Blue Canary: For Cops By a Cop

Send us a text

What is an FTO?

Well, you should already know by now because you should have gone through an FTO program when you hired on the job. You mean you didn’t have an FTO program? You mean they just handed you the keys to the car, a map, and said call me if you have any problems?

Unfortunately, this is all too familiar.
Now what do we mean by Field Training Officer Program? It is simply an on-the-job training program that assists with the on-boarding and training of brand-new officers to the police department. It does this by having the new officers ride every day with a trained trainer called a Field Training Officer or FTO who teaches, mentors, trains, evaluates, councils, facilitates, and leads the new officer until they have proven they are capable of doing the job by themselves. The Field Training Program ensure that every new officer on the department has the skills and training necessary to do the job. Many people look at this as the first step in a police officer’s career, but the reality is it’s the last step in the selection process. There is no better way to ensure that someone can do the job then having them do the job.

Send us a text

Training.

We have talked about it several times on this show. And we are going to talk more about it today. Police reform is a hot button topic today with legislatures all over the US passing law enforcement bills and police reform bills in an effort to improve the professionalism of policing.

But they are missing the mark.

The bills are focusing on specific topics like choke holds, which have been outlawed for decades, and de-escalation, which people struggle to define. Instead of specific topics we need to reform the overall training concepts found in police department across the country and get politicians and administrators focused on the real challenge, proper training.
This episode will focus on the challenges departments face when trying to train their officers and what we need to focus on to improve training for police across the US. We will also hear from Chief Ed Gebhart with the Fishers Police Department in Fishers Indiana and Major Nick Luce with the Indiana University Police Department.

Send us a text

I had been a sergeant for about 6 years before my agency sent me to my very first leadership class. I didn’t know what to expect and honestly, I thought it was going to be a waste of time. I mean I had been an informal leader on night shift for years as the old guy and the FTO. When they promoted me to sergeant, they obviously didn’t think leadership was important because they didn’t bother to send me to any training. So, I wasn’t very interested.

This story could have had a very different ending, but the leadership training they did send me to was put on by Bill Westfall.

Bill Westfall is an amazing instructor and one that really lit the fire under me to be an effective leader.

Since then, I began reading every leadership book I could get my hands on, from historical works to books by business leaders. I also took as many leadership classes as I could find, a few of them I took on my own dime and my own time.

So, when I tell you my guest on this episode is one of the very best teachers in leadership,

I’m not kidding.

Jack Enter has been associated with the field of criminal justice since 1972 when he began his career as a law enforcement officer. Since that time, he has worked as a street police officer, detective, vice/narcotics investigator, manager, and as the administrator of a law enforcement agency in the suburbs of Atlanta. Jack obtained his Ph.D. in 1984 and has served as a professor and administrator in the university setting and served as one of the planners of the security component of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. He has lectured throughout the United States and abroad on Leadership as well as Profiling Interpersonal Violence and The Future of Crime and Policing. He has authored two books Challenging the Law Enforcement Organization (2006; Revised 2022) and Law Enforcement Leadership in the Midst of Change (2022).

Send us a text

There are a lot of people, including those in our profession that don’t like to hear the phrase “War on Cops”. They feel it will promote the Us vs Them mentality and broaden the divide between the working police officer and the public they serve.

In 2014 Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown after Brown violently attacked him. That’s right, contrary to what you have heard from the media, social justice pundits and professional athletes the investigation, evidence and grand jury all agree that Darren Wilson was Michael Browns victim and that the shooting was in self-defense.

This incident sparked a year of national protest focusing on police and police brutality and the public attack against police and policing in America.

In 2016 Heather McDonald, a Thomas W. Smith Fellow of the Manhattan Institute and a conservative political commentator wrote The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe. In this book she coined the term Ferguson Effect and detailed that affect while looking at the history of anti-police movements and decarceration activism. This really jump-started the conversation on violence against police officers.

Send us a text

Dispatch is one of the most important parts of the emergency management system. They are the first ones to talk to the public, they answer questions, and send help where needed. It’s also the one we tend to forget about.

To help us understand more about Dispatch and what they do I talked with Adam Timm.

Adam Timm worked as a dispatcher for LAPD for 10 years before starting his own training company “The Healthy Dispatcher” He has gone on to provide international instruction for 911 operators as well as becoming a bestselling author, writing four books on Leadership, Stress, and 911 dispatching.
https://thehealthydispatcher.com/about-us/