Podcasts | In The Line Of Duty

Podcast: Thumbs Up To The Passenger-side Approach

Recently, I made a lengthy motoring journey to visit my elderly aunt for her 95th birthday anniversary. It encompassed about seven and a half hours on the road from St. Louis to Wichita. Now, long drives are second on my bucket list of all-time, most fun activities only to getting my teeth ground down. All by my lonesome, too, which made the trip even more fun-filled. To pass the time, I listened to old radio classics on my satellite radio, and, I kept an eye out for law enforcement. Not to avoid them, but rather to see what I could glean in the few seconds I could eyeball officers while barreling down the highway.

Other than a Missouri trooper directing traffic after a horrid accident on I-70, I didn’t see a single cop until I crossed the state line into Kansas. THAT was very much another story. In relatively quick succession. I encountered four officers, either state troopers or local deputies, who had stopped vehicles in the beautiful Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas for various infractions. It really gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, too, to see that in every instance the officers had made a passenger side approach. In one case, a young officer almost ran from his cruiser to the passenger side while he also touched the driver’s trunk for identification purposes. I could only presume he was so speedy because he didn’t want the driver to notice he was making a passenger-side approach. Don’t know, for sure. In any case, it gratified me to see that every cop along the way had adopted an approach that I have long, long advocated for many reasons for officer’s safety. Continue reading Podcast: Thumbs Up To The Passenger-side Approach →

Don’t Put a Target on Your Back | Police Podcast

In November, 1942, a gentleman named Fridolph Trieman took his imposing German shepherd and a neighbor’s equally fierce looking dog for a rump in the grass of New York’s Central Park. Bear with me here, because I’m gonna make a hell of a point, which all cops, paramedics, firefighters, and first responders need to hear. You international listeners to this podcast as well.

Hassa, the German shepherd, soon came back barking and tugging at Mr. Trieman’s trouser cuff. He followed the dog to a ditch, where he spotted the body of a young woman. Her skirt was pulled up, exposing her legs and panties and a sleeve had been ripped off her coat. Four welts around her throat hinted at a cause of death, strangulation.

Ultimately, the 24 year-old woman’s estranged husband was nailed for the brutal slaying. You can read it for yourself in the archives of the New York Daily News, just Google Louise Almodovar. That tragedy, however, is not why I have produced this podcast. Continue reading Don’t Put a Target on Your Back | Police Podcast →

To Vaccinate or Not, that is the Question! | Police Podcast

It was not Shakespeare who said “Opinions are like assh#les, everybody’s got one.” However, when it comes to getting the COVID vaccine or not, that quote beats anything old Will ever uttered. For it is so true. Everybody’s got an opinion whether or not to get vaccinated. So whom do you believe after cutting through all the bluster, hype, propaganda and obfuscation? We decided to go with Dr. Andrew Dennis. Andrew is the head trauma surgeon at Chicago’s busiest trauma hospital. He is also a cop, a member of two Northern Illinois SWAT teams and medical director for the Illinois State Police. He was the technical director for NBC TVs, Chicago Med, and he is a technical advisor for In the Line of Duty. I wanted to get Andrew’s thoughts about the fact that a sizeable number of law enforcement officers to date have chosen NOT to get the vaccination to which he responded that both he and his wife, who is also a doctor were among the first to roll up their sleeves and get jabbed. Continue reading To Vaccinate or Not, that is the Question! | Police Podcast →

Have You Ever Tried ‘Compassionate Policing’? | Police Podcast

You may have seen the photo a few years ago. In it, a Colorado officer is holding a two year-old little girl on his shoulder by the side of the road and pointing up to the heavens. He is also singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ to her as he diverts her attention away from the horror going on behind them as first responders extricate her mom, dad, and siblings from a terrible crash. Mom and sis were airlifted to an area hospital. Two other children were removed by ambulance. Dad, however, didn’t make it.

Officer Nick Struck’s act of compassion via that photograph went viral and worldwide.

“When, uh, when I was out in the field, I was singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and pointing to the lights on the fire truck. And she put her arm around my shoulder, just like my daughter does. And that’s really when the emotion starts kicking in, in that moment, having that little girl in my arms. Yeah. She fit exactly like my daughter did. And you know, one of the things with my daughter is, uh, I always want to encourage her and uplift her and make sure that, uh, she’s always built up. And so for that little girl that I was holding, that’s really the goal because I want her to be protected as much as possible from what had just happened, this horrific accident. And so when I was talking to her, she wasn’t really responding back to me. So then I went to my singing skills, which are not the best and definitely not Barry White by any means, but I started singing it to her and you know, it just kept going on and on, and that seemed to work. So, you know, when it works, you just keep doing it.” Continue reading Have You Ever Tried ‘Compassionate Policing’? | Police Podcast →

I Can’t Breathe; Don’t Just Sit There with Your Head Up Your… | Police Podcast

Of all the words spoken in 2020, perhaps none had more impact on police…and policing than just three…I can’t breathe. When George Floyd was heard multiple times exclaiming, he couldn’t breathe, it was to start a national anal exam of law enforcement tactics that resonates to this day…and has taken on a life of its own. What we found when producing our training program “I Can’t Breathe–or Can I?” was collective agreement among our technical advisors, whether it’s a subject declaring he or she can’t breathe during a stop or arrest, or I’m having chest pains. I have COPD, my pacemaker is effed up, or fill in all the health utterances possible, officers have absolutely positively got deal with it. In fact, retired Sergeant Herb Hood, a Line of Duty technical adviser, 33 year law enforcement veteran, former Cincinnati officer of the year puts it very bluntly: Continue reading I Can’t Breathe; Don’t Just Sit There with Your Head Up Your… | Police Podcast →