Print story - October 31, 2006

Apparently I can't post a link directly to the video with our new embedded video. But if you go to the print story, you should be able to access the video. Let me know if you have any problems.

Also check out a couple pictures by John Harte and Felix Adamo that didn't make it to the print version of the story.

Each time a story comes out, there’s been a corresponding video about four minutes long. I know some of you probably think I use all of the video I’ve shot. Not even close.

I’ve shot literally hundreds of clips. Some are only a few seconds long. Some are five minutes or more. Lately I’ve had to cut some really great stuff. So I’m going to try harder to get some of that footage up on the blog. Consider it the director’s cut.

Since it’s already well past my quitting time, and you have a brand new video to go with this new story, for now I’m just going to post this audio clip. It’s a cadence the recruits sung on recent four mile run. They are led by trainee Anthony McCarthy.

-- CS

For the second time in about a week, I happened upon the recruits out in the world yesterday, doing actual work. (Yes, the academy is hard work. But I mean dealing with real life cop stuff, not just simulated learning exercises.)

I will be working on the next story and video over the next few days and will hopefully get that out soon. In the meantime, check out these pictures of the recruits searching for a gun used in yesterday's homicide. Pictures by Felix Adamo and Casey Christie.

Believe it or not, I'm really not trying to purposely offend police officers in my work. It's sometimes an unavoidable side-effect of being a reporter, but I promise it's not premeditated, at least not most of the time.

When I pitched this academy project and referred to it in the newsroom, I called it Becoming A Cop. But when it came time to start writing what would go out to the public, I asked a detective what he thought about being called a cop. Is the word 'cop' considered a pejorative? He said no, he's never had a problem being called a cop. So I decided the project title would be fine.

When I went back out to observe the recruits last night, one of the training officer was chatting with me about something and he said 'cop,' but then corrected himself and said 'police officer.' He said it sounds more professional, since cop is really street slang, and he's never been especially fond of the word anyway.

The way some people say the word 'cop,' it can definitely sound like an insult. Of course, I find PO-lice, emphasis on the po, just as derogatory, but maybe that's just me.

Dictionary.com doesn't seem to think much of the word in either it's noun or verb form. At best, it's informal for police officer. At worst, it's:

n : uncomplimentary terms for a policeman [syn: bull, copper, fuzz, pig]

–verb (used with object), copped, cop‧ping. Informal.
1.    to catch; nab.
2.    to steal; filch.
3.    to buy (narcotics).
4.    cop out,
a.    to avoid one's responsibility, the fulfillment of a promise, etc.; renege; back out (often fol. by on or of): He never copped out on a friend in need. You agreed to go, and you can't cop out now.
b.    cop a plea.
—Idiom
5.    cop a plea,
a.    to plead guilty or confess in return for receiving a lighter sentence.
b.    to plead guilty to a lesser charge as a means of bargaining one's way out of standing trial for a more serious charge; plea-bargain

So is 'cop' a bad thing to call officers? When you say 'cop,' do you mean it as an insult? Is it one of those words where the group itself is allowed to use it, but they take exception when non-cops say it?

-- CS

Courtesy of Sgt. Joe Mullins, the man in charge of all things academy. Apparently the internet is teeming with examples of criminals hiding in car trunks. About 30 years ago, one even killed a cop. So clearly the RTO's are very smart to train the recruits to check the trunk. I'm a bad person for questioning them, and I'm off to sit in a corner and think about my actions.

By the way, one of these days, I'll have to write a blog just on Sgt. Mullins. He is probably my favorite person to interview of everyone I've come in contact with through this project because the man is the kind of smart that doesn't have to hide behind the complicated phrasing so many cops like to use. It's a Zen kind of intelligence and toughness. It just is. He's also vaguely terrifying. But he was not the one who suggested I sit in the corner to think about my actions.

Anyway, criminals in trunks...
Two gunmen robbed the Hahn's Shoe Store at Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road in Silver Spring shortly after 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 9, 1972, resulting in a patrol unit stopping a southbound suspect auto on Georgia Avenue near Wayne Avenue. The vehicle and its lone occupant were taken to the Silver Spring Station. Detective Lieutenant Donald Robertson, who had already worked the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift, voluntarily stayed over to help. At approximately 6:30 p.m., Lieutenant Robertson became suspicious that the second holdup man might be hiding in the trunk and went downstairs to search the car. As he began to take off the rear seat cushions, two shots rang out, and Lieutenant Robertson slumped in the seat. The gunman in the trunk, a 25-year-old heroin addict, was found dead a few minutes later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Lieutenant Robertson died an hour later at the Washington Sanitarium in Takoma Park of a wound to the head. The 35-year-old Lieutenant had just completed 13 years in the department that same day.

And another...
Livonia, Michigan, 1995: Officers Yon and Goralski found an armed robbery suspect (still armed) hiding in the trunk after a car stop.

-- CS

I went to watch the recruits pretend to get shot during a vehicle pull-over on Friday night. I'll write a lot more about that in the next story.

But one of the thing I found interesting was that as they approached the car, which in reality belonged to Detective Jack Smith and was driven by his daughter and her boyfriend acting like dangerous criminals, the recruits always put their hands on the trunk of the car.

I didn't think much of it, until one of the training officers told me they do that to check if there's anyone in the trunk. Like hostages? Dead bodies?

Well yeah, a little. But mostly just in case there's someone hiding in the trunk, waiting to pop out and shoot a cop. It's an officer safety issue, he says. A gang might drive around, trying to get pulled over, just so a member can leap out and kill a cop.

Really? Is this really a serious a concern? Has this ever happened here? Neither of the training officers could give me an example of this happening anywhere ever, but they both seemed to think it was totally within the realm of reasonable and possible. I'll admit I'm skeptical.

So if anyone out there can find any example of this happening anywhere in the world and any time in the history of either law enforcement or motorized vehicles, and I can verify it through a second source, I'll buy you a Coke. Actually, I don't care if the vehicle was motorized. If a gang member jumped out of the back of a horse-drawn buggy to kill a cop, I'll take it.

And if you're a gang leader thinking about stuffing a member in a car trunk, then driving around town committing minor traffic violations in the hopes you will get pulled over so said member can jump out of said trunk and shoot a cop as spectacularly stupid proof that he or she is hard-core, don't even think about it, because the cops are totally on to you.

--CS