Chief’s Counsel: The Duty to Train
Training remains one of policing’s strongest legal safeguards, if properly vetted and supported by policy.
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Lawyers play a critical role in policing. The benefits an attorney brings to a police agency extend far beyond defending officers in civil suits. Agency lawyers can be vital to every facet of the prof...
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Much avoidable policing liability does not begin with bad intent. It begins with answering the wrong question.
Officers, supervisors, and chiefs are often asked after the fact to explain why...
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Police officers are intimately familiar with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.1 The terms contained in that amendment—and how judges interpret those terms—dictate how officer...
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Failure to understand the distinction between so-called immigration warrants issued by an immigration judge or traditional arrest or search warrants issued by a federal court judge can lead to liabili...
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For today’s police officers, the first sign of a serious threat increasingly appears not on a street corner or in a call for service, but on a screen. Posts, comments, livestreams, group chats, and ...
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The practice of placing officers "on call" raises questions concerning a municipality’s obligation to pay officers, as well as the ability to restrict such officers’ activities while on an "on-cal...
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In 2011, this author wrote an article for the Chief’s Counsel section of Police Chief magazine titled “Critical Incident Review Board: Creation and Refinement.” The purpose of the article was ...
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Immigration enforcement in the United States is generally a civil matter, handled exclusively by federal agents working for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Patrol....
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Imagine this: a qualified applicant submits a résumé for a position in a department. Before anyone on the team lays eyes on it, an artificial intelligence (AI) system screens them out. No interview....
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Words matter. The terms used to describe police work—law enforcement, public safety, guardian, protector, or warrior—do more than signal a philosophy. They define the profession’s purpose, s...
