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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau. Firearms qualifications, exceptional means and OODA Loops. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 61 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime-related fiction. 

This week, I'm answering your questions about firearms qualifications for police officers when your suspect is terminally ill and what the heck does OODA mean? But before we get into that, as always, I need to thank my Golden Shield patrons on Patreon, especially Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of Crimibox and Larry Darter for their support. 

I'd also like to thank all of my coffee club patrons for their support every month and a special shout-out to Amanda Feyerbend for upping her monthly pledge. Your support keeps the lights on in the bureau and you can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode by going to the show notes at writersdetective.com/61. To learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. 

This week's first question comes from P.G. Kassel and you can check out his author website at pgkassel.com. P.G. writes, "In a recent podcast, you discussed the firearm qualification requirements for police officers. As a gun enthusiast, I'd be interested to know specifically what an officer needs to do in order to qualify or re-qualify. Thanks so much for all your time in providing truly valuable information."

Thanks a lot P.G. Well, California requires yearly qualifications for firearms and it's really up to the agency to define their own standards. The basic Police Academy requires several different qualifications for handgun and shotgun, which include day and night scenarios.

Some of those are designed to demonstrate basic firearms competency and then others are actual combat courses. They're testing for different things, but in the academy, you go through a lot of different shooting scenarios. 

The big difference being that basic competency is demonstrated by standing in front of a paper target at a designated distance and then drawing and firing in a specified timeframe. 

Combat shoots are dynamic and they involve moving and shooting and I should mention that we also qualify with our rifles which are AR-15 or M4 variants. We qualify with our tasers and our less lethal weapons like bean bag shotguns or the 40 millimeter foam rounds that fit in a grenade launcher.

At my department, the stand in front of your paper target and shoot is what we call our badge shoot and we do that once per year in accordance with the state minimums and it's how we earn or lose our marksmanship pins for the year. 

Those are the pins that we wear on our uniform...                                                                                                                             Continue reading...

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, bad cops, romantic complication and interview rapport. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 60 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. This week I'm answering your questions on how to write about bad cops, romantic complications between a detective and a victim, and a quick hack for building rapport during an interview. But before we get into that, as always, I need to thank Gold Shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of Crimibox and Larry Darter for their support.

I'd also like to thank all of my coffee club patrons for their support every month, especially Amanda Feyerbend for upping her monthly pledge. Your support keeps the lights on in the Bureau. You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/60, and to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon.

This week's first question comes from Mark William Smith of markwmsmith.com, who writes, "Can you talk about bad cops? What happens when a cop goes bad? How do his fellow officers react and how protective is the thin blue line? My current work in progress has one good detective and one very bad detective who's helping the much worse human trafficking antagonist. After your last podcast, episode 59, I'm considering a revision, but I'd like more ideas on how to handle a character like this."

Well, Mark, most "bad cops" didn't start out that way. It's a slippery slope that starts with very small acts of misconduct. Things that may not seem that bad, like accepting that free cup of coffee from the gas station clerk. It's a shift in mindset that starts making way for the gray area to become a little more acceptable or even they feel entitled to it. So does accepting a free cup of coffee mean that you're a bad cop? Of course not. But where is the line between acceptable and not? If a cup of coffee is okay, how about a whole meal? If a whole meal is acceptable too, then how about a $100 gift card? How about free car from the local car dealership?

Obviously that's a steep example of a slippery slope, but seriously, where's the cutoff between okay and not okay. A dollar? $2? Five? 10? 20? 50? Or is 4.99 okay but $5 is too much? I know I'm splitting hairs here, but that's exactly the point. It's either acceptable or it isn't. When it comes to the behavior. Store owners have the right to charge or not charge their customers whatever they want, but it's up to us as cops to maintain our moral code. I was taught in the police academy to provide a commensurate tip anytime we received an unsolicited discount, and we were not supposed to solicit discounts. So if the burger joint has a company wide policy of charging us 50% of our meal, I give them a tip that covers more than the full price of the meal I just received. It isn't about what someone else is offering me. It's about me remaining ethical at all times and not cutting corners.

I realize though, Mark, that you aren't really referring to receiving discounts on food, but that's usually where the "This is okay to do" mentality begins to fester. You may have a field training officer that believes cops are entitled to those discounts because we're being thanked for our service and "the department doesn't pay us what they should" and all sorts of other excuses that are really just psychological justifications for doing something they know is wrong. If your FTO is saying it's okay, that trainee officer working with the FTO is going to chalk this up to another one of those things that's different on the street than what's learned in the academy.

The street is different than the academy. There is definitely truth to that, but there's danger lurking in that concept too. The academy is where you learn how you should act. The street is where you start to see how the system actually works. The only way to improve how the street work is handled is by changing what is taught in training. That's how you change any kind of systemic culture. Never teach the new hire the old bad habits. This is how law enforcement has changed so significantly over the last 30 years... ​                                                  Continue reading...

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, career-long fitness, amateur sleuths, and the future of policing. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau. Welcome to episode 59 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional-quality crime-related fiction. This week, I'm answering your questions about whether police departments require routine physical fitness testing, how an amateur sleuth could plausibly team with a police detective, and what I think the future of police work looks like.

But before I go any further, I need to give my shout-outs to my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of Crimibox, and Larry Darter for their support, and a huge thanks to the coffee club patrons for their support as well. You can probably hear in my voice that this has been a very long work week for me, and the coffees that you bought me definitely carried me through. You can find links to everyone supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/59, and to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

Bryan Richards, who you can find on Instagram @brichwrites, sent in this week's first question. Bryan writes, "I've been listening to your podcast since you were interviewed by Joanna Penn. Thank you for all you do in helping aspiring writers. A few episodes back, you talked about physical agility tests that new police candidates have to take to graduate from the academy and then to join a police department. The detective in my work-in-progress is up there in age. Would he have to take any periodic physical agility tests to demonstrate that he can still do the job? What about any other regular testing, like shooting? Thanks."

Well, I'm glad you found me, Bryan. Yeah, Joanna Penn is awesome, and I was very lucky to be on her podcast. To get to your question about routine physical agility testing, that really depends upon the agency, and sadly, most agencies don't require them. There are a lot that do, but the overwhelming majority do not, and I think a lot of that has to do, honestly, with being shortsighted. Agencies don't want to pay for cops to work out on duty like firefighters, nor do they want the workers' compensation claims that happen if they get injured while working out. They want us out there on the street doing the job that they pay us for, and not sitting around a firehouse... I mean, sorry, not sitting around a police station lifting weights, playing volleyball, or playing basketball. They actually want us out there working, and we definitely get criticized for wasting taxpayers' dollars otherwise.

Now, that's not sarcasm you hear in my voice. That's jealousy of my fire brothers and sisters...                                                 Continue reading...

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This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, exigent circumstances, becoming a PI, and confidential informants. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 58 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality, crime-related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about when exigent circumstances allow a detective to circumvent a search warrant, the realities of leaving the police force to become a private investigator and how detectives procure confidential informants.

But before we get into that, as always, I need to thank my patrons on Patreon, especially my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of Crimibox and Larry Darter for their support. I'd also like to thank all of my Coffee Club patrons for their support every single month and your support keeps the lights on in the bureau. You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/58. And to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

This week's first question comes from the Facebook group, which you can find by going to writersdetectivebureau.com/Facebook and that easy to remember link will take you to the private Facebook group called Writer's Detective Q&A. So Carol Ann Newsome of canewsome.com writes, "Adam, I'd love to know more about the rules of exigent circumstances. I'm thinking of a scenario in a book I just read where officers are waiting for a warrant outside of an estate where they have good reason to believe but have no proof, so in my mind that makes a warrant unlikely, that a man is being tortured and killed inside. Should they break in and rescue the man? And what trouble would they face? Could a defense attorney make the case that the victim's testimony and evidence of assault on his body along with all the serial killer's tools be deemed fruit of the poisonous tree? And if you cover this on the podcast, I hope you will talk about ways of use and misuse of exigent circumstances can affect a case."

I will do just that, Carol Ann. To start with, the Cornell Law Dictionary defines exigent circumstances as circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe the entry or other relevant prompt action was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of a suspect or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts. And the exclusionary rule is what Carol Ann is referring to when she mentioned fruit of the poisonous tree. Cornell Law says the exclusionary rule prevents...                                                                                                                                                   Continue reading...

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​This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, victim visas, one-way mirrors, and what the heck are HIDTA, HIFCA, and OCDETF? I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 57 of the Writer's Detective Bureau, the podcast dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters write professional quality crime related fiction. And this week I'm answering your questions about staying in the United States if you've been the victim of a crime, but hold no immigration status, the truth about those one way mirror observation rooms and explaining what the heck a HIDTA, a HIFCA and an OCDETF are.

But before we get into that, I have a bunch of people I need to thank. As always, I need to thank my gold shield patrons, Debra Dunbar from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp, of vickitharp.com, Dharma Kelleher, of dharmakelleher.com, Chrysann, Jimmy Cowe of crimibox.com and Larry Darter for their support. I'd also like to thank all of my Coffee Club patrons for their support every single month. Your support keeps the lights on in the bureau and you can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/57 and to learn more about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business, visit writersdetective.com/patreon.P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

This week's first question comes from Jodi Burnett and you can find her work at jodi-burnett.com. Jodi writes, "Hi Adam. Let me first say I love your podcast." Well, thank you very much, Jodi. "I listen to every week and I'm enjoying the backlist as well. I glean new story ideas with almost every episode." Well, I'll try to up that to every single episode.

"My question is regarding my female protagonist. She is a British citizen who lived with her mother in Scotland until she was 16. Her American father went to Scotland to get her and take her to America for the summer, but instead he abducted her and kept her hidden away in a militia compound in Northern Idaho. 10 years later, she manages to steal her father's phone and call the police to warn them of a domestic terrorist attack the group is planning in Chicago. Her information prevents the attack. When the FBI, ATF, and Homeland security figure out exactly where the compound is and raid it, my character is rescued. What would happen to her now? I think she'd be interviewed and would testify at the trial of the bad guys. But what about after that? She is a British citizen but has no passport, would she be given one and deported. How long could she stay in the States? Could an FBI agent, read love interest, be assigned to escort her back to Scotland? One followup question to this scenario. The compound is in Idaho. The thwarted terrorist attack happened in Chicago. Would the trial take place in Idaho or Illinois? Thank you so much for your help."

Jodi, your female protagonist would probably qualify for an American U visa and that's the letter U. A U visa lets victims of crimes who meet certain requirements stay in the United States. In your story's domestic terror plot, she's technically a witness, but she's also the victim of a parental kidnapping. So, it's the kidnapping case that would make her eligible for the U visa. And to qualify for a U visa, there's three requirements. The first is a crime requirement, meaning that she is the victim of a crime. The second is a helpfulness requirement, so she needs to have helped either law enforcement or the prosecution. And the third is a harm requirement, meaning that she suffered some sort of physical or emotional harm from the crime. So, she clearly suffered harm, was helpful in the prosecution, and was the victim of a crime when it comes to the kidnapping, but not necessarily with the domestic terror situation.

So, that means you can use this if, depending on how you want the story to go, you can... Hanging the U visa over her head and not have her get it if you want her to go back to Scotland, or if you'd like to keep her in the States, you can have them pursue the kidnapping case as well. So the reason you would go after a U visa is because it provides a few benefits. One, you can legally live in the United States for four years and after having three years of having the U visa, you can actually apply for a green card...                                                               Continue reading...