BOOT, DECONFLICTION, AND PENDING FURTHER LEADS - 070

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transcript:

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This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau, boot, deconfliction, and pending further leads. I'm Adam Richardson, and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number 70 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 being on field training as a trainee police officer, how interagency deconfliction works for narcotics investigations, and what paperwork duties in the Detective Bureau might really look like. But first, I need to thank my gold shield patreons, Debra Dunbar, from debradunbar.com, C.C. Jameson from ccjameson.com, Larry Keeton, Vicki Tharp, of vickitharp.com, Chrysann, Larry Darter, Natalie Barelli of nataliebarelia.com, Craig Kingsman of craigkingsman.com, for their support. And to Joan Raymond of joanraymondwritinganddesign.com for upping her monthly pledge to the gold shield level. And I am also hugely thankful for my coffee club patrons. I really do appreciate you. You can find links to all of the writers supporting this episode in the show notes at writersdetective.com/70. And to learn about setting up your own Patreon account for your author business or to support the show for as little as $2 a month, visit writersdetective.com/patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.

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​For those listeners here in the United States, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and regardless of where you are in the world, I am thankful for having you as a listener. I spent my Thanksgiving at home fortunate not to have to work, surrounded by friends and family, which more than makes up for the fact that I will be working through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which I'm happy to do so. My counterpart will be able to be at home with his little ones on Christmas morning. With this being the last day of November, it also means we've hit the end of NaNoWriMo, so if you were taking part, I hope you hit your writing goals.

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​All right, let's get into this week's first question. This week's first question comes from Darlene Chaney, who posted in our Facebook group, which if you haven't joined yet, you can quickly find by going to writersdetectivebureau.com/facebook. Darlene writes, yep, it's me again. I've been told that a rookie cop has to have their field training officer, FTO, with them at all times while on duty. Is this correct? Darlene posted this in our Facebook group and gold shield patreon, Craig Kingsman, helpfully replied, well, the rookie can use the restroom by himself. In all seriousness, FTOs are there to train the new officer. So yes, if they are still in the FTO phase, meaning still in field training, they should be with them at all times when out in public. And this is primarily for the trainee's own safety.

As I've mentioned on this podcast before, the majority of the tactics that we've developed over the years when it comes to officer safety tactics, are one's learned from officers being killed in the line of duty. So if your trainees only law enforcement experience is having gone through six months of a police academy or however long it was, then they still have a ton to learn about doing the job safely in the real world, meaning not getting themselves or their partners killed. When you are out in public and you're in uniform, things happen in an instant. And it seems that some cops, and I know that military veterans will attest to this too, but it seems that every squad or unit has someone that gets more than their fair share of the random, crazy, unavoidable stuff happening to them or right in front of them. And we call these officers shit magnets. Shit magnets will have the DUI car crash happen right in front of their patrol car. Or they will walk out the door of the coffee shop and right into a domestic violence situation unfolding. Shit finds them just like a magnet...                                                        Continue reading...