Being a cop isn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, no matter what size of police department you work for. As a matter of fact, the difficulty of the job increases exponentially with the size of the department.
As the population increases, so do problems.
To deal with these problems, some of which have mutated since I retired in 2013, requires a lot of training. I mean a lot.
Back when I got started, 1977 at Ontario PD on the auxiliary, if you took a 40 hour 'short course' you could work on the street...provided you started a standardized law enforcement academy within a year. Forty hours. If I recall correctly, a standard police academy back then consisted of 280 hours.
As an auxiliary copper, I worked as much as I could, knowing it was an investment in my future. I'd work Fridays and Saturdays nearly every weekend, riding with a full-time guy (there were no females at OPD back then) and soaking up as much as I could.
Nowadays, I don't think two-hundred-eighty hours is even one-fifth of what the State of Ohio requires. A majority of departments, and almost all the larger ones, require at least an Associate's Degree to even qualify to take a Civil Service exam.
That wasn't even a consideration in 1977. Education wasn't as important as real life experience, such as military service. A military vet, in my opinion, is preferable to someone who spent four years in college to earn a degree in French Antiquities. I'm not saying education is a bad thing in law enforcement; I'm just of the opinion that, as long as some part of that college degree is remotely connected with enforcing the law, all the better. Most of the policemen I worked with were military vets...and some pretty good coppers, too.
Starting out, back in the day, you rode with a veteran officer until they thought you could handle yourself out on the street. Every rookie impatiently waited for the day they were 'cut loose' in a cruiser by themselves, that first shift alone being a mixture of excitement and terror. At Mansfield PD in 1984, my training officer was Sgt. Bob Poth, a big, lanky guy who seemingly knew everybody in the city and who was a cop's cop. Known as 'Pappy' or 'Slim' by those we came in contact with, I remember being amazed at how easily he handled every situation, how calm he could be no matter the circumstance. After a couple of weeks I was handed off to Ptl. Bob 'Bumper' Shook, a man who I was convinced had ice water in his veins. A few weeks with him and Bob pronounced me ready to go though, looking back now, I think he may have just gotten a little weary of hauling a new guy around with him every afternoon. That was it, though; no structured training program. You just had to prove that you could do the job adequately.
Today is a much, much different story. I can't comment on exactly how the field training program is structured now because I've been out of law enforcement for awhile but, suffice it to say, it's pretty extensive. Over the years civil litigation has largely grown police training standards, thanks to the lawsuit-driven environment today's law enforcement agencies are forced to operate within. I was a Field Training Officer for five years at Mansfield PD in the early '90s and, the way the program was administered back then, a rookie officer would work several training cycles, usually six weeks apiece with a different FTO at each level.
The mantra then, as I'm sure it is now, is document, document and then document some more. We operated by means of a Field Training Guide, in which was included just about every police task imaginable. At the end of every shift the FTO filled out an evaluation form and then went over it with the trainee. A separate eval, based on the daily observation reports, was then completed at each level of the training cycle. It was a huge but necessary paper trail and not every rookie would make it through the program.
As an FTO it was easy to get burned out. I'm just glad I started when I did and had some solid, patient coaches.
Otherwise, I might have spent my entire working life in the grocery business instead of wearing a badge.
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