Police Chiefs

[Dayna36]

In acreatures signature he states that most Police Chiefs are merely puppets and that they are administrators who know little about real police work. Do the rest of you LEOs feel the same way? How are they able to reach the position of chief if they haven't had several years experience as a regular cop on the streets?

[scott715us]

I can't say it's the same way with our chief. He is pretty dedicated. They all have to play the politician part, but our chief has 20+ yrs LE experience and a large city department. I believe he has a Master's degree in the same field or similar. ;)

[Seand442]

As you progress up the chain of command, your job entails less police work and more administrative crap. The higher you go, the further away from being a cop you become. A chief may wear the same uniform as he rest of the officers, but has a complete different set of concerns than the majority of patrol guys. The chief/director is supposed to be a figurehead. Some one who points the direction in the way the people who appointed him want it to go, be it state legislature, city council, etc. They usually will have many years as an officer ,sgt, lt, etc. What I have found is that the people that make it that far spent most of their time kissing *** of the people just above them instead of doing real police work. That was too dangerous. Just my 2 cents. Now a joke to go with:

Usually the staff of the company plays football.

The middle level managers are more interested in Tennis.

The top management usually has a preference for Golf.




Findings:

As you go up the corporate ladder, the balls reduce in size

[Darin]

Chiefs and Sheriffs are mostly administrators. Chiefs are usually appointed and Sheriffs are usually elected but both has to play the politics game.

My Chief has 20+ years LE experience and he will still pull over a car in a heart beat. Usually once a week he pulls a car over for something.

[Retired Trooper]

I can't say it's the same way with our chief. He is pretty dedicated. They all have to play the politician part, but our chief has 20+ yrs LE experience and a large city department. I believe he has a Master's degree in the same field or similar. ;)

same here except all of our chiefs 20+ years were with our dept.

[acreature]

"Most Police Chiefs, especially in large departments..............."

Large departments is the key to my statement.

Law Enforcement is a constantly changing profession. Law breakers constantly change their tactics, as LEs must adapt to those changes. Without being in the thick of it, you loose touch, and are unable to understand why joe officer did what he did in any given situation.

Typically, and pay attn, especially with Chiefs of "large departments", they do not back their Officers in highly publicized incidents. They bend to the opinion of the general public, or at least the "squeakiest wheel" first. And once they bend, there is no going back.

[Darin]

There's a Chief in a larger department in my area that doesn't even go to his own police academy's graduation.

[Group9]

By the time an agent gets to SAC (Special Agent in Charge) in my agency, it has often been fifteen to twenty years since he or she has been on the street working cases.

I guess that even the ones who knew what was going on when they were agents, forget most of it on the way up. This is the only explanation for some of the ridiculous directives they put out.

Add in the fact that often the safest route is the fastest route and you get a lot of type B personalities promoted into positions that desperately need type A's in them.

We have some good ones and the last two I have worked for have been good, but I had some real train wreck engineers before.

The worst ones are the ones who act like you have asked them to strip naked and sing the National Athem at the World Series when you ask them to make a decision or to let you make it.

[Colonel]

Our Chief is great. He worked his way ranks and is well liked by his officers. I guess "political" chiefs are more of a larger department concern.

[K9Cop]

Guess I've been lucky over the years - the Chiefs I've worked for have been "working" Chiefs who come out on the streets and mix it up with us. My current Chief has provided back-up/surveillance when I was making buys from crack heads and has ran more then a few tracks with me and my K-9 of suspects that bailed after high speed chases. He actually wants to be called out, not to micromanage us during an incident, just to get in on the action.

I understand where acreature is comming from though - there are a few Chiefs of larger and smaller departments around here that are desk jockeys....and are sadly out of touch with what their officers deal with on a daily basis.

[MOCOP]

My current boss is a cop.He does police work, understands police work and supports his people. This is a small Dept.

My former boss was an assclown politician who didn't know the difference between a civil warrant and a traffic citation. He got there because he had an extensive history (and chapped lips) of butt kissin. Thats the kind of boss that acreatures talking about.

[Babysmamadrama]

I have a chief who has just lost touch with the guys on the street. Those who make the department go. I know its his sandbox his shovels, but you need to listen to the concerns and ideas of your people because they are where the rubber meets the road. And he came up through the ranks.

The former chief was a cops cop. He could do the job and go results by being a rugged S.O.B. The troops loved him for it, because it was a no nonsense mentality and attitude, but he would still ask you how you were doing and still take time to shoot the breeze and tell war stories.

[oscarmitre]

I've actually heard/read of people asserting that the police organisation can be managed at the top by someone who is a professional manager and has never had any police experience at all. I disagree with that. I'm not going to say that the police are unique - we're not and our organisation isn't, but it does require at least a modicum of familiarity with the job being done.

Yes chief officers do lose touch with where police work is done. But they do have other things to do. It's their job to keep the politicians happy. They need to ensure the dept has a decent budget and the members are looked after by those with their hands on the purse strings. They need to listen though - they need to be prepared to keep their minds and ears open. Too many of them babble on about the backbone of the job (patrol/general duties) and in reality they ignore any information coming up to them from that level. Above all they need to be genuinely concerned for the welfare of the employees (of all types) and not just mouth the words.

[MORA Ranger]

One of the higher ups in my park used to be an LE Ranger in a really busy park. He was at our LE Refresher telling us how cool he was, how many fights he got into and arrests he made as an LE. I thought he was a little large in the ego dept, but that we must be pretty lucky to have a former LE in our administration.
Then he made a joke about us shooting people in the gut, instead of where we train to shoot them and all my hopes went down the drain. No one thought his "joke" was funny. And I thought, "Great, now if I shoot someone is this joker going to ask me why I didn't shoot them in the gut?"