Breaking Rank (32 page)

       
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Decision-making authority would be reduced to the lowest possible level, not merely in theory but in policy-driven practice.

       
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Rank-and-file police officers and civilian employees would participate freely in policymaking, program development, priority setting, and other issues, including “oversight” activities, that affect them—and about which they often have more firsthand knowledge than others in the department, including top brass.

       
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Citizens would be involved in the same arenas as rank-and-file officers. They, too, would sit on oversight boards that investigate and/or review citizen complaints, monitor intelligence gathering, and render judgments on police shootings.

       
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The creation of effective communication vehicles would be mandated (sessions with the chief, cross-bureau meetings, community forums, and teleconferencing), and the timely exchange of relevant information would, instead of being left to chance, become nonnegotiable.

       
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Standards of performance and conduct would be required for all employees at all levels. Individuals who exceed those standards would be recognized, tangibly if not financially (time off with pay is a terrific reward for today's overworked, often underpaid aces). Individuals falling shy of these standards would be required, within a given period of time (say 30,
45, or 60 days), and with proffered assistance, to improve their performance and/or conduct. Or be fired.

       
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Police officers would be treated like adults. Discipline would be two-pronged: punishment for misconduct, nonpunitive assistance for honest mistakes or performance problems. “Progressive” discipline would be used except in cases of broomstick rectal exams, sex with teenage explorer scouts, or other such egregious behavior—in such instances the officer would be fired, prosecuted, and a photo, suitable for framing, provided to all media outlets.

       
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Police officers would be given everything they need to get the job done properly and safely. Their equipment and working conditions would be monitored constantly, with deficiencies attended to promptly. They would be compensated at a level commensurate with the danger and sensitivity of their roles in society—in today's market, a hundred thousand dollars is not unreasonable.

But
can
a police officer working in a “demilitarized” police force
spring into military-like action
as needed? Is it possible, psychologically, for that officer to make a smooth, rapid transition from a “democratic” cop to a compliant member of, say, an assault team headed into a public school to take out a shooter?

Absolutely. Good cops do it all the time, morphing from discretionary social problem-solver to armed tactician. The sad thing is they do it with little, if any, help from their rigid, myopic organizations. Imagine the improvements, across the board, if the
system
itself expected and facilitated such progressive police behavior?

A word of caution. If you're a reformer bent on rearranging the way your PD's molecules are organized, best keep this in mind:
If you push a system, it will push back—with equal or greater force.
The status quo has powerful defenders who can get downright vicious when cornered. Proceed slowly, build support, and be as respectful as you are tough. And forget about calling sergeants “advisors.”

CHAPTER 17

PICKING GOOD COPS

W
E'D BEEN AT IT
for weeks. Most of the candidates had long before started looking and sounding alike.
Why do you want to be a police officer?
“To help people.”
What makes you think you'd be a good cop?
“I like people.”
What's your strongest quality?
“I'd have to say my people skills.”
Your weakest?
“Well, my friends say I work too hard.” We needed some comic relief, Jon Murphy and I. Murphy was a personnel analyst. I was, as a lieutenant, SDPD's representative on the civil service oral board. We'd heard the same mind-numbing themes from over two hundred people.

Our salvation came in the form of a recently discharged Marine, currently working as a rent-a-cop. Murphy was asking the questions. Why had the candidate left the Marines? “Too lax, sir,” he said. Murphy and I exchanged glances. His current job? How did he like working for a security company? “It's okay, but my mission in life is to be a policeman.” Could he tell us a little something about his current job we might find interesting? “Yes, sir. Just last week I was working the sports arena, the Rolling Stones concert? A big fight broke out on my side of the parking lot.” What did you do? “Well, I caught this punk who was getting ready to chuck a bottle at the policemen.” What did you do with him? “Nothing, sir,” he said, snarling and nodding in my direction. “One of
your
people came along. He made me turn the punk over to him.” Ah, but what would you have liked to do?
“Liked
to do?” Be honest now. “Sir, I would like to have knocked him on his ass.” Yes, yes. Then what?

Our candidate stood up, the look in his eyes causing me to pat my right side to make sure my weapon was where it was supposed to be. The guy put his hands on the table and lifted his right leg. “Then I would've
kicked
him in the face!” He brought his foot down so hard the thud echoed off the
metal walls. He lifted the foot again and brought it down, harder. “I'd kick that commie hippie's face over and over and over!” His foot came down, over and over and over, his eyes bulging from their sockets, beet-red cheeks puffed up like a blowfish. “Over and over and . . .”

When he left the room, Murphy and I took out our rating sheets. We agreed, straight down the line. Today that man is a police chief in . . . just kidding. We did get our comic relief, but the candidate's over-the-top performance made me stop and think: about the slicker aspirants, the glib sadists and smooth sociopaths who are drawn to the work.

Of course, we saw candidates at the
other
end of the spectrum: people who spoke barely above a whisper, still lived at home, taught Sunday school, had never been employed, never been in a fight, never fired a gun, never had sex or tasted whiskey. People who'd faint dead away at the sight of blood.

Some people,
most
people, are not cut out to be a cop. If honest and otherwise morally upright, they're either too aggressive or not aggressive enough; insensitive or overly sensitive; rigid as rebar or lacking a spine altogether. I think back to my own candidacy, and give thanks that SDPD was hard up for cops at the moment—and that there was no psychological screening in those days.

I'd grown up a frightened, neurotic kid, afraid of just about everything. Dad's fists, his belt. Women's screams. Sirens. Gunfire. Schoolyard fights. I'd played sports, desperate to prove to myself I wasn't afraid, but it didn't work—I lived in terror of being crushed by a linebacker, elbowed by a power forward, beaned by a fastball.

For years I had a major preoccupation with death,
my
death. I don't mean I'd planned to kill myself. But there were ways it could just
happen
to you. You could, for example, accidentally hang yourself from the pepper tree in the backyard, or take a sip from a vial whose skull and crossbones you'd not seen until too late. Or step on a rusty nail and get lockjaw. Or get shot by a bullet on the way to the Boys Club, run over by a speeding car, stabbed by a knife, slashed with a straight razor, run through with a
samurai sword. You could slip from the roof of the El Cortez on prom night, get trapped in a blazing elevator, or tossed into a fire ring at the beach in Coronado. A burglar could cover your face with a pillow and suffocate you. Your brother Roy could drop the radio into your bath water. You could get ripped apart by a grizzly in the Rockies or bitten by a rabid Rottweiler. “Happy,” the crazy guy who hung around Kimball Park, he could whack your head off with an ax.

See what I mean? I was hardly your ideal cop candidate. Like many other screwed up kids who go on to become police officers, I used the job, or it used me, to work out all kinds of developmental and emotional challenges. I figure upwards of a hundred San Diegans paid a price for my on-the-job “therapy” during my rookie year alone.

Ultimately, I
did
grow on the job, evolving into a pretty good, if somewhat controversial, cop.

But I wouldn't have hired me.

So, how did it happen? Well, I passed through all the “gates” the civil service system and department placed in my path: written exam, oral interview, medical, physical fitness, polygraph, background investigation. Also, I was a warm body with a pulse. And, as I said, SDPD was hurting at the time.

Nowhere in the country is police experience necessary to apply for and pass a civil service test for the entry-level position: patrol officer. Just basic communication skills, decent medical and physical condition, a level head, and a moral compass that points north.

More and more cities are having their candidates complete a behaviorally anchored, empirically validated paper-and-pencil test, provide a sample of writing skills, and watch a video of realistically staged police incidents after which they answer questions about how they'd handle each. Not a bad way to go. Certainly an improvement over the “general intelligence” test I took in 1965. Culturally biased against ethnic minorities and not even close to being job-related, it got bounced years later for those very reasons.

Candidates who survive the written test are interviewed, typically by a police supervisor or manager, a community rep, and a civil service analyst.
They're asked many of the same questions I was asked: motivation for the position; background experiences; self-perceived strengths and weaknesses; and what he or she would do if he or she witnessed another cop steal a candy bar. Or a Rolex.

After the written and the oral comes the medical exam. Today's are more rigorous than in my day.