Most jail facilities perform prisoner sight checks by visual, verbal or video monitors. The most affective way to perform a sight check is by visual, physical and verbal verification. Some jail standards require that sight checks be performed every hour. In one hour, a lot can happen. In my career on some occasions, sight checks…
Roger Bull is a veteran sergeant with nine years experience in the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office (metropolitan New Orleans). He attended three colleges: Southeastern Louisiana University (biology, chemistry and physics), Louisiana State University Law Enforcement Institute (advanced police studies), and Holy Cross College via a grant from the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office Law Enforcement…
At the time of this writing I’m 57 years old: In those 57 years I’ve met and interacted with many people: Some I would classify as acquaintances, others friends. There have been a few good friends, fewer, best friends. I can, however, tell you who was the best of the best of my friends; his…
I left Friday afternoon for the monthly meeting at Mariposa Masonic Lodge No. 24. I stopped for the night in Madera, just north of town near the airport. When I got out of my car at the hotel parking lot at 5:30PM, it was 105 degrees. I found the room air conditioner was not on…
“… a chilling, blood curdling scream then total silence. The only source of light goes dark.” The audience applauds; the silence is broken by immediate conversation of the patrons as they stroll out of the six year old Magnet Theater. In the projection room, there is an anomaly that the movie-goers are unaware exits. The…
Article I, section 12 of the Florida Constitution provides that “The right of the people to be secure … against the unreasonable interception of private communications by any means, shall not be violated. This right shall be construed in conformity with the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.”…
In Terry v. Ohio,[1] which was decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1968, the Stop and Frisk was legalized and became a part of the lexicon of American law enforcement. The need to protect the nation’s police officers, as well as the public was finally recognized. Detective Martin McFadden, a thirty-nine year veteran of the Cleveland,…
Police officers routinely respond to violent domestic disputes. Usually the parties live together. What happens when she tells you that he keeps his stash in that dresser drawer and he beats her whenever he gets high. Can you search the dresser or the premises on her say so alone. Must he also consent? In Georgia v. Randolph,[1] a domestic in Americus,…
When good cops retire and ultimately settle down to what they envision as life of fewer demands. Naturally, thoughts will revolve around their continued existence, and what the future will hold in store. Before retirement becomes a gleam in the prospective beneficiary’s eye, memories revert to the recruitment poster that haphazardly hung in the barbershop,…
I remember looking at the “old guys” at the office when I first became a cop. They would come to work with the uniform wrinkled, an old revolver strapped to their hip that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a year, no vest with a daily agenda of how little can I do and…
