Advocacy & Safety - Any book on police officer day-to-day job?

Is there any good book that outlines the day in the life of a typical police officer? I often wonder how cyclists grievances rank in their list of duties they have to attend to. My guess is we rank fairly low in the totem pole . I'd like to read about what other 'crimes' we compete with for their attention.

Or if anyone here has personal experience ( if you were a former officer ) , please post the details.

I'd like to read about what other 'crimes' we compete with for their attention.

Try reading your local newspaper.

Typical police officer day is:
Drive around for a few hours, try to initiate contact as much as possible. Take lunch. Finally initiate contact with someone you can bust. Process them for a couple hours. Spend another couple hours doing more paper work. Call it a day.

Sometimes you kill at least a half day in court.

Most contact is a result of someone driving improperly. The city nearest to me, Vancouver, WA just put a new law on the books, making helmets mandatory for bicycle riders of any age. Word has it this law was passed specifically to give officers a reason to initiate contact with cyclists.

There are the occasional bicycle-oriented stings down in Portland. They typically involve going after those who blow stop signs.

In the grand scheme of things, I'd imagine specifically going after bikes ranks below going after cars.

Try reading your local newspaper.

That doesn't do much because I have no idea what % of cops work on those crimes. In other words, there may be dozens of scary crimes, but if my city has hundreds of officers, then most are not working on them.

Why don't you sign up for a ride-along?

http://www.cops.com/

Why don't you sign up for a ride-along?


This man speaks great truth...Do a ride along in possiable..Ive done several ride alongs with LEO friends and what takes up most of their time is paperwork..Handle a call, start on the paper work...get another call, stop paper work and answer call, start on old paper work and hope fellow officer helps with new paperwork..If we took someone to the holding it took about 1/2- 1 hour to get them in the system allthewhile a trustee would clean the car and check for anything the perp may have dropped in between the seat . Once that was done it was back to paperwork till the next call..Calls consisted from Traffic accidents, potted plant theft, kids breaking into a school to taking down an 100lb female who had been Baker acted...Crazy woman almost put a 200+ lb officer threw a plate glass window..

My shift often starts at 10 PM with a BMV report or two, then a loud noise call or two, a disturbance call or two, then proactive patrolling, with extra attention to "critical infrastructure" and likely terrorist targets. I write traffic tickets when someone does something stupid enough in my presence. About 0430 hours, the calls start "dropping" again, as this is a favorite time for business burglaries and for drunks at home to start really beating their spouses. The 0430 call from hell is not a nightly thing, but happens often enough for me to dread that time of morning, as my body can tolerate being up all night, but REALLY wants to be in bed before the sun is shining.

It is important to remember that it can be difficult to define a "typical" police officer, and the officer's work day can vary so much. I may commit no mental cases to the local neuropsychiatric center for several months, then commit two in one shift. I may arrive on no "hot" burglaries for several months, or arrive on several in one night. I may not point my pistol at a person in weeks, then very nearly shoot more than one person in one night. (I have actually pulled the trigger all the way to hammer drop, on a human being, just once, in a 25-year career, thus far.) I may drive 35 miles in an 8-hour shift, or 100 miles. I just did only my second dog bite report in my career last week. One of my co-workers, an academy classmate, with the same amount of time on as me, working my same shift, in the same district, has had to shoot several dogs that were attacking him or others. But, he has never had to shoot a person.

Is there any good book that outlines the day in the life of a typical police officer?

this one is a nice summary... and they
even made a movie out of it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_the_City).

"What Cops Know". It's an older book (1990s) so look for ti at your library or used book outlet.

Not sure what grievances you are talking about? If your bike is stolen they are not going to send in a SWAT team to find it. If your bike is stolen and you see it for sale on craigslist, you have given them something to work with.

If "cyclist grievances" was intended to mean motorists behaving badly when driving in the presence of cyclists, well, that would, for me, fall under incidental traffic enforcement that happens during routine patrol. I don't work traffic enforcement as a priority, and motorists usually behave themselves when they see a white Crown Vic with huge blue letters spelling "POLICE" along the sides. If Texas will pass a workable safe-passing-distance bill, I will gladly enforce it.

If "cyclist grievances" was intended to mean motorists behaving badly when driving in the presence of cyclists, well, that would, for me, fall under incidental traffic enforcement that happens during routine patrol. I don't work traffic enforcement as a priority, and motorists usually behave themselves when they see a white Crown Vic with huge blue letters spelling "POLICE" along the sides. If Texas will pass a workable safe-passing-distance bill, I will gladly enforce it.

What if "cyclist grievances" were intentional "buzzing' by a motorist using their car on purpose? Is that assualt w/ a deadly weapon? If this happens and would reporting it have any results? I just had this happen by a motorcyclist over the weekend. I couldn't catch him enough to get his tiny plate number. It happened very quickly.

I believe Calif doesn't have a 3 foot law, but does state "safe passing" or somehting like that, Could a 1 foot passing distance be concidered safe? I guess the speed of the pass would come into play. just curious.

Thanks,
Jeff