It's graduation night for the LPD police academy. Late this afternoon, the badges will be pinned on a group of new Lincoln police officers, who will assume their duties beginning tomorrow. It's a great event, one that I have mentioned before in The Chief's Corner. We are all proud of their accomplishment, and look forward to working alongside our new officers as their careers unfold.
We always combine our awards ceremony with the two academy graduation events. It will be a busy one tonight. There are 38 awards to bestow; 17 to officers (11 of those are life saving awards), and 21 to citizens who helped us in a variety of ways. There are retail employees and service sector employees who helped build an important drug cases by providing critical information. We will honor two citizens who intervened to help save lives along with officers, and three citizens who put their own safety on the line to help police officers struggling with combative suspects and needing a little assist in getting the cuffs applied.
We also have awards for nine private property managers and landlords that have helped us immensely in dealing with prostitution in Lincoln. This has made a real difference in the area of Lincoln where street prostitution has been most problematic. We truly appreciate their help and support.
All of these citizens are examples of the real spirit of community policing: everyone pulling together to promote a safe and secure community. These citizens didn't hide behind their window shades: they got actively involved and exhibited resourcefulness, courage, and self-sacrifice when duty called. Yes, I mean duty. In a democratic republic, we all share the duty for public safety and security. The police are merely paid to do it full time.
"fundamental principle of American law is that the government and its agents are under no general obligation to provide services, such as police protection, to individual citizens." -Warren vs DC 1981
ReplyDeleteBest wishes to those being newly sworn today! OPD just did their own swearing-in of about 50 yesterday. I just wish that the city government would do a targeted tax raise just to fund hiring more of you, but political courage is lacking, as usual, because there's always another re-election on their collective horizons. You can't buy many votes by hiring more cops, so it's not high on their list of priorities, and unlike building their own "big dig", there aren't any kickbacks to be had. A lot of us greatly appreciate what you're going to be doing out there, so keep your chin up.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, only one of the current USSC Justices was on the court when that Warren vs DC decision was handed down. I interpret the decision as saying you can't sue the city for big $$$ if the police don't protect you from all crime, because DC would go belly-up broke if you could! I'd mostly agree with that, if state, county, and local governments (and of course the feds) didn't often restrict the ability of their citizens - especially the small, the elderly, and the disabled (not all can be masters of unarmed combat) - to provide for their own personal security and safety, all the while under-sentencing and early-releasing violent career criminals back into their midst.
Best wishes for the new employee's.
ReplyDeleteThe city is growing fast and the job will only get harder.
If you can post some photos of the graduating class, it would be nifty. Maybe a group shot.
ReplyDeleteThe awards that get handed out to officers are sometimes a joke. There is a lot of good hard work put in by officers that goes completely unrecognized, then there is other mediocre work that is praised. It all depends who your sargent is and if they like to hand out paper or not.
ReplyDeleteNice graduation. You didn't give your usual speech.
ReplyDeleteHere's a group shot of my graduating class.
Be prepared.
backing up a bite-but you said for storage units to use a disc lock. What kind of locks on apartments are unpickable? Is there such a lock? I heard of a center core lock but can't seem to find them anywheres in Lincoln.
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ReplyDeleteThat's the spirit! Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.
I'm sure you're unrecognized accomplishments are worthy, but when you work independently in a job where the vast majority of what you do is known only to yourself and those immediately effected, I just guess that's how it goes. Pin a medal on yourself. Better yet, drop me a line with the details, and I'll see that you are properly recognized.
There really isn't an unpickable key lock, just ones that are more difficult to pick. When you're a new rental tenant, the much bigger risk is that every previous tenant, as well as everyone that ever had temporary or long-term possession of every previous tenants' keys (this can be quite a few people), might still have a copy of the key to your door! It's worth the $$$ to have the locks changed whenever you move in somewhere new to you (the landlord gets copies of the keys, of course). You'll definitely want to tell the landlord before you change them, in case they'd want to change them, to a set that takes their passkey.
ReplyDeleteThis is even a small risk when buying a new-construction home, because every contractor, subcontractor, and worker that ever had the keys to your new house during construction might have made and kept a copy. I'd even have those changed, but then again, I'm just a little paranoid.
That's Sergeant not sargent 6:34.
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ReplyDeleteSome Landlords change locks after every tenant - or at least take them out of commission and/or rotate them to another property - which might be a secure building. (So even if someone still had the key, they would not have the access codes.)
It is best to ask before assuming a Landlord never changes locks.
8:27
ReplyDeleteWell, I thought that "You'll definitely want to tell the landlord before you change them..." would take care of that, because when you informed them of your intentions, they'd inform you of any "regular lock-change) procedure, wouldn't they.
On Lorimor's comment and the anonymous right after..... The Supreme Court rules that police and state don't have to protect and then here in Nebraska (and especially in Omaha) we don't have a right to protect ourselves. Seems to be a problem.
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