officer survival skills....a question..

F

fubsy

New member
I didnt want to hijack another thread and this topic kinda popped up....the following incident is true and only the names were changed to protect the innocent...lol......
quite some time back I lived in an 2nd floor apt in Nashville, Ive always had firearms and custom knives and swords etc......well i arrive home and the sliding doors are open and the curtain's billowing out,,,,,my first instinct was to go in, then fear took over and i realized not a good move, so I called 911 and the cop that showed up i knew on a first name basis from shooting. I explain what was wrong and he takes my key and just starts to go in---I stopped him and explained that the place is loaded with ammo and guns and maybe he ought to call for help..he just told me that if it was his time thats all there was to it and went on in......I had a few seconds of waiting that I didnt much care for.....it turned out that the maintenance people had been in to upgrade an appliance in the kitchen and had gone out on the balcony to smoke and had failed to secure that door..I wont give his name cause he still works on that force but I often wondered if that was good survival skills or not.....what do you think?........fubsy.
 
I don't know the level of experience the officer had, and I am inclined to think that BGs wouldn't stick around long after first you and then he drove up. I do know that an officer who is always calling for backup would not have a lot of friends.

Being called out of the donut shop in the middle of the coffee is hell!

Jim
 
Jim, seriously? I always thought cops would be really hard on guys who charged in on their own. Not flaming you, just a surprise to me. But you learn something new every day and maybe that's why I'm not a cop.
Personally I'd want somebody else if I was going to clear a house. Didn't a member here go in and try to clear his grandmother's house once and get reamed later by his LEO friends for not simply calling 911? Or do they consider LEO training the deciding factor?
 
I'd rather a fellow officer call me and me not need me there than for him/her to John Wayne it and live/die to regret it.

Erik
 
Jim, I tend to believe your right....and that this man indeed figured that they were gone. Im not sure of his exact time on the force, i do know that he worked the swing shift att and so did i, I dont know if that would help establish his experience or not. But I know this, my adrealine was running full out and it allowed me a small infintestimal look at what he might have been up against on a regular basis....It made a bigger impression than any comments Ive ever heard or read about leo's.....I did mention this to another leo who I was friends with and who knew this officer, it was the first time i had ever the comment about an "officers survival skills", Up to that point it had never occured to me....later folks...fubsy.
 
Jim's probably right.

Here's my experience. I pulled into my driveway one night (lived in the "country") and there was a car running in my driveway. I saw a guy bolt out the backdoor with a long gun. I got the make, model and plate and split. When the car left I returned home and called 911. About a dozen of my firearms were on the couch rolled up in a blanket (before I could afford a safe). A quick inventory showed a 4 inch 19 and 2 1/2 inch 66 were missing. I called 911 back and told them of the missing guns. They got the guys (Dave Tanner and his puke nephew, bite me Dave) and the 19 was recovered in the spring in my backyard when the snow melted. The 66 never showed up.

Fear works both ways. The guy who ran out the back door busted the screen door to pieces. The other one got in the kitchen sink and kicked out the window and fled. I didn't have a firearm in the vehicle or on my person, and frankly I wouldn't have confronted them even if I did.
 
Fubsy,
Everyone works by his gut feeling at times. I'm sure he thought the bad guys were long gone. I've done stupid things like pulling the squad car up in front of a house I was going to before, sometimes you just have a brain dump.

Personally, I would never enter a building alone in those circumstances. you just never know. Last fall we were having a very busy evening. There were just three of us working and the calls were stacking up. I was just pulling into the drugstore parking lot to take a suspicious person report when a burglar alarm call came in. The other two officers were busy handling an accident and a shoplifter at Wal-Mart. I decided the suspicious person complaint could wait and proceded to the alarm. I was early evening (about 4:30) and I figured it was a false alarm. I arrived at the house and found the front door open. Had the TC call the keyholder and I waited for backup. About 20 minutes later the officer handling the accident arrived and we searched the house. Didn't find anyone and the owner could find nothing disturbed. I KNEW that this would be what happened, but I waited anyway. I'm not saying that your friend was unsafe, just that I would have waited.

Jeff
 
Fubsy,

1. Those tactics pretty obviously sucked, as you probably guessed.

2. I really wish you had emailed me privately about this incident back when I worked with Metro, in case I was ever working around that doofus!
 
rob,
This incident occured long before I knew of tfl or the people on it.
I didnt bring it up to give anyone grief, just something to look at.....I did tell a friend about this incident only because of my concern, and I filtered that through him because he is an leo of many years experience and he is a tactful man and could perhaps bring this up to the individual in a way that would be positively responded to if he deemed it necessary.......He is still in that capacity and is still a very good man and i had no intention to slam this man. But ya know ya leo's see this sort of thing more often than us civilians and perhaps my lack of experience in such matters was causing me to react improperly.
later...fubsy.
 
It clearly shows the need for a safe and SECURE location to keep guns. They are called "safes." Guns are a HOT item. How many of you toss empty cartridge boxes etc., into your trash? A good way to shout to the world you have GUNS. Maybe you subscribe to a gun magazine. Now the mail carrier knows.See how it works.
Had a student with a good gun safe and they got into his house and used HIS tools to crack it. Think of that also.
Security has to be good with any guns. And if you have guns and they know it, don't count out a home invasion. Heck, in my neighborhood they will kill you for a nice bike or sneakers. Imagine what they will do for a nice Glock.
Home security has to be a religion when you have guns on the property. Wish it was like the 60's where we just kept them behind the door.
 
plusp,
You are absolutely right on this issue. security is every owners responsibility. The points you've brought up concerning "safes", has always been a consideration. What i failed to do was to secure those items in such a way that they could not have been stolen. When I would leave town, I would drop them off at my local gun shop and they would hold them for me. I have also had occasion to put one in a pawn shop while I had to leave town to make sure it would be there when i returned. Of course there are negatives to both of those situations any more.....
I dont want this part to sound paranoid but I do not advertise that firearms are present, no bumper stickers, no decals, I live in rural area so I burn my paper trash, and I dont buy material in the town i live in and shop primarily out of my area. I use a po box in the town i work for mail, not the town i live in. I will generally have things sent to one shop and pick everthing up there if Im ordering something, these are decisions i made a long time ago....and they have worked well. No firearms are displayed in my home. I also dont do show and tell....except with a very few close buds....fubsy.
 
A foolish move but maybe there was no backup available? Hard to say. On the other hand, how many would say the cop was being too cautious and if he`d acted sooner he would have caught the BG? Nobody would say that, right? Yeah, sure.
I worked midnight to eight for a good part of my career. Every roll call we were instructed to back each other up on all jobs and car stops if they were available.
In most small towns cops work without close backup. Where I live the Chief works mostly days by himself. The closest backup is at least 20 minutes away. I keep a scanner tuned to the local frequency and it`s usually pretty quiet. Once in a while a job comes over that sounds a little odd. If I hear it I`ll take a ride and sit discreetly down the street in my car. If I see him on a car stop I`ll pull to the side and watch. He knows it and is always happy to see me. He once offered me a job but I`m disabled. He also said I can respond to any call I feel like. I`ve had enough excitement to last me the rest of my life but give me a good gun run and I`ll be there armed with a bottle of nitro pills and whatever firepower is at hand. When backup arrives, I`ll gracefully withdraw.
 
dinosaur,
I wasnt critizing his speed in going through the house,,,,I was more concerned for his welfare than anything else. Maybe this will help, it was a 2nd floor apt and there were only two ways out, the balcony or the door we were in front of......fubsy.
 
Fubsy;
I wasn`t saying that about you. I`m sorry if you read it that way. But people do make complaints like that and worse. I was fortunate. I usually worked with a partner so there would be two of us on the scene. It`s a judgement call then too. If I was alone, back up would usually be only a minute away. Some cops think it shows weakness if they call for back up. If someone were to tell me the same story you told him, I think a little caution on my part would be in order.
 
PlusP:

Seemed pretty natural to me, when my new safe was installed, the first thing that went inside it was the cutting head off of my acetylene torch. The locksmith's kid looked kinda quizical, his old man just said: "Good choice".
 
Fastforty-
It was my understanding that all those shelves around the hinges and locks were put there for the express purpose of storing all my FFFG black powder....... :cool:
 
Fastforty. You are a wise man. I learned about safes from the comedian Louie Anderson's brother. One of the best box men in the biz for years before he went legit.
He was an advisor of the movie "Thief" with James Cahn and James Beloushi. If you want to see realistic safe work rent that film. Incredible.
 
My comments regarding calling for backup were not entirely serious. Still, a cop who calls for backup every time he gets out of the car is not going to be looked on with favor by other officers.

As for two-officer patrols, that went out when penny-pinching citizens and city councils found out that cars cost less than cops. So, one cop to a car, and if they ever get automatic patrol cars, there won't even be that.

In some cities, police rarely even leave their cars; they just drive around "showing a police presence" and carefully not noticing any "problems" that might require them to actually do something. (Sorry, LEO friends, it is true, and you know it.)

Jim
 
I agree that sometimes we as LEO's fear calling for backup or cover squads. My partner and I serve warrants for a major metropolitan Sheriff's Dept. On occasion we have called for backup for other than a felony door kick and it realy inspires you to hear everyone check enroute. We have also backed up some of the local agencies in our county. They always seem appreciative of our presence, okay maybe not always. I agree with whoever posted better to be called and not needed than to not be called and needed. The bottom line is that everyone has a comfort level, but we as LEO should never let our comfort level slide because we "know" how a paticular situation will play out. I was just wondering why more cops are killed on traffic than anything else....just a "routine"(does that word realy exist)traffic offence...The bottom line is to stay safe and dont get lazy during your shift....Go home each and every night, kiss the wife, hug the kids and say your prayers...Stay Safe..
 
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