Vegas News Review. Com

This is a continuation of a series of articles regarding the different types of stressors that officers face daily, in their personal and professional lives from a personal point of view.

Is Police work stressful? Part 3

After being involved in patrol duties for a while, I then progressed to “Line Solution Policing”, a concept that allows officers some freedom to incorporate some of their time to investigate and follow-up on incidents that they normally wouldn’t have time for and to engage with the public professionally.

Initially, we were “mopping up” bad guys, recovering stolen property, preventing retaliatory gang hits, finding dope, guns and making the news.  I collected quite a scrapbook from our numerous forays. We were having a grand time doing “our job”. 

We then had a new supervisor transfer to our squad. 

The first day I walked into our office and noticed the new sergeant talking on the phone.  There seemed to be a lull in the conversation, so I introduced myself.  The response was a screaming tirade directed at me for interrupting the phone conversation.  I turned around and walked out, now eavesdropping on the rest of the conversation, realizing that the sergeant was headed for a divorce.

The rest of sarge’s stay with our team was uneasy, to say the least.  We seemed to be walking on eggshells all the time as we dealt with his personal problems. One of our ideas was to “borrow” impounded bicycles from the Pawn Detail and use them in some undercover work.  We were able to roll up on crimes in progress and made quite a difference in the crime in the area.  At the time LVMPD didn’t have a Bike Team.

A new sergeant entered our team, sort of a prima donna. 

I asked him if we should consider starting a Bike Team as they did in Seattle and was wildly successful. Sarge told me “That’s a stupid idea”.  Needless to say, I quit talking to him after that.

After that incident, I was informed I needed to move on as my time was up in LSP. 

I was given carte blanche to go anywhere in patrol I wanted.

I decided I would try the “Field Training Program” and train the new rookies, fresh out of the academy while on patrol. I knew what I thought a police officer should be like and wanted to be a part of that training.

Another eye-opening experience.

To be continued…

Personal and Professional levels of Stresses