Police Chief Robert White being considered for Dallas job

I come into this little spat late in the game. Given the scenario provided the officer should have stopped, unless the following is also true:

A rider, to include his/her child - prisoner - civilian rider - etc , was in the car, then he is PROHIBITED by policy from stopping. Also if he advised radio of the situation, he is also technically covered.

I agree that many of our officers, mostly the new ones in my opinion, fail to render aid. It is this foolishness that endangers the entire program. I stop... and yes I often violate policy if I have a rider in the car by stopping to assist, but then again I also speed to cacth up to speeders, so there you go.

Often officers are their own worst enemies. We fail to communicate outside of our own world. We isolate ourselves from others, and we learn to speak "Police" - it is a survival mechanism. But I have learned that the more I calmly explain what I percieve to be the issues, the better response I get from the citizens of this lil' burg.

Now I will say this, and you can read it below that the arguments on the court concerns are valid. And I will explain.

1. By defining a solid TIME, Uniform and behavior of an individual for a work related function, the command has made COURT ATTENDANCE a shift. Which means it falls under the following:

* Contract requires 10 hours between shifts (OSHA recommended standard for rest cycle)

* If this time is not granted than OT will be paid for the time between to completion; so say an officer gets off at midnight and has to report at court at 0900, there would be 9 hours of OT in between these events.

* District Court - is a fouled up mess. If there were serious attempts to fix the issue, there would be afternoon and evening misdemeanor court sessions, and officers would only have to go court testify (after all a WELL written citation is an affidavit of events - hence the requirement of an officers signature - either actual or electronic) - but this would require others in thelegal profession to have to give up their lovely 9 to 5 world as well - and that WILL NOT happen in this 'burg. This would also save many THOUSANDS of dollars in court pay.

Take Home Cars

* Again, by the mayors OWN admission the take home car program is equal to 7000 to 9000 dollars in an officers salary per year, so PLEASE TAKE THE CARS and give me that raise, as it will help my retirement. But the car program if properly utilized does indeed give the impression of more officers on the street than there are in reality. At any one time during a normal duty shift there are only 80 to 100 LMPD uniformed officers on duty accross the entire city. The problem with the program is that monies are wasted on umarked "command" cars... Are these commanders to good to stop and assist?