is very important for maintaining departmental continuity. If day shift had a robbery, and the suspect is still at large, swings and graves must know this. It's a matter of officer safety, and we all know about that, right?
After briefing, each officer performs his or her own version of the same routine: we check our E-mail, voice-mail, and mailboxes, make copies, gather routine forms we may need on the street, return phone calls (referred to as doing follow-up), go the bathroom one last time, or complete various other officer tasks before "hitting the street."
Just prior to going "in service" for the first time of the shift, we check our patrol vehicles thoroughly for such things as new body damage, malfunctioning lights, sirens, or radios, and wayward guns, knives, or other contraband stuffed down the back seat by previous prisoners. Oh, yes, this happens.
All prisoners are patted down thoroughly before entering our cars, but you'd probably be shocked--and no doubt disgusted--at the ingenious places they will hide weapons or drugs, and the agility with which they can retrieve them while handcuffed!
Some of the newer patrol cars are designed with molded plastic back seats, which takes care of the contraband problem and makes for easy clean-up.
After we've checked the cars, we "load them up." The front passenger seat of a patrol car serves as our makeshift desk. There are some special seat-adapted carriers, but most of the cops I know carry their "office" in a large catalog or traveling salesperson-type case, which we open, for easy access to the contents (clipboards, report forms, flashlight, lunchbox, policy and law books, accident reports, etc.--cops carry more junk than new mothers), and then seatbelt into the seat. When we're situated and ready to go, we announce to the dispatchers, via radio, that we are available to take dispatched calls with the simple phrase, "Adam-twenty-one (or whatever our call sign may be---this varies between departments) in service." Voila, we are on patrol.
Patrol time is loosely divided into several activities: patrolling, traffic enforcement, responding to dispatched calls for service, and writing reports, which I will discuss in detail in a moment. What percentage of time an officer spends on each activity during a given shift varies greatly. An officer may get tied up on a complex case "right out of the chute," as we call it, and do nothing else that day. On slow call days, an officer may choose to spend six hours running radar, or contacting business owners to discuss their concerns and make a positive connection (community policing).
Going into a shift, we know what we will be doing, but we never know when, where, or how much. That sense of the unknown is very appealing to most officers.
The bottom line is this: responding to calls for service is our first priority. If there are no calls, we write reports. If our paperwork is caught up, our time is basically free to pursue patrolling, traffic, or whatever other police activities interest us.
Patrolling. A lot of an officer's time is spent prowling the streets of his or her district, looking for suspicious persons, cars, or activities. During this time, the officer will "clear" license plates on suspicious vehicles (meaning, have dispatch trace them through CCIC/NCIC to see if they are stolen), contact out-of-place people and clear them, and check on the businesses in the area (referred to as "shaking doors" or "rattling doors"). It is during patrol time that a lot of great, officer-initiated busts are made. The officer will notice something that seems odd and stop to investigate (legal snooping is one of the perks). One thing will lead to another, and the officer will realize he'd stumbled onto a hydroponic drug lab.
There are certain matters of protocol with patrol time. For example, if you are the only car in service, because everyone else is tied up, you are expected to hunker down and do nothing but be available for emergency calls. A lot of bright-eyed, gung-ho rookies don't yet understand this teamwork concept, and will unwittingly stop cars and contact people while no one is in service. They seem to think it will reflect well on their motivation and work ethic, but consider the complications. If the rookie stumbles onto something major, or gets in trouble and calls for help, who'd available for cover? No one. Or if he gets himself tied up with a problem, and an emergency call airs, who'd going to handle it? That's right, no one. And it burdens the other officers who must clear from whatever they are doing to handle it, because the rookie screwed up.
There is a definite strategy and synergy required between shift officers in order to achieve a manageable balance on street patrol. It comes with practice, experience, and knowing and trusting your co-workers.
Other matters of protocol include monitoring your radio so you can effectively and quickly cover fellow officers on contacts and stops, and offering to handle reports for officers whose districts are "getting slammed" with calls.
Traffic. Traffic is really a subcategory of patrol, as most stops are made during patrol time. (One exception is a speed trap. After we become radar-certified, we are free to set up speed traps literally when the mood hits us, and we have free time. We don't do any other patrol activities when running a speed trap). I won't spend too much time on traffic enforcement- -most people have personal experience with it, albeit from the other side!
Let me just say that most departments do NOT have quotas for ticket writing. We write however many we want to. Also, most officers issue warnings rather than tickets on 50-60 percent of the stops we make. We have that discretion.
Traffic stops are quite dangerous, for many reasons. One, you never know who you are stopping, and they usually aren't too sure why you are stopping them. You could pull a car over for an expired plate, but the driver may have just killed someone. He's thinking one thing, you another. See what I mean? Also, the most dangerous time during a traffic stop is the second approach. By this I mean, after you've obtained the occupant information, returned to your patrol car to clear them, and when you're returning. At this point, the people know that YOU know if they're wanted on a warrant.
Traffic stops are also dangerous simply because you are standing in the middle of the roadway. Many an officer has been hit by a car during a traffic stop.
Responding to calls for service. The vast majority of an officer's time is spent handling calls. These can be as minor as barking dog disputes between disgruntled neighbors, or as major as triple shootings or fatal car accidents. Dispatch assigns calls according to geographic location and who is in service. As the calls come in, they are "titled and triaged," meaning, the dispatcher determines what type of report it is (theft, accident, welfare check, suspicious vehicle) then prioritizes it by adding "in progress," "just occurred," or "cold." They also weigh each calls gravity against the other calls that are holding. After this information and details about the report are entered into the computer, the dispatcher assigns the calls to street officers via radio, and in some departments, MDT's (computers in the patrol cars).
An officer can either be the primary unit or a cover car on the call. The primary makes the decisions surrounding the handling and disposition of the call, and is responsible for writing the reports, jailing the suspects, and generally resolving the situation. The primary delegates tasks to the cover cars as needed.
An example is a domestic violence case. The primary would assess and de-escalate the scene (de-escalation requires the participation of all officers on the scene), determine the facts, and the charges to be filed, request medical attention if necessary, and arrest/book/jail the suspect. Meanwhile, the cover officer would remain on scene to take witness and victim statements and complete additional paperwork. The difference here? After the cover officer clears the scene and gives the proper forms to the primary officer, he or she is finished and back in service. The primary still has hours of work to complete. Covering is cool--all the fun and none of the paperwork.
A lot of days are spent "call to call," with no discretionary time for other activities. The busiest shift tends to be swings, and a lot of the calls are of the "in progress" variety. Day shift generates horrific amounts of reports, but most of them are "cold" calls: burglaries that happened overnight, but have just been discovered by the victims, frauds, thefts, etc. On graves, when most people are nestled in their beds, it's either dead quiet or "in progress" calls. And everyone seems to be drunk during graveyard hours.
Each shift has it's own unique feel; they are subcultures unto themselves. There are graveyard hours who would flip burgers before ever working day shift, and vice versa. You learn to categorize officers as graves officers (mushrooms), day officers (day weenies), or swing officers (thrill-seekers). Personally, I thrive on swing shift. Sleep late, work late, and handle all the hot calls--what could be better?
Writing reports. Document, document, document. Almost everything an officer does requires a report, and each year, some new form seems to be added to the list of requirements. Many people think of a gun as an officer's most important tool. Not so--it's the ink pen (or keyboard, in more progressive departments). For every ten-hour shift, probably three hours, on average, is spent writing reports. If you ever ride-along, heed my advice and bring a book. I can think of few things more boring than sitting in a car watching someone write.
Many officers loathe report writing, but it is probably the single most important part of busting bad guys. You can have the most air-tight case in the world, but if you can't articulate it in a report, the case will go nowhere. A report makes or breaks a case, no doubt about it.
So, how does the shift end? One shift comes off the street and the next goes out, simultaneously. We hand in our reports, which the supervisor reviews before forwarding them through the chain of command. Officers unload their cars, some change into street clothes, some don't. Then, we congregate in the sergeant's office, or patrol area.
We don't have de-briefing, per se, but we tend to sit around and casually rehash the night's events. We talk about "the jerk I took to detox," or something stupid a witness may have said. We poke fun at each other, or goodheartedly make fun of the rookies' screw-ups. We brainstorm about cases we are working, to get other points of view. We relax, we put our feet on the sergeant's desk, and we bond with our shift before doing what we can't take for granted in this career field--going home. We don't talk about it, but we all know it.
We all made it through another night . . .
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