Chief's Counsel Archives

Chief's Counsel

Police Chief Magazine|Columns|Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Subpoenaed Officers on FMLA: Stay or Go?

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 provides one of the most important legal protections afforded to employees in the United States. Eligible employees who work for a covered employer can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for the following reasons:

for the birth of a child or placement of a child for adoption or foster care;
to bond with a child (within one year of the child’s birth or placement);
to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a qualifying serious health condition;
for the employee’s own qualifying serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the employee’s job; and
for qualifying exigencies related to the foreign deployment of a military member who is the employee’s spouse, child, or parent.

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Asking Right Question

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...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Where Policy Meets the Law

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...

Investigations

Chief’s Counsel: ICE Detainers and Warrants

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...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Patrolling the Digital Street

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 ...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: The Price of Readiness

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...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Are After-Action Reports Privileged?

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 ...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Immigration Enforcement by Local Police

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....

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: The Algorithm Trap

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....

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: Beyond Law Enforcement and Guardians

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...

Chief's Counsel

Chief’s Counsel: SCOTUS Affirms Totality Standard in Use-of-Force Cases

On May 15, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Barnes v. Felix, fundamentally altering the legal evaluation of excessive force claims under the Fourth Amendment. The ruling reje...