December 2006

Engineers Make Good Reserve Peace Officers? Yes, It's True

By David H. Simon

Let’s start with this: what’s a reserve peace officer? The fact is, most people have never heard of such a thing. But many law enforcement agencies in America, including some of the largest, have citizens who have received police training and, usually for very little compensation (we’ll come back to this), assist full-time officers.

In fact, in some departments like my own, reserves do everything regulars (full-time deputy sheriffs) do, including working patrol, sometimes with two reserves working together and sometimes with a reserve working a one-man (or woman) unit, depending on the level of training and skill set of the individual reserve. They also work as detectives, search and rescue, Aero Bureau (helicopters), Marine (boat patrols), mounted posse and many other assignments.

I maintain that engineers can make especially good peace officers. And I’ve got a good background for saying that: I have a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and a Certificate in Advanced Studies (the equivalent of a Master’s) from Cornell University, back from the days when all Cornell engineering and architecture students had to put in five years to earn the baccalaureate. I was even an IEEE member — way back when it was the Institute of Radio Engineers. After college and a three-year stint as a U.S. Navy destroyer officer, I combined my engineering knowledge and my communication skills, and started with Sylvania as what they called a “marketing engineer” at a division outside of Boston that made magnetrons, klystrons and microwave diodes.

A number of years later, after becoming Teledyne’s Corporate Director of Public Relations and Advertising, I started what we later discovered was the nation’s first public relations agency specializing in high technology, even before the term “high-tech” came into use. After five years, the agency was doing far better than I could have dreamed, and I decided it was time I gave something back to the community. Through the Public Relations Society of America’s local (Los Angeles) chapter, I learned that a team was being assembled in response to a request from Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) for help in understanding why it didn’t have good relations with the local media, especially television. When the project was completed, I was invited to become a reserve deputy, a term I had never heard before. I accepted the challenge, and it has enriched my life in ways I could never have imagined.

But let’s get back to my point that engineers make good peace officers. Among the traits that cops need to be safe in the field are powers of observation, innovation, patience and analytical skills. I think most EEs would agree that those same qualities are important in the engineering profession to a greater or lesser degree, depending on what your job responsibilities are at any given point in your career. They’re certainly important to cops.

Observation is important. Whether you're working patrol, are a detective, or whatever your assignment, you need to be aware of what’s going on around you, both the big picture and the little details. For example:

• The passenger of the car you just stopped leaned down as though he were putting something under the seat: Drugs? A weapon? You’re no longer thinking “traffic citation."

• A “routine” family disturbance call? There are few “routine” family disturbance calls. In fact, few routine calls of any kind exist in police work. Early evening, dark street, unusually quiet — possible ambush? Check out the rooftops! My partner and I refused to respond to a call early in my police career for just that reason. We turned onto the street. It was too dark and too quiet. We just looked at each other, both thinking the same thing without having to discuss it. I radioed the dispatcher, explained the situation, and said we were “10-22ing,” or canceling, the call, unless the person called back. She never did.

• A suicide scene: The husband says the wife has been depressed and intentionally overdosed on her medication. But he’s a little too nervous and the story has changed in minor details each time he retells it. Better tell Homicide to roll a crew and have a look.

Innovation is important to cops because, as anyone in law enforcement will tell you, every call is different. The strategy that worked last time to get a distraught purse-snatch victim calmed down so you can get a suspect description isn’t working this time. Figure out a new tactic.

And analytical skills? If you watch the cop shows that are all over television you’re well aware that what people tell you and what really happened are seldom the same. If you have three people who observed a crime that just occurred, you may get three very different stories. You need to sift through it all very quickly so you can tell responding units what to look for, with the most accurate information possible. Which victim has the correct version?

Many law enforcement agencies around the country have reserves. With the proper training, some departments permit reserves to do everything regulars do including being assigned as the “handling unit” on crime calls, responsible for deploying the other responding units, doing the investigation, making the arrest and testifying in court. Other departments may assign reserves to more limited activities, such as working the station desk, fielding phone calls, fingerprinting and writing reports.

In California, POST (the state commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training) has established three different levels for reserve peace officers. Level III reserves have limited training and don’t perform actual law enforcement functions except routine activities that don’t put them in contact with suspects. Level II reserves work patrol under the direct supervision of a regular deputy sheriff or a Level I reserve. Level I reserves have peace officers powers,including the authority to carry a concealed weapon, on and off duty. Level II reserves receive about 500 hours of training. Level I requires an additional 344 hours. In addition, to become “patrol qualified,” approximately 400 hours of work in a patrol car under the supervision of a training officer is required.

The amount of training and the degree of responsibility for reserves varies from state to state and from department to department.

Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD), the world’s largest, has 760 reserve deputy sheriffs — that is, citizens who put on a uniform, badge and weapon and become cops for a six- or eight-hour shift several times each month, or perform other critical law enforcement functions.

In my own case, I spent the first two years as a reserve doing public-relations work for the department. Among other things, I got a big spread about reserves into Fortune magazine and two airline magazines. But in the process of those activities, after riding in patrol cars several times, I realized I didn’t want to write about being a cop. I wanted to be a cop. So I went back for additional training, got patrol qualified and spent the next 15 years working a black-and-white one night a week. Then I spent a couple of years at Homicide, followed by 10 years as a detective at LASD’s Commercial Crimes Bureau, investigating major frauds — scam artists, including lawyers; a guy who told investors he was starting an airline; and a smooth-talking character who said he was doing billion-dollar international banking transactions. He managed to get large sums of money from a bank president and a federal judge, who believed his story. (All of those suspects ended up in prison.)

After that, it was six years as an identity theft detective. Complicated, challenging investigations, but a good feeling when you figure it all out, find the criminal, make the arrest, testify at the trial, and watch them get shipped off to lengthy incarceration.

Now, with 33 years on the department, I’m an investigator and project manager at the department’s Emergency Operations Bureau, as well as the reserve Commander responsible for reserve recruiting.

At LASD, there is no age limit for reserves. Even for patrol, as long as the station captain feels you’re physically and mentally able to do the job, you can keep at it. We have many reserves who are in their 50s and 60s — some in their 70s — and still going strong.

I promised to come back to the compensation issue. You do this to be a cop and to make a contribution to society. You’re not going to raise your standard of living this way. LASD pays reserves $1 per year. Though some departments pay more, it’s always miniscule.

But take my word for it: there's nothing like being in law enforcement. It has changed my life, and is a great way to give back to the community.

Think you might be interested? Call your local law enforcement agencies (both the police department and the Sheriff’s Department) and ask about their reserve programs. Then, go for it!

And if you’re in Los Angeles County, check our Web site at www.lasdreserve.org. Then send me an email at dhsimon@lasd.org. I’ll get you started.

David H. Simon, APR, Fellow, Public Relations Society of America, is Reserve Commander and Detective for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.