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Crime Suppression Device, C&P
nunn
Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 36,085 ******
Comment by nunn: For what it's worth, one of my ex-wives had two sometimes stepfathers who had some pretty serious organized crime connections. They were into counterfeiting, wholesale stolen cars, thefts from interstate shipments, con games, etc. Neither had any regard for or any fear of the FBI. They did have fear and respect for the uniformed police officer. One of them referred to the FBI as "Fumbling Bunch of Idiots."
The World's Most Effective Crime Suppression Device
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
When Warren Jeffs, one of the members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted
List was captured this last week, most of the story was focused on his
religious sect, an unauthorized spin-off of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints. Jeffs practiced polygamy, which is condemned by
the mainstream LDS, and arranged or performed hundreds of marriages of
young girls to much older men. Without getting into a debate on
religious freedom, I think we're better off with him out of
circulation.
What got less notice was that Jeffs was located, identified, and
captured not by the estimable Federal Bureau of Investigation, but
rather by a Mark I model of the World's Most Effective Crime
Suppression Device: a uniformed patrol officer.
Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Eddie Dutchover stopped Jeffs' Cadillac
Escalade for having a paper license plate that didn't look right.
Jeffs was sitting in the back seat of the SUV, eating a salad.
Dutchover's cop radar went off when Jeffs wouldn't make eye contact
with him. When the trooper was told that the folks in the Cadillac had
just spent a single night in Vegas, it occurred to him that they were
carrying a lot of luggage for an overnighter. Dutchover started asking
questions and collecting IDs. The rest is history.
This arrest is hardly unprecedented. On TV and in the movies, the big
collars are usually made by the rebel federal agent or the
karate-chopping detective. If you see a "uniform" (the demeaning
label for the cops that wear uniforms, used by people who have risen
above the police proletariat) in the scene, their only function is to
hold the Real Cop's coat, or maybe slap the cuffs on and haul away the
bad guy.
In the real world, the big time bad guys have a lot more to fear from
the "uniforms" than from the guys in the fancy suits. Eric Rudolph
constructed, planted and detonated bombs at the Atlanta Olympics and at two family planning clinics in Georgia and Alabama, resulting in the deaths of several people, including a Birmingham police officer. Once he was identified (and the feds shifted their attention away from Richard Jewell, whose biggest crime was to have been working at Centennial Park the night the Olympics bomb went off), one of the most massive manhunts in U.S. law enforcement history ensued. Cops, most of them federal agents, got all duded out in their best BDUs and took to the Nantahala National Forest to find the fugitive survivalist. He eluded capture for over five years, thousands of man-hours, and millions of dollars. His undoing was in the person of 21-year-old Officer Jeff Postell of the Murphy, NC Police Department, who found Rudolph rooting through the dumpster behind a grocery store, looking for food. Postell had no idea that Rudolph was in the vicinity, and certainly didn't expect to come across him. He saw something that didn't look right, got out of his car, and said something like, "Hey, let me talk to you for a minute." Bad TV, but very good police work.
The classic, however, has to be when domestic terrorist Tim McVeigh was on the lam after bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City. I am told that more than 7000 college-educated, well-paid, highly trained federal special agents from an assortment of TLAs (that's "Three Letter Agency" to the uninitiated) had "Get Tim McVeigh" as their sole mission and assignment. Despite this unprecedented blitzkrieg of federal resources, McVeigh was stopped and arrested by Oklahoma state trooper Charlie Hanger, who pulled McVeigh over because he didn't have a current license plate. Hanger thought he saw a gun under McVeigh's jacket, and when he found one, arrested McVeigh for carrying a concealed weapon.
There is no extant technology that would have been of any use in
capturing these fugitives. No scanner, sniffer, imager or other machine would be able to recognize that there were too many bags in the car for someone on an overnight trip, or that the person rummaging through the trash was not a typical residentially challenged citizen, or that the bulge in a jacket was something that needed looking into. These cases were closed when plain old street grunts used their experience and training to ask some questions, interpret the answers, and then ask some more.
I'm a big fan of technology, especially when it has law enforcement
applications. I also think that cops should be as well-educated as
possible, because, over the long haul, it makes for better and happier
cops. And I have no problem with federal officers, agents and marshals, because they all perform a vital job and mostly do it with honor and distinction. But police work is still about talking to people, asking questions, getting answers, and repeating until done. This applies whether you're looking for the urchin that threw eggs at your window or Osama bin Laden. The uniformed street cop does more of this than anyone, and without him, everyone else might as well bag it and go home.
And, in case, I didn't make it clear earlier: way to go, Trooper
Dutchover. I'm proud of you, and I don't even know you.
Current Responses "The World's Most Effective Crime Suppression
Device"
Tom Curtis:
Well said Tim, I couldn't agree more.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Richard Elliott:
As a Britsh police officer the same facts are repeated. Most of our
countries most wanted are usually stopped as a result of minor traffic
offences or the gut instinct of a uniformed officer. I have 24 yeras +
in the job all of which in uniform working shifts. I know where the real police work gets done, even if the public and the bosses forget.
September 5th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Joel Bryant
Mr. Dees,
I just want to thank you for this article. I am a police chaplain, and
am from a family of law enforcement.
I live in a peaceful town with nice neighborhoods, and streets that I
feel safe to walk on with my children all because of the outstanding men and women of our police and other local LE angencies.
I am going to make copies of this article and place them in our church, as well as making them available to our local schools, and civic leaders. Police work is a mostly thankless job, and I appreciate you putting into words what most of us feel, but fail to appreciate often enough.
Thank you for your service, and God bless you and yours.
Rev. Joel R. Bryant, Chaplain Brentwood P.D.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Tom Streeter
Tim*A long (long) time ago, I was transferred into traffic division. It hurt my feelings that the department would be so short sighted that
they'd sentence such a fine young superhero like me to chasing tail
lights. It didn't take me long to learn that bandits drive to WalMart
just like we do, just not as good. Now I am one of those suits, and
I'm not a bit embarassed about admitting I depend on the "uniforms" for my daily investigative bread.
September 8th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Tim Knowles - UK Patrol Officer
So, what's new? I think you're preaching to the choir There will
always be a need for specialist officers but generally speaking, it is
always the uniformed patrol officer who makes first contact with the
offender or who arrives at the scene first.
The World's Most Effective Crime Suppression Device
Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
When Warren Jeffs, one of the members of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted
List was captured this last week, most of the story was focused on his
religious sect, an unauthorized spin-off of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints. Jeffs practiced polygamy, which is condemned by
the mainstream LDS, and arranged or performed hundreds of marriages of
young girls to much older men. Without getting into a debate on
religious freedom, I think we're better off with him out of
circulation.
What got less notice was that Jeffs was located, identified, and
captured not by the estimable Federal Bureau of Investigation, but
rather by a Mark I model of the World's Most Effective Crime
Suppression Device: a uniformed patrol officer.
Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Eddie Dutchover stopped Jeffs' Cadillac
Escalade for having a paper license plate that didn't look right.
Jeffs was sitting in the back seat of the SUV, eating a salad.
Dutchover's cop radar went off when Jeffs wouldn't make eye contact
with him. When the trooper was told that the folks in the Cadillac had
just spent a single night in Vegas, it occurred to him that they were
carrying a lot of luggage for an overnighter. Dutchover started asking
questions and collecting IDs. The rest is history.
This arrest is hardly unprecedented. On TV and in the movies, the big
collars are usually made by the rebel federal agent or the
karate-chopping detective. If you see a "uniform" (the demeaning
label for the cops that wear uniforms, used by people who have risen
above the police proletariat) in the scene, their only function is to
hold the Real Cop's coat, or maybe slap the cuffs on and haul away the
bad guy.
In the real world, the big time bad guys have a lot more to fear from
the "uniforms" than from the guys in the fancy suits. Eric Rudolph
constructed, planted and detonated bombs at the Atlanta Olympics and at two family planning clinics in Georgia and Alabama, resulting in the deaths of several people, including a Birmingham police officer. Once he was identified (and the feds shifted their attention away from Richard Jewell, whose biggest crime was to have been working at Centennial Park the night the Olympics bomb went off), one of the most massive manhunts in U.S. law enforcement history ensued. Cops, most of them federal agents, got all duded out in their best BDUs and took to the Nantahala National Forest to find the fugitive survivalist. He eluded capture for over five years, thousands of man-hours, and millions of dollars. His undoing was in the person of 21-year-old Officer Jeff Postell of the Murphy, NC Police Department, who found Rudolph rooting through the dumpster behind a grocery store, looking for food. Postell had no idea that Rudolph was in the vicinity, and certainly didn't expect to come across him. He saw something that didn't look right, got out of his car, and said something like, "Hey, let me talk to you for a minute." Bad TV, but very good police work.
The classic, however, has to be when domestic terrorist Tim McVeigh was on the lam after bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City. I am told that more than 7000 college-educated, well-paid, highly trained federal special agents from an assortment of TLAs (that's "Three Letter Agency" to the uninitiated) had "Get Tim McVeigh" as their sole mission and assignment. Despite this unprecedented blitzkrieg of federal resources, McVeigh was stopped and arrested by Oklahoma state trooper Charlie Hanger, who pulled McVeigh over because he didn't have a current license plate. Hanger thought he saw a gun under McVeigh's jacket, and when he found one, arrested McVeigh for carrying a concealed weapon.
There is no extant technology that would have been of any use in
capturing these fugitives. No scanner, sniffer, imager or other machine would be able to recognize that there were too many bags in the car for someone on an overnight trip, or that the person rummaging through the trash was not a typical residentially challenged citizen, or that the bulge in a jacket was something that needed looking into. These cases were closed when plain old street grunts used their experience and training to ask some questions, interpret the answers, and then ask some more.
I'm a big fan of technology, especially when it has law enforcement
applications. I also think that cops should be as well-educated as
possible, because, over the long haul, it makes for better and happier
cops. And I have no problem with federal officers, agents and marshals, because they all perform a vital job and mostly do it with honor and distinction. But police work is still about talking to people, asking questions, getting answers, and repeating until done. This applies whether you're looking for the urchin that threw eggs at your window or Osama bin Laden. The uniformed street cop does more of this than anyone, and without him, everyone else might as well bag it and go home.
And, in case, I didn't make it clear earlier: way to go, Trooper
Dutchover. I'm proud of you, and I don't even know you.
Current Responses "The World's Most Effective Crime Suppression
Device"
Tom Curtis:
Well said Tim, I couldn't agree more.
September 5th, 2006 at 10:43 am
Richard Elliott:
As a Britsh police officer the same facts are repeated. Most of our
countries most wanted are usually stopped as a result of minor traffic
offences or the gut instinct of a uniformed officer. I have 24 yeras +
in the job all of which in uniform working shifts. I know where the real police work gets done, even if the public and the bosses forget.
September 5th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Joel Bryant
Mr. Dees,
I just want to thank you for this article. I am a police chaplain, and
am from a family of law enforcement.
I live in a peaceful town with nice neighborhoods, and streets that I
feel safe to walk on with my children all because of the outstanding men and women of our police and other local LE angencies.
I am going to make copies of this article and place them in our church, as well as making them available to our local schools, and civic leaders. Police work is a mostly thankless job, and I appreciate you putting into words what most of us feel, but fail to appreciate often enough.
Thank you for your service, and God bless you and yours.
Rev. Joel R. Bryant, Chaplain Brentwood P.D.
September 6th, 2006 at 4:44 am
Tom Streeter
Tim*A long (long) time ago, I was transferred into traffic division. It hurt my feelings that the department would be so short sighted that
they'd sentence such a fine young superhero like me to chasing tail
lights. It didn't take me long to learn that bandits drive to WalMart
just like we do, just not as good. Now I am one of those suits, and
I'm not a bit embarassed about admitting I depend on the "uniforms" for my daily investigative bread.
September 8th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Tim Knowles - UK Patrol Officer
So, what's new? I think you're preaching to the choir There will
always be a need for specialist officers but generally speaking, it is
always the uniformed patrol officer who makes first contact with the
offender or who arrives at the scene first.