Lunch

Now that I'm retired, I can eat better than I was able to when I was working.  Boo on fast food!  And, since I'm spending time in the shop, and have a kitchen there, it's easy to put something on the stove and give it a stir while I'm tinkering ad planning.  Yes, I'm campaigning or Sheriff, and intend to run a viable race, but there is lots to do in the campaign headquarters, which is also the shop.

Today, it was crook-neck squash and onions, smothered in a little vegetable oil, with salt, pepper, and a dash of garlic powder.

Nothing wrong with that at all. No bread, no meat, just squash and onions.  After washing dishes and wiping the counter, I heard something in the driveway.

Two of the home flock were in the driveway, and had a gosling between them.

Deputies

Deputies are a vital part of any Sheriff's Department.  They deserve to be treated with fairness, honesty, and respect.

Sunday Campaigning

We're making hamburgers for lunch.  It's been a while since I fired up the grill, and grandson Lucas asked for burgers today.  Easy, peasy.

This afternoon, Belle and I are going to an event, a gathering of a local dance club.  It will be a good time to relax, meet some nice folks, and do a little retail campaigning.

I think I've broken the code on Facebook ads.  It seems like a very frugal way of putting my message out before people who may never of herd about my campaign.  I took delivery of my yard signs on Friday, and I will be getting those our this week.

Years ago I was talking with a very successful,, very rural Sheriff in north Louisiana.  He disdained yard signs, saying "Signs don't vote." I suppose he was right, he served four terms as Sheriff.  Signs are a cost that may or may not reach the intended audience.  But, it's customary to buy signs and hand them out.

We will see how the Facebook ads do, and what traffic they bring.  Like, I suspect, many other folks, I don't watch much traditional television.  These days, during my down-time, I'm apt to be surfing YouTube.  I see a lot of ads on YouTube, and I might consider trying to break that code as well.

There are now six of us in the Sheriff's race.  It's early yet, the election is not till October.  If someone gets a simple majority, it's over.  If not, the two front-runners meet in a run-off election the following month.

Retail Politics

For the past three days, I've been doing retail politics.  When I talk to people in the stores, I tell them that I'm running for Sheriff.  I have some postcards wit my campaign sign on one side and my platform on the other.  I give them a card nd if they want to talk, we talk.  If not, they get the card anyway.  If they decline, they decline.

I'm trying to break the code on Facebook ads.  The ads are cheap, and you ca target your audience.  I don't necessarily need the folks inn WHerever, KS to see my ads, but I sincerely want the folks in Rapides Parish, LA to see my ads.  Facebook and I are to the point where they are sending me a letter through snail mail with a verification code.  As soon as I get the letter, I'll sit down and finish filling out their online stuff.

I happened to stop by  local liquor shop this morning and talked with the owner.  One of his girls mentioned that she had never seen anyone campaign in a liquor store.   Retail sales of liquor are brand-new to this part of the parish and from all indications, he's doing a land-office business.  He's the kind of guy I want on my side.  And he has several cards o the cash register.  I"ll make sure that he keeps them stocked.

One lady, in a hardware store, told me that I could put a sign in her yard.  She lives on a prominent curve, and lots of folks would see it.  I ordered signs yesterday.  They should be ready for pickup next week.

My Platform

People are starting to ask about my platform, and it's fairly simple.  Basically a continuation of all the leadership and management skills that I have learned over the years, both as a police officer and an Army officer.

That about sums it up.  It's what I intend to do.

Formally Announced

I formally announced my candidacy yesterday, ad the local news station was there to cover it.


It's time to get busy.

Embrace The Suck

It's a title, a book by retired soldier Austin Bay, and a mantra for so much of what we do, both in the military and in police work.    What we do, in large part, sucks.  But to succeed in our chosen field, we have to work through the bad times and maintain our professionalism, take care of the unit, and take care of our personal growth. 

Whether you are standing a lonely guard post on a cold, rainy midnight posting, or dispatched to an in-progress domestic incident, or yet even assigned to a boring desk job, our work sucks.  It's all vital, it's all necessary, and it's not always what we want to do.  So, embrace it.  Remember that we're here to serve something larger than ourselves.  We're doing what we do to preserve freedom, to serve the community, to serve justice.

It is very nearly a Buddhist concept.  Whatever life throws at us, we're here to do a job, and the lesson comes from the way we do it.  One day, if we're lucky, we'll get to reflect on it, to realize that what we've done comes from, and makes us, what we are.

Ten years I worked in an inner-city high school, and for most of that time, I thought that it sucked.  There were very few days that I can recall that were pleasant, jovial, and memorable.  The vast majority of those days were not.  Yet, I've run into students who graduated from that high school, and they remember me, even if I don't remember them.  They are young adults now, productive citizens in all walks of life, and I can take pleasure in knowing that they remember me, many of them fondly.

In just a few days, my associates are going to give me a retirement reception, and perhaps that's why I'm being introspective.  I'll probably be asked to give a few remarks, and I'm trying to figure out how to wrap up a nearly 40 year career in two minutes or less. 

The world will not long note, nor probably even care, but it matters to me.  So, it's well that I put my thought together.  This too will suck, but I'll embrace it.  I have too much riding on it to do otherwise.

Sir Robert Peel

Robert Peel is often considered to be the father of modern policing.  His principles are taught in academic circles and have great weight in the matter of the proper  use of police management.   Years ago, I taught Principles of Police Work a t the local college, in the Sociology department, before they had a criminal justice program, and Peel consumed the first chapter of the text I then used.

The reputation of the police agencies in this country have taken a beating over the past few years.  Most famously in the Obama era, but we continue to struggle with our general reputation, in some part because we tend to forget who we actually serve.   A review of Peel's work will help us to re-focus out efforts in a manner that serves the greater good.  One of my favorite of his principles is:

The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence. 

The police are the public and the public are the police.   This is the foundation of civil police work.  We are simply members of the citizenry who are paid full-time to focus on crime and disorder.    We are no better, or worse, in large part, than the citizens we serve.

Black Pocket Tee Shirts

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, so I took a sick day.  I have a lot of sick time saved, and I'm going to lose it all next week, so rather than take the few hours the appointment needed, I took the whole day.  For, you see, I"m retiring.  My last duty day is March 28th.  On March 29th, I'll turn in my gear and begin the weekend.  My first day of paid retirement is April 1st.

I was doing laundry this afternoon, folding a big pile of black, pocket, tee-shirts, and realized that I have worn these for several decades because that's what uniform comps wear.  They are getting somewhat shabby, and they'll be converted to shop rags soon, but I'll have to decided wht to wear every day, something that I haven't had to do since I met Belle.

I had retired when I met Belle and was doing contract work but went back in uniform shortly after we met.  I've been a cop for most of my adult life, over 37 years behind the badge, and it will be over very soon.  Next week is going to be bitter-sweet, but I intend to work my last duty day just like I worked the first one.  When my shift is over, I'm sure that it will hit me, but right now, it's just something I have to do until next week is over.

I have two huge projects coming up in April, which is why I'm retiring now.  The nearest one is the shooting match I'm hosting, the second weekend of April.    The other is a project that I've been planning for six months, but that I won't talk about until April 1st.

Stand by.  We're going to have a lot of fun.

Seattle Is Dying

That is the name of a documentary by KOMO TV in Seattle, Washington.  They have reported on the intersection of the homeless/addiction/mental health/criminality problem.

My wife, the lovely and talented Belle has been a Mental Health/Developmental Disability nurse for over 40 years and puts the blame on the Clinton Administration, who started shutting down mental health hospitals because of yada, yada, yada, civil rights, these-people-deserve better, their rights to live in the community trump your rights to live in a safe, pleasant environment.

It's a problem for the police all over the country, especially if you work in an urban environment.  Even in this small city in central Louisiana, we have the same problem, to a lesser extent.  Where I happen to work, in the downtown area, we have a magnet for the homeless, but it is not just confined to the downtown area.  I talk regularly with the homeless coordinator for the schools, and we have approximately a thousand homeless children in the area.  She works tirelessly trying to insure that these children have a safe place to live and the things they need to succeed, and her work is never-ending.  It's a problem everywhere, and kudos to KOMO for highlighting the problem.

It's a great documentary, and I'm going to leave it right here so that I can find it later.



We need to get a handle on this as a society.  This is a police problem, but it is not a police issue.  By and large, we're doing our job.  This is a problem that other agencies need to address.  Seattle estimates that they spend a billion dollars a year on the problem.  Across the US, there is no telling how much we spend.  And, since 1992, it's been an abject failure.

Getting Interestinng

Our long-time Sheriff is retiring, and the candidates are lining up.  So far, three have come out formally.  All three are known in the local LEO community, and all three have a history with the Sheriff's Office. 

Alphabetically, they are:

William "Clay" Brister

Ronnie Sellers

Mark Wood

Those three are about half of who we expect to announce.  PawPaw isn't making any endorsements yet.  All three of these are good men, and we have yet to see any platforms.

In the next month or so, this should start to get interesting.  The primary election is on October 12, 2019, so we have the whole summer, and I"m certain that at least two other candidates will ammounce in the coming weeks.

Police Admin Trivia

Just finished a conversation with the local rep for the local company who supplies police radios.  The big supplier of police radios is Motorola.  Motorola is huge in police/fire/industrial radios and communication technology.

Several weeks ago, a couple of old cops were talking and the subject of radios came up.    Particularly, the cost of radios, and I asked the rep how much (ballpark numbers) how much the radio I carry costs the department.  "About $2000.00.", he replied. 

Then I took out my cellphone and commented that a cell phone is simply a thousand-dollar radio.  The rep nodded, then started to tell me about some new things coming out that we should see in the next several years.  According to him, the technology is still "buggy" and they haven't worked all the glitches out, but we should start seeing a blending of technology across the traditional walkie-talkie / cellphone technology divide.  A radio is simply a device that transmits and receives data, and cell phone tech has gotten much better over the past decade. 

It was a good conversation, and police administrators should try to stay current on communications technology.  There are exciting things going on.

Keeping Current

I used to do this fairly often when I worked for Probation and Parole, and it was a lot harder to do during the pre-internet days.  But, it's revealing to look at these things sometimes.

If you go to the Division of Administration for the Gret Stet of LA, we find the Corrections services budget for the penitentiary system is $558838822.  Then we go to the LADOC Briefing Book and find that we house 33186 offenders in our system.  If we divide those two numbers, we get something like $16,839.59 which represents the cost to house one adult offender for a year.  Divide that by 365 and we get $46.14, as the cost to house one adult offender for one day.

Louisiana houses a larger percentage of hit's state offenders in local jails rather than sending them to the state penitentiary.  This saves the state a lot of money, but the state does reimburse the local sheriffs for housing those offenders, but at the rate of roughly $25 dollars a day.

Jails are cost centers, expensive cost centers, and they are a necessary part of public safety.  If you are a public safety administrator, these figures are good to have at your fingertips, so I'm going to leave them here so I can find them later.