THE FREEDOM TO FAIL

The Nowheresville Texas Police Station:  A long time ago.

[Some details altered to protect the innocent and guilty.]

I was in a police lieutenant’s office, watching a video taken from the body camera of one of our officers.  The call had been a welfare check, where two of our people had approached a residence, heard nothing, and proceeded to make warrantless entry.

In Texas, and in the United States at large, warrantless entry of a residence by law enforcement is limited to a handful of justifications falling under “exigent circumstances.”

Basically, it needs to be an emergency that justifies breaching the curtilage [Editor:  google it – a very interesting word for citizens], and the Supreme Court has been getting tighter and tighter on applying it.  The officers had gone into this house for a situation…. not really meeting that threshold.

She looked up at me.  “This is bad.”

Clearly, the officers—both relatively new, had overstepped.  Perhaps in good faith, but they had still overstepped.

This particular lieutenant was known for her penchant for “getting ahead” of complaints; usually by a referral for investigation to our internal affairs bureau; she had famously ordered an officer reprimanded for cursing at a combative suspect following a fight.

That particular episode had made her a legend with the rank-and-file; and not a good one.  No one trusted her to treat the troops fairly.

Perhaps some of us also remembered how we had dealt with crooks who had some “captain” in them in the “old days.”  I won’t say we did anything deliberately illegal.  I will say that I and many others would have gotten a string of write ups and reprimands from her if she’d been our lieutenant in these newer days.

There is something to be said for being professional and controlling your mouth, though.  As I remember, very few of the crooks whose pedigree I read saw it my way at the end and apologized.

I raised my eyebrows and considered the situation.  I was a burglary investigator working out of her station and had been called into her office to weigh in on what to do about this – policy violations and, more seriously, legal ones.

By that point, I was a fairly seasoned cop and was well rated by those I had worked for. I had done more than my share of investigations, arrests, and other meat-and-potatoes tasks and even won an award or two.

Not to toot my horn too much, but the consensus was I had been a good outcome in hiring and a success story behind the badge.  I had earned a reputation as a problem-solver and a good source of advice.

It helped that relatively few of the failures I had experienced had hurt my career—or my life.  And that many of them had gone unknown or had been overlooked.

There were the times that I had a prisoner in my back seat and drove off, accidentally leaving my notebook and some of their property on the light bar [on top of the car].  Good thing I was able to round it all up.  My old notebook has a lot of gashes and dents in it.  It’s aluminum and has been into the road a few times.

More serious was the woman I arrested whose jewelry had gone missing mysteriously when I was booking her into jail; we hoped it was cheap but couldn’t prove it.  Fortunately, I and the city never got sued over that.

Then there was the drug arrest that fell apart after I had the person in custody and booked on the single minor misdemeanor warrant I had found to keep the custody and towing of their car legal.  The real case fell apart because I had messed up the drug test.

And finally, there was the time that I had screwed up just like the two officers in this case I was being asked to advise on.  I had gotten a call about an armed individual who had threatened several people, and I’d entered the house for what I thought was good cause.

Problem was, I had gotten tunnel vision in the circumstances and let the tactical considerations override the legal considerations that I needed to remember; not to mention learn in the first place.  I’d shown a shocking lack of basic Fourth Amendment savvy.  Fortunately again, nothing came of it and no one got hurt.

Throughout my career, I sought to grow my education and experience and be a good officer; but along the way, I screwed up a fair number of times in a line of work where screwups can be fatal or career-ending.

Those images passed through my mind. Some of my biggest failures became invaluable lessons that I learned from and wouldn’t repeat. Training was a critical part of my success. I finally spoke.

“Lieutenant, as an investigator, here’s my take on this.  First, the officers—possibly being new, didn’t apply the law very well.  I think they acted in good faith, though.  No one has complained about this, and no one got hurt.  I absolutely agree that we need to address this, but we need to do it through training, not discipline.”

“But they just went right in there!  What if something had happened?”

I paused.  Another case came to mind.

Many years after my “Fourth Amendment Screw-up,” I was working a call where a shooting had taken place and declined to search a nearby building without a warrant because, in my judgment, it wasn’t clearly related to the event, there was no exigency, and if we did go in there and had gotten into a shootout, we would have done so after an illegal entry.

My sergeant and a different lieutenant—both highly experienced—who later showed up on the scene thought I had been overcautious and ordered it searched by some other officers.

We hadn’t gone right in there on that one.

What if something had happened?

“Lieutenant, I have been in my own share of “what if’s,” and I think you have, as well.  You are standing in the unknown, reaching into the unknown.  I don’t think that’s useful.  Let’s deal with what did happen.  We have two officers who overstepped on the law, who I am sure can learn from it.  Let me speak to their sergeants and shore them up on this.”

She paused.  Part of her problem, I knew, was she hadn’t been in very many “what if’s” in hot situations.  In both the military and in law enforcement, there are some people who get promoted precisely because they have super clean records and punch their tickets right. But often that means they never got into the weeds or got their hands dirty.  She had such a reputation and kept doing things to cement it.

“Well… okay.”

I walked out of her office.  One of the officers “in the weeds” that day would go on to be a stellar investigator and leader.

Over the years I have had a chance to see good leaders, and bad ones, as well.  I don’t know everything, but I do know something.  Here are some organizational and leadership principles we need to apply in law enforcement, and that you all may be able to apply in your own lines of work.

1. Good people don’t grow on trees, so try to keep the good ones you have.  The “law” world is notoriously fickle and unforgiving of people coming short, particularly cops these days.  But we need to keep the good ones.  As more people leave the profession, precisely because of the conditions of society, fewer good ones are coming in to replace them.  We need to train them well, and do so on an ongoing basis, because skills and knowledge are both perishable.  And when they fall short, it may require disciplinary action, but many times it can be addressed with training and counseling.  Don’t break your people when fixing them will do.  And members of the public:  Think about this when the news media or lawyers call for a cop’s head.

Once upon a time, there was an Army lieutenant that made the egregious error of losing his weapon on a field problem.  In the military, that’s taken very seriously; fortunately, it was found.  That officer’s name was Colin Powell.  His commander corrected him—gently.  This was fortunate for the U.S. Army.  He would go on to be a general despite what could have been—with the wrong leaders—a career-ending event.

2. The façade of “zero defects” is indeed that—a façade, and people should stop believing in it. You would think with all of the criticism heaped on law enforcement, no one would still expect perfection from us, but somehow enough people seem to.  Even in the law, there are standards of mind—“mens rea,”  intentional, knowing, reckless, and criminal negligence.  The last standard is the lowest, and basically means disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk.  Not just making a mistake. People make mistakes and it doesn’t have to be a crime.  Likewise, when people screw up at their job, we don’t have to punish them to make things right.  Learn to anticipate and prevent problems, but respond gracefully when things get messed up and need fixing.   I have known many good cops, but no perfect ones.  Once, our local fire department’s people left three big boxes full of probably expensive gear on a scene from their big engine and drove off.  I snuck into their fire station garage and deposited the stuff.  I bet they are still trying to figure that one out!

3. Leaders must have courage, reward courage, and give courage. Too often fires erupt in organizations and due to societal pressures, politics, or the influence of a senior leader, a given leader will be pressured to treat their people harshly or make examples of them—particularly in adversarial organizations like public safety or the military.  You as a leader must have the courage to give your people what they need, whether that is mentorship, correction, or discipline.  But take the time to understand what they do need.  Also, reward courage below you.  As you grow as a leader and have other leaders and people below you, take the time to listen to them and have patience when they—gasp!—stand up to you and tell you your order(s) are a big mistake, or tell you something you don’t want to hear.  They might be right!  Be someone they can be honest with and learn to value honesty and forthrightness, even if it hurts a bit.

And the last one I will describe separately:  Give courage.  I didn’t mention this earlier, but I almost left law enforcement not long after I got into it.  I was in my initial training and was thoroughly disgusted with my experience at the hands of several instructors at the academy.  I marched into our series commander’s office intent on resigning and going back to the civilian position I had held in the local government earlier—which I would have been welcomed back to.  He sat me down and calmly told me I was doing much better than I thought.  He encouraged me to rethink my choices and give it at least a day of consideration.  He took the chaos in my spirit and mind and stopped it cold, leaving calm in its wake.  I left his office with my personal courage reborn.  I didn’t need a day, but did tell him the next day I had reconsidered and I thanked him.  Life went on.

Little did I know that just prior to his assignment at the Academy, he had been involved in a terrible accident in the line of duty that had cost another officer in another agency his life.  He could have been blamed for it, but some wise leaders saw that, as tragic as it was, it hadn’t been his fault.  He would go on to promote further and retire from our agency.

Police work of any sort is a human-engineered art, and humans are highly imperfect creatures.  Leadership is a crucial glue that holds structures made up of these imperfect beings together, and how well leaders lead will make or break that organization.  This is not self-help book fluff.  And not only leaders, but all people need to understand that they are imperfect, and invest in making themselves more successful at what they do by cultivating competence and grit.

Mark Deuce has had a life-long career in community law enforcement. He is the author of Deuces Wild for TTP.