Merit board reduces suspension of officer who ticketed 7-year-old

Rant,

You hit it the issues with the forementioned schools on the head: They teach management, not leadership. We have plenty of managers, we need a leader.

You say, "All the police schools you referenced in your post are tried and tested by scholars and doctors in their professions. It is NOT necessary for one to have ever been a police officer to teach police management as it is NOT necessary for one to have ever been in the military (or act like the military type) to "lead" LMPD."

You hit it the issues with the the forementioned schools on the head: They teach management, not leadership. We have plenty of managers, we need a leader. And to further this line the fact that for well over 100 years professionals and PHD level educators (experts if you will) taught the theory eugenics as a common fact, will disprove you entire argument. Even after WWII, you still found academics clinging to this view. The reality is different, we need schools that can teach, and test, for the combination of management and leadership skills.

And the fact remains, policing is not a "business". With the exception of maybe the traffic and narcotics enforcement officers, no part of our agency makes, or has the potential to make, "income" for the agency. While I agree that government, and police agencies, need to be good stewards of the citizens tax dollars, we also recognize that we exist because of a problem that society says exist: crime. Until we make the "criminals" responsible for repaying the cost of enforcement, no agency shall ever "turn" a profit. That is simple economics.

And to be blunt the business mindset will never be appropriate when it comes to tactical situations. After all an active shooter, is simply a COMBAT situation in the a civilian environment. Hence the reason the police agencies are modeled on the PARA-MILITARY system.

And to be even more candid, many, if not all, of the agencies "managers" have failed to understand the difference between Strategic, Operational and Tactical planning and tend to encompass everything into a "business" mindset. They simply respond to a two week cycle of the compstat report, which is ALWAYS has addressed the issues two weeks behind, never in real time (that would be a TACTICAL response if a STRATEGIC change was made to the OPERATIONAL model)

You ironically state that you love the descriptor, "they are squared away". I prefer the terminology, "they are 10-8", meaning the officer is present, willing and able to do the job and willing to learn. But again, Rant, you try to make an argument were none exist.

I will also agree, you have to have managers (those who may competent paper pushers), but we need to remove the managers who are unable, or un willing to "LEAD", or who are merely self-promoting. Being a strong leader, doesn't preclude the need to be a good manager of resources, after all that is what logistics is all about. However when you have "managers" who can't manage, let alone lead, you run into the situation we are in now. A leadership vacuum.

And to close actually you are wrong, G.W. Bush was a reservist and Obama served in the air force. Clinton simply evaded the draft.

Politics aside, I will agree that most officers tend to become conservative in their views, and many are republican, but I know of more registered independents and several democrats as well. Studies suggest that most police are more often than not socially liberal and fiscally conservative (after all the FOP is a union) but the law has always been the bastion for conservative action. So please take you preconceived political argument and leave it be as we, the individual police officers, are as politically diverse as the rest of society.

And in to close, I will remind you that most of the successful "businesses" have begun to obsorb the "military" leadership model of training "leaders" not managers. But then again, we as the police are always behind the times.