Police Craft by Adam Plantinga

Author:Adam Plantinga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Linden Publishing
Published: 2018-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

12

The Kids

Fresh: I have this dream.

Chuckie: Yeah, like what?

Fresh: Nothing. Sometimes I have it, that’s all.

—Sean Nelson as a twelve-year-old drug dealer, Fresh

Cops don’t want to deal with juveniles. I heard of one SF officer who kept seeing an 11-year-old driving his family’s car through the neighborhood. “Just park it, man,” the cop pleaded, no doubt anticipating the typhoon of police reports, babysitting, and notifications that would accompany a juvenile arrest. The kids, they don’t make any sense. One youthful offender I know took off his felony ankle monitor, which automatically triggered a warrant for his arrest. His reasoning? It didn’t look right with his shoes.

Best-case scenario, juvenile criminals don’t grow up to be adult criminals. Because you’ve seen that before. Seen the kid who started out snatching purses and, a few years later, graduated to full-on murder. So you put some work into connecting with the kids, to make your relationship with them as positive as it can realistically be. But it’s a prematurely weathered crowd, and some of them are so angry and distrustful of authority that they treat your efforts as part of some larger conspiracy, or receive you with an attitude that oscillates between stony nonchalance and outright hostility.

“Why the fuck you even talking to me,” one teen from a tough block asked in exasperation when I attempted to strike up a conversation about something other than his lengthy arrest record. He was shot dead on the same block a few months later.

For others, you don’t even try, because you have to be able to recognize a lost cause. Like the teen rapist with the spiky hair who is always sniffing wood glue—that kid is probably on his own.

But if it looks like there’s an opening, sometimes you’ll take it. Pick a youngster as your personal project and keep tabs on him. Encourage him. First you need to separate the kid from the pack, so there’s no more audience to impress, no more show to put on. What follows varies depending on the officer. My former partner Rolf Mueller arrested a fifteen-year-old once after the boy’s struggling single mother called the police because she found drugs in his room. The boy admitted to the possession. He was respectful and doing well in school. In the war on drugs, he didn’t quite seem to be the face of the enemy. Rolf wrote him up for the dope, took him home, and wrote out a Code of Conduct for him to follow:

I will abide by my mother’s rules.

I will respect myself and others.

I will not hang out with thugs.

Rolf had the boy sign it and gave the signed copy to his mother. A Code of Conduct. It was something only Rolf would have thought to do. Maybe it would take hold.

I’ve had a standing offer with many teen offenders. If they can go a year without an arrest, I’ll buy them lunch. And not fast food either, but a halfway decent place. If they make it to college, I’ll pay for their first semester of books.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.