Breaking Rank (31 page)

I think you have to agree that I've been
fair and balanced
in my presentation of the pros and cons of the PMB. It is a system I ran afoul of often, even as I railed against it during my thirty-four-year career. In the waning moments of my time in San Diego I decided to take one final, bloody stand against it.

It was 1992. SDPD chief Bob Burgreen had asked me, as his number-two guy, to conduct a management audit of the department, and to “concentrate on our warts.” To no one's surprise, a “lack of communication” surfaced as our biggest (internal) problem. Well, did I have an answer to that:
demilitarize
the place! And start by civilianizing the titles of mid-ranking department bosses—which I theorized had a deleterious effect on communication.

I knew there'd be a shit-rain of opposition—military titles are a cultural icon in civilian policing, as much a part of the cop culture as mustaches, sidearms, and doughnuts. But, win or lose, I believed it was important to air the
rationale
behind “demilitarization.” I hoped to encourage a departmentwide dialogue on the principles of a more “democratic,” less militaristic police force. And since
language structures reality
, I was convinced that our military nomenclature stood between us and the community, between the brass and rank-and-file cops. I walked into Burgreen's office to let him know of my intentions.

“You're going to
what
?”

“Recommend a change in the titles of ‘sergeant,' ‘lieutenant,' and ‘captain.' ”

“What do you propose we call them?” Burgreen and I had been sergeants, lieutenants, captains. We knew what it meant to stitch stripes to our uniform sleeves, to pin the single bar, then the double bars to our collars. We could remember the pride we felt in having earned the insignia.

“I don't know yet. I was kind of looking at the federal model.” The FBI calls its entry-level people “special agents.” Its first-line supervisors are “supervising agents.” The head of an office is a “special agent in charge.” That might not be so bad. Maybe if the cops understood they were
special
. . .

I certainly wasn't going to recommend the “Lakewood Model.”

Incorporated in 1970, Lakewood, Colorado, had the rare opportunity to build its police department, and its vocabulary, from the ground up. Its officials, including Pierce Brooks, Lakewood PD's first chief, were driven to create a “user-friendly” agency whose members would be, in form as well
as substance, part
of
and not
apart from
the community. Their beat cops would be “agents.” Sergeants would be “field advisors,” lieutenants “senior field advisors,” and captains “agents in charge.” They'd sport gray slacks, light blue shirts, and navy blazers.

It didn't last long. Patrol cops are still called agents, but as early as 1973 their bosses had been permanently rebranded:
sergeants, lieutenants, captains.
Seems other PDs didn't know what the hell an “advisor” was. Their blazers wound up at the Goodwill, replaced by sharp, traditional police blues. Score one for common sense on that last one.

“The feds? Hmm.” Burgreen conjured the gathering clouds. “Why risk what's left of your credibility with the troops? Why recommend something you know is not going to fly? Why allow your critics to . . .
Ah ha!
You sly bastard. It's a
stalking horse
, right? Get everybody in a lather over ‘demilitarization' so your other recommendations won't seem so ‘extreme.' ” I laughed. It was a plausible theory—I
had
decided to recommend the “flattening” of SDPD's tortuously long chain of command by eliminating two ranks. And to impose “quality assurance audits” of the work of top-ranking personnel. You could see where these ideas
might
be a little threatening.

“No. I'm serious,” I said. “Look, I know you're not going to buy it, but let's just put it out there for two or three months.” Until now, my advocacy of the idea had been confined to classrooms and conferences. “Let's see what our cops have to say.”

Burgreen laughed.

“You know damn well what they're going to say.” But my chief always did love a spirited debate. “Two months. That's it.”

That week we announced all my recommendations, injecting “demilitarization” directly into the bloodstream of the department. Would the body reject it, or, miracle of miracles, accept it?

We wanted more communication? Well, we got it. People throughout the department, and beyond, couldn't wait to express themselves. Critics of demilitarization shrieked, howled, chortled, guffawed. They penned hate
mail—from down the hall and from across the country. They wrote derisive editorials, sketched mocking cartoons. The
San Diego Union-Tribune,
while lauding the other twenty-one recommendations of my audit, suggested that “Normanclature” be deep-sixed, posthaste.

One of my cops addressed a letter to me in my capacity as editor of
The Corner Pocket,
our in-house administrative rag:

            
Dear Editor,

            
If only Chief Stamper could hear the jokes and ridicule . . . from the working cop, he would really understand how out of touch he is with police work. While most of the recommendations are viable, changing names to fit the esoteric thoughts of Chief Stamper will do nothing in our effort to relate with the public . . . . We are a paramilitary unit at war with gang members who carry automatic weapons. Stamper, if you really want to be a CEO of a [corporation] then you take one of those “Golden Handshake” retirements and go work in the Silicon Valley. I aspire to be a Police Captain not a Division Director . . .

That was cool, but my favorite less-than-enthusiastic commentary came from a sergeant who wrote an article for
The Corner Pocket.
In it she offered a new lexicon for just about every noun used in police work. My position, for example, she labeled “One Who Oversees Division Directors, Assistant Directors, Assistant Division Directors, Supervising Agents, and Agents.” She put it on a nameplate and sent it to me. I kept it on my desk throughout our “dialogue” on demilitarization.

I wasn't without supporters. Former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese called to offer solace and, to my surprise, an endorsement of the plan. He always thought frontline police officers deserved more respect—from their bosses, mostly. And Joe Wambaugh phoned in his encouragement: “What the hell were you thinking, Norm?”

“What, you don't like the idea?”

“I didn't say that. I think it's a terrific idea, I really do. But you want to model things after
federal
law enforcement? You know the locals never get
along with the feds.” He suggested the British system (constables, chief constables, and so forth). With the origins of American policing traceable to the U.K., he was probably on to something. The British titles had a more, what did he call it,
historic, romantic
ring.

After the initial shock, many of our employees settled down and actually started talking about the substance and the symbolism of the proposal. But I still couldn't walk ten feet without running into another explanation of why it was such a bad idea.

When Burgreen ripped the life-support needle out, true to his word, sixty days later, it was time for a last check of vital signs. How had the cop culture taken to this transfusion of “new blood”? Was the lieutenant who'd come to see me a week before the drop-dead date typical? A bright, up-and-coming individual, he told me, “When you first raised the issue I thought, ‘Man, the cheese has finally slipped off Stamper's cracker.' I thought it was the goofiest idea I'd ever heard. But the more I thought about it the more I realized, hey, we're
not
the military, we're cops. We're
community
cops. We ought to have titles that make sense to the community. What does ‘lieutenant' or ‘sergeant' mean to the average citizen?”

The lieutenant's change of heart brought the number of converts up to approximately eleven. Given that we had 2,800 employees, I guess you could say it was an idea whose time had not yet come.

“Demilitarization” may be fine in theory, said the cops. But what of the real-world challenges of barricaded suspects and riots and other emergencies that crop up in police work? These incidents require military-like tactics, communication, and compliance. And what about esprit de corps and discipline? Don't these matters cry out for retention of the paramilitary system? No, they do not. They represent issues that must be resolved in the construction of what I'll call a “PPO,” or Progressive Police Organization.

We underestimate the intelligence, creativity, and adaptability of our communities, and of our police officers and their leaders, if we assume they can't get together and build a new system. The PPO would retain and strengthen SWAT (special weapons and tactics) units. It would continue to
provide (improved) first-responder training to all emergencies, including terrorist attacks. It would continue to field better equipped cops in
police
uniforms, driving
police
cars. Officers and all other employees at all levels would continue to be held to (even higher) standards of performance and conduct. These real-world demands—as well as the need for the coercive powers of government to be both conspicuous and authoritative—require that certain critical traditions be preserved.

What, then, would change under the new and improved PPO? Just about everything else:

       
•
  
The steep hierarchy would be dramatically flattened to improve the timeliness of communication and the speed and quality of decision making. Generous severance packages (handed out in both San Diego and Seattle) ensure a safe landing for those losing their management jobs. The costs are more than offset by long-term savings.