Becoming a Police Officer: An Insider's Guide to a Career in Law Enforcement by Barry Baker

Author:Barry Baker [Baker, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

14

Supervisor’s Complaint

…the type of complaint Your department will have its own criteria for handling complaints made by citizens against police officers. When a citizen makes a complaint against you, it will most frequently go directly to your immediate supervisor. Depending upon the type of complaint, and the procedures of your department, your supervisor will determine if the complaint can be resolved by the supervisor.

…misunderstandings Some complaints may be of a nature serious enough to require the supervisor to investigate and submit a written report to your Internal Affairs Division. However, the vast majority of supervisors’ complaints deal with misunderstandings between officers and citizens.

…useless advice Right from the beginning, you’ll hear other officers, and some supervisors alike, make the following statement, “If you don’t get complaints, you’re not doing your job.” When you hear this comment, file it away with all the other useless advice you’re going to receive.

…really strange people As a new officer, you can pick up bad habits really fast. One of the worst is an inability to converse with people you consider to be not worth your time. When a person seeks your assistance, you should keep in mind that the person who called you thinks his or her problem is serious enough to call police. To be sure, you’re going to run into some really strange people, and many of those people are going to be so irritating. Some situations will be funny while others will be simply ridiculous, but, funny or ridiculous, to those people they’re not.

…attitude As a police officer, it’s not your job to laugh at, or ridicule, any person just because that person’s sense of proportion does not fit your view of normality. The vast majority of supervisors’ complaints will reveal no wrongdoing by the officers. What they will reveal is the complainants’ displeasure with the officers’ attitudes. You have to remember that every person, regardless of his or her station in life, can be insulted.

…sympathetic listener Even if there’s nothing you can do to help the person, it doesn’t take that much time to make the person believe you at least care about his or her plight. Frequently, a sympathetic listener is all the person really wants. Who knows, there might come a time when you’re in a really bad situation, and one of those silly people is the only person nearby to call 911 and get you some help. You may say the odds are against that…not as much as you’d think.

…order of the day If you’re working for a good squad supervisor, which is normally a sergeant, that sergeant will not be wasting his or her time resolving needless supervisor’s complaints. If you land in a squad where such complaints are the order of the day, be careful, you’re on your own. If a sergeant cannot control the behavior of his or her subordinates, that sergeant will be weak in other areas as well.

…enough is never enough No matter how much you try to placate people, you will generate a supervisor’s complaint at some point.

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