Counseling for Law Enforcement

In the news today is a report concerning an officer in Ohio who, it appears, committed suicide.

This on the same day that we had been discussing commemorative badges with an agency seeking to remember an officer who also had committed suicide.

In recent years there have been a number of news items on the high rate of suicide in the law enforcement community, particularly among corrections officers.  It has been reported that law enforcement officers are four times more likely to commit suicide than to be killed in the line of duty.

Four times more likely to commit suicide than to be killed in the line of duty.  That’s a chilling statistic.

To help reduce the suicide rate, corrections departments are today focusing on mental health issues, beginning at the recruitment stage, and corrections officers are being offered more counseling options today than were available in prior years.

Counseling has also become available through the police departments and through the unions.  It is no small matter; suicide among law enforcement officers far too often either leaves behind young spouses and children, or, in the most tragic of cases, causes young family members perish also.

Cop2Cop is among the programs created to address these concerns.  A 24-hour hotline for officers and their families, New Jersey’s Cop2Cop program was established in 2000 and was the first of its kind in the nation.  The Cop2Cop hotline is answered by retired law enforcement volunteers and clinicians with a deep understanding of officers' concerns, problems and family issues, and who are trained in critical stress management.

The Cop2Cop hotline  is available exclusively for law enforcement officers and their families to help deal with any immediate need.  It can be a crisis. It can be just a simple question. It doesn’t matter.

Cop2Cop was developed in response to a rash of police suicides in the late 1990s.  Despite the program’s successes, suicide rates remain unacceptably high.  Support, counseling and referral programs such as Cop2Cop are as important as they have ever been.

The number for Cop2Cop is 1-866-COP-2COP (1-866-267-2267).

A Five-Finger Two-Fer

In the news today we learn that here in New Jersey a guy arrested for shoplifting from one store on Saturday was caught with trying to shoplift from another store in the same town later that same day.

An hour after being charged and released on the first caper he was taken into custody for the second.

The second charge will carry just a bit more weight thanks to this crook’s brilliance.  Because he assaulted store security while attempting to flee, he has been charged with robbery.

But, since he has posted bail and been released again, he could go for the hat trick...

Number, Please *

In our line of work we place telephone calls to police agencies frequently.  In virtually every one of these calls, an automated system answers.  These systems typically ask us to enter an extension number if we know it, or offer choices that can be made by entering a number.  It’s just like calling most any business or organization these days.

Except the first choice is always about a police emergency, something you won’t encounter at other businesses or organizations.   “If this is an emergency,” a typical greeting will say, “hang up and dial 9-1-1.”

But there is one municipal police department that we call from time to time that does it differently.  Instead of inviting callers to hang up and re-dial, this agency’s greeting says “if this is an emergency, dial Zero now.”

This strikes us as a better way.  If the emergency situation is one where seconds count, such as serious injury or imminent danger, a quick push on the zero key will be faster than having to hang up, re-dial, and re-connect.  We are surprised that so few agencies do it this way.

* If you don't understand why "Number, Please" is the title of this post, it's only because you are young.  "Number, Please" is what a telephone operator would say to you when you had to speak to an operator to place any phone call.  You'll see evidence of this in old movies, where a person will pick up a two-piece phone and bark into the handset, "Get me the police!"

What's in a Name?

 The lead sentence of the news item was as follows:

The driver of a Dodge Ram pickup rammed two police cruisers and attempted to run down a third officer during a pursuit Sunday evening that ended with the suspect in custody.

Not to make light of the seriousness of a heavy pickup striking a police car or an individual, but yes, the Ram rammed.

Is “Ram” a good name for a motor vehicle?

And perhaps the reason that the trucks are now being marketed under the Ram brand name only is that “Dodge Ram” was a contradiction in terms.

Ken She Park Here?

According to a story reported by several sources, a police officer in American Fork, Utah (about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City), was patrolling a neighborhood when he noticed a hot-pink Fisher-Price Barbie Jeep in the road, blocking a driveway.

As a lighthearted way to remind residents that the police were in their neighborhood and looking out for them and their property, the officer put a bright orange abandoned vehicle tag on the toy Jeep and moved it out of the road.  The citation was made out to "Barbie."

The rightful owner of the vehicle is not Barbie, but 7-year-old Autumn.  Autumn’s father was quoted as saying, "Unfortunately, I have received my share of tickets... This is definitely my favorite ticket."  Autumn now knows to keep her Jeep parked in the garage.

Direct Deposit

There is never a shortage of stories about dumb criminals.  Today’s concerns a bright fellow who, upon his release from jail yesterday in nearby eastern Pennsylvania, proceeded directly to a local bank and attempted to rob it, writing his hold-up note on the back of his bail release form.

He tried this at three different banks in under two hours, with the result that he was back in jail the same day.

Bustin' a Sag

In the news earlier this summer was the plan by officials in Wildwood to prohibit the wearing of pants low on the hips such that one’s underwear is visible.  Quickly the matter became contentious, with questions about how it might be enforced, how low is too low, and so on.

More recently officials in the town of Penns Grove have moved to do the same, and the same questions have arisen.

Towns elsewhere in the U.S. have passed ordinances outlawing saggy pants, but there’s a better and easier way to do this.

Since the  wearing of pants low on the hips so that underwear is visible is a teenage practice, the fastest and most effective way to curtail it is not to prohibit it, but to get old people to do it.  Just get all the middle-aged and out-of-shape parents to wander around Wildwood and Penns Grove with their bloomers in view, and youth will abandon the practice in, um, the blink of an eye.

There is, of course, the risk that the cure will be worse than the disease...