Being a police officer is a stressful job, for many reasons.  There’s the over extended court system, the dangers of street patrol, and even the internal stress and politics of being the enforcement branch of a government entity.  To survive in this environment, it is important to have a good support team.  This could be your co-workers, or a good boss.  This could also be a supportive spouse or loved one.  I am a big golf fan.  Although this is considered an individual sport, and only one winner gets the prize, that golfer does not do it on his own.  He has a caddy advising him on every shot.  Most have a swing coach, and many even have a sports psychologist.  It takes a team to help them be successful.  If you think about it, we all have our own team that supports us in our daily walk through life. Working the streets for all those years, it was comforting to know that my parents prayed for my safety on a daily basis.  My parents are gone now, and I miss them and their prayers.  I also have a great wife who has put up with much, both from me and my crazy work hours on this job.  She put up with me coming home in bad moods from things that I had seen or been involved in, and she gave me my space.  She took care of three small children while I was traveling throughout the state working, gone for weeks at a time.  I have great kids, now grown, largely due to her efforts.  One very memorable incident took place, although nearly 19 years ago, that I will never, ever forget.  My friend and colleague, Mark Coates, was murdered during a traffic stop while we were working on I-95.  This became one of the first incidents of a police officer being killed that was recorded on the patrol car’s in-car video.  It was a long ride home that night from the lower part of the state where we had been working.  When I arrived at the house in the early morning hours, my wife met me at the door.  She already knew what had happened.  I told her, with a heavy heart, that I would quit and find something else to do.  I didn’t want to put my family through what Mark’s was just beginning to experience.  My very wise and loving wife told me no.  She told me that she knew that I would not be happy doing anything else.  She was right, and probably knew that I would make her miserable trying to spend the rest of my life making a living at something I didn’t want to do.  I asked her one time, many years ago, if she worried about me when I was working.  She told me she did not (my wife is not a worrier).  She told me she prayed for me and then went to sleep.  The subject never came up again. 

Mark’s mom is another amazing woman that is still part of my “support team”.  Instead of wallowing in her misery, she went to work helping others in the law enforcement community.  She works tirelessly with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP), volunteering her time to help spouses and loved ones of officers who were killed in the line of duty, as well as officers who survived tragic events.  She has used a horrible and crippling event to be a comfort and support to others who are suffering. 

Another member of my “team” is my mother-in-law.  I know that this is a shocker to many of you.  I have great in-laws.  They’ve never meddled in our business and have always been a great source of support and encouragement.  My mother-in-law is one of the most upbeat and positive people you will ever meet.  She sees the good in others and is always encouraging those who are down on their luck.  “Grandy” is very old school.  She still mails out handwritten notes to people she knows who, for some reason, or other are on her mind.  I’m sure the U.S. mail system loves her, since e-mail has hurt their business so much over the past years.  She even mails out cards of encouragement to pastors, who are not thought of too often as needing encouragement.  With all of the grief that they have to deal with, they probably need it the most.  I get a nice card from her about once every month or so, telling me how special I am and pointing out the good things that I do.  That, alone, is probably a hard task and causes some very deep thinking on her part to come up with something. 

Why am I writing about this?  The main reason is that it is Mothers Day, a day that we honor our mothers, grandmothers, and mothers of our children.  It is my hope that, whenever you read this, it will make you think about the special people in your life that help you through the rough times and to let them know what they mean to you.  To those police officers who are also mothers, I salute you, and am not quite sure how you do it.  And to my wife, to Grandy, and to Mrs. Coates:  Happy Mothers Day!  You are much appreciated.

It’s a new year, again.  As I get older, it seems that new years are coming around much more frequently than they used to.  Historically, the New Year is a time when people make resolutions, many concerning losing weight and/or getting into better shape, or possibly changing a bad habit.  This is a key time in the sale of gym memberships.  Anyone who regularly attends a gym to work out knows that attendance will be up for the next few weeks, or so.  About mid February to March, everything will begin to go back to normal. 

I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions.  A resolution is like a promise that you make to yourself or, sometimes, to a spouse or loved one.  It’s hard to keep resolutions and we are, in a sense, breaking a promise made to ourselves.  Promises…we hear them made in TV shows all the time.  The lead character in your favorite show says to a special guest star something like:  “I’ll come back safe from that gruesome place…I promise”.  That’s easy to do when you have a hit show and you know you’ll be back on next week at nine.  It’s not so easy to do in real life.  So I take the easy way out.  I just don’t make them.  That’s not to say that I don’t get things done or never make any changes.  On the contrary.  I just don’t beat myself up for breaking a resolution, because you can’t break what you don’t make.

Anyway, the start of a New Year is a good time to get things in order around the house.  I hope that you have your Christmas tree down by now, and the decorations put away.  When you were putting them in the attic, did you notice how stuffed it was?  Ours is, but it will be hard to get it cleaned out right now, due to the cold temperatures (it has been cold in the South this year!).  I have discovered, though, that when you shut the attic door, all that stuff just disappears.  Out of sight, out of mind.  But what about those items that needs to be updated or tossed out in your home?  You know…things that you walk right by or move to the side in a cabinet when you are searching for something.  Even if you are a neat freak, you may still be missing something.  The start of the New Year would be a great time to check your smoke detectors.  Do you have enough of them to cover all areas of your home?  Why not go ahead and put in fresh batteries while you’re at it?

Another item that we tend not to think about is medication…until we need them.  I was rummaging in a drawer in the bathroom a couple of months ago, and I came across a pill bottle way in the back from when I had a surgery.  It was a pain medication that was prescribed to me, but that I had not taken.  I looked on the label and it reminded me that the surgery was in 1995.  What was I still doing with those?  I had just forgotten all about them.  They are gone now, as well as other expired items.  If you keep over the counter medications around, as we all do, for things that may crop up, such as bee stings, common colds, etc, check the expiration dates.  If they are expired, they are not going to do you much good when you need them. 

The above examples are just a couple of ways that you can make your home safer for you and your family.  Hopefully, they will get you thinking about other easy ways to get your New Year started off right.  How about resolving to wear your seatbelt, or maybe not drive so fast?  Maybe what you need to do is to get more sleep.  By doing so, you will be more alert at the wheel and not have to speed to make it to work on time.  There is this great invention called a DVR that allows you to record “Conan” to watch when you are getting ready in the morning, or when you get home from work.

I would like to thank everyone who has sent in comments to the blog or our website.  We appreciate your input and hope that you will ask questions about law enforcement that you are curious about.  I think, also, that there has been some confusion because you cannot see your post or comment immediately after sending it.  This is so that we can filter out any spam.  We received it, and it will show up within a day or so.

I would also like to give a “shout out” to J.A.P. (you know who you are) for suggesting this blog.

Every year you see an officer on the evening news giving the standard safety and driving tips, usually accompanied by your local interstate, complete with heavy traffic, in the background.  The officer tells you to make sure you buckle up, allow extra time for your travels, and to not drink and drive.  This is good, sound advise no matter what time of year it is.  But one of the biggest culprits to bad driving is, in my opinion, impatience and inattention.  This is also true while standing in line at the cash register.  I am not a patient individual, myself.  When I was young, I heard a sermon about patience and that I should pray about it.  I thought, though, that if I did this, wouldn’t I be inviting extra trials and tribulations into my life in order to build that patient demeanor?  So…I didn’t do it.  I thought I’d try it on my own.  This hasn’t always worked out for me.  I, like many of you, sometimes “talk” to the other drivers around me.  This impatient trait was brought home one day when I was cut off in traffic and I heard my son, who was about five at the time; shout at the offending driver from his car seat behind me.  When I glanced at him in the rearview mirror, I could see him shaking his little fist at the driver.  When I turned to look at him, he shrugged and said “What?”  This incident helped me try harder to keep my thoughts to myself, at least when my kids were around.  What I am getting at here is having common courtesy for your fellow man (or woman).  In a time that is supposed to be filled with good cheer and fun times, we often feel more irritated, harassed and agitated.  Ah, that Christmas Spirit!  Those deadlines!  Wouldn’t Christmas be so much more enjoyable if people acted courteously toward one another?  What if we let that person who is trying to change into our lane come on over?  He wants to exit, too.  Maybe then he wouldn’t have to cut you off.  And it won’t add more than a few seconds to your drive time.  What if you held the door for that lady with her arms full of packages trying to get into the post office?  She’d appreciate it.

This brings me to my next point.  Going hand in hand with showing common courtesy is being aware of your surroundings.  Way back when I took Drivers Ed (yes, they did actually have it that long ago; and no, it wasn’t for a horse and buggy) we were taught about a phenomenon that was called “highway hypnosis”.  This, we were taught, happened during long trips when drivers could not recall how far they had actually traveled due to zoning out mentally behind the wheel.  Highway hypnosis is alive and well today, with many more distractions while we are driving then there used to be.  Talking on cell phones is a biggie.  I am not a proponent, though, of laws outlawing cell phone use in vehicles (although I am of texting).  Police officers, after all, have to listen and talk on their radios.  They operate a radar and camera system.  They are trained to do all these tasks and they spend a lot of their time in their vehicles on the roadways.  They are also constantly watching what is going on in their surroundings.  Training…lots of training.  We should all train ourselves to be more observant of our surroundings.  There are safer ways for phone usage, such as Bluetooth’s (should that be Blueteeth?).  Some vehicles even have them built in these days.  Anything that frees us up to pay better attention to our surroundings should be utilized.  If we are paying better attention, then we will notice that car wanting to change lanes (he’s had his turn signal on for the last two miles!).  We’ll notice that there are people coming through the door behind us and hold it instead of letting it fly back in their face.  They may even say “thank you”.  And we might just see a crime in progress.  We could see a shoplifter in our favorite superstore, or maybe a drunk driver weaving in heavy traffic.  We might see a robbery.  Hey, we’ve got our cell phone handy: Call 911!  Heightened awareness of our surroundings will make us, and everyone around us, safer.  After all, criminals want to get their loved ones presents, too.  They just don’t want to pay for them. 

As we enter this most joyous of seasons, where we spend extra time with family and friends, let’s do our best to make it a safe and happy one.  We at the Duncan Police Department wish all of you a very safe and chivalrous Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Because I did not get anyone else asking a pertinent question about our agency, or law enforcement in general, I am going to have to go with “Blade”, who wrote:  “I can’t wait for you to explain the quota we all know officers have”.  Wow.  Do police departments have quotas?  I don’t know of any that officially have quotas, but I imagine that departments that are big enough for traffic units and the like may have them.  Traffic enforcement is the only division of law enforcement that could probably be put on a quota system, and is probably what most citizens are concerned about.  I do know that we do not have quotas in our department, though.  That being said, we do keep statistics, just like every business and agency in existence.  How else do you keep track of what’s going on?  Whether it’s a private business, a manufacturing plant or a division of government, statistics let you know if your strategy is effective and whether your department and your people are doing their job and are being productive.  Let’s break it down.

Quotas:  These are generally used by companies that employ sales personnel.  The company wants to sell a product or service, so they give employees goals and incentives.  Many companies pay bonuses to employees that exceed their goals.  One problem with quotas is that once an employee meets his goals, he can kick back if he wants to.  If an employee meets his sales quota by the 15^th, he can coast the rest of the month.  This would probably happen if the company or organization did not pay bonuses.  So, if a police officer has a quota, and he reaches that quota early in the month, do you want him “kicking back”?  Who is he protecting and serving?  And he is not going to get incentives in law enforcement. 

Statistics:  Statistics can tell the real story of what your department or an individual employee is doing while on the job.  Since law enforcement is multifaceted, it is important that statistics are kept realistically and accurately.  A couple of years back I had a reporter from an area paper call me.  She was doing an article on how many police officers a department had in comparison to their “bedroom population”.  I told her that we had 14 full time officers, but three of them were full time school resource officers that worked the schools and did not patrol the town, so it would be eleven.  She told me that she would go with the fourteen, thanked me and hung up.  A few days later, the article came out saying that we had the highest percentage of officers per bedroom population than any other agency in the upstate.  This type of stat keeping is highly inaccurate.  First, using a bedroom population as the basis for the amount of officers needed is not an accurate way of knowing how many officers are actually needed to keep the population within a municipality protected.  With several schools and businesses within the town, along with restaurants, hotels, and a large truck stop, the population of Duncan always exceeds its bedroom population.  School resource officers have their hands full working the schools and do not normally have time to patrol the town.  The article also did not state what should have been the obvious:  all officers are not on duty at the same time.  Additionally any department has to have administrators to manage the department, so they are usually not patrolling.  A department also deals with coverage issues when officers attend mandated classes or take leave, or are ill.  Police departments are also smart enough to utilize personnel in creative ways with limited resources in order to have extra coverage during peak times of the day.  One way that we do this is by employing an overlapping shift rotation that puts extra officers on the street during those times.  How do we know when these peak times occur?  Well, by statistics and records, of course.  So let’s review:  All officers employed by a department are not on patrol at the same time.  Some officers have duties where they are not on regular patrol.  Bedroom population is not an accurate way to tell how many police officers are needed at any given time.

I’m sure that you are now thinking (if you haven’t gotten bored and are still reading this) “how does the police department keep accurate stats?”  Some of it is a no brainer.  We add everything up.  This is what we have to do when we report to the state, who reports to the feds.  But if we want to know what individual officers are doing with their time, it’s trickier.  One thing that our Chief of Police initiated is our use of a Business/Residence Check Form.  During The course of their duty hours, officers perform business checks at various businesses in the town.  Residents of Duncan can also notify the police department of dates when they will be out of town, and we perform the checks at their homes while they are absent.  The officer fills out the Business/Residence Check Form and leaves the hard copy portion of the form with the business.  A second, paper copy is turned in to the department.  This is just one way our department is proactive.  It lets the business or residence know that we are checking on them, and in turn lets the department know that our officers are doing their job.  It can also help us narrow down the time frame of when a crime took place, an important step in solvability.  Let’s say Mr. Jones discovers that his shop was broken into when he reports to work at 7 A.M.  He calls the police.  Mr. Jones tells the responding officer that he secured his business and closed at 9 P.M. the night before.  Mr. Jones, though, has a business check form that was left under his door that shows Officer Smith checked his business at 4:52 A.M.  This statistic has narrowed our time frame for the burglary from 10 hours to just a little over 2 hours. 

Let’s talk about traffic enforcement for a moment.  Did you know that traffic fatalities in our state are running at roughly a hundred less this year from the same period the year before?  This is largely due to good traffic enforcement, particularly in the area of seatbelt enforcement.  Seatbelt usage is still quite low in our state, but is getting better.  Wearing a seatbelt can save your life.  Let’s take it a step further, though.  Everyone who decides to commit a crime has to get to the crime scene.  Most decide to use a motor vehicle.  Our goal is to prevent crime, not just to report it.  Traffic enforcement is a part of our crime prevention.  Many crimes are either solved or prevented because alert officers saw signs of criminal activity in a vehicle that they stopped.  How else does traffic enforcement help to prevent crime and accidents?  Well, sometimes simply by people seeing our blue lights flashing.  An officer may be merely giving a motorist a warning for a burned out light, but passersby just know that someone got pulled over.  What is the normal reaction?  To slow down and drive more carefully.  What if a criminal decides to case out some local business in our area or a residential neighborhood?  It may be a deterrent if they see blue lights flashing. 

So, we have learned that quotas are probably not a good idea for law enforcement, but we do have to report statistics.  We have learned that statistics are good, and that everybody keeps them.  We have also learned that statistics can be manipulated.  How do we know, then, if an employee is doing his job?  One way is through supervision, but another is an employee’s productivity.  Did he do business/residential checks; write warnings, and also citations when they were warranted?  How many reports and investigations was he involved in, and how many man-hours did this take?  How many motor vehicle accidents did he investigate?  Was he out on leave during a part of the month?  As you can see, this is a complex issue, and all of the above questions are taken into account. 

As a proactive department we strive to meet the needs of our ever-changing population, whether it is overnight visitors, or our “bedroom community”.   Please visit our website often to ask questions, read articles and see new pictures.

The purpose of my blog and our website is to allow the public to have easier and more convenient access to our department.  You will be able to write comments and ask questions concerning our department and law enforcement in general, and I will attempt to answer through this blog.  We want the website to be interesting, and sometimes humorous, but always informative.  It is our goal to be able to inform and educate the public on why we do things the way we do so that you have a better understanding of the law and how we operate.  We also hope that this blog will assist individuals who are thinking of joining our profession to better understand the job and what it entails.  There is obviously a lot of interest in what we do; otherwise there wouldn’t have been about ten new cop shows on TV just this summer.  And have you seen the new fall lineup?  More cop shows.  What you see on TV and in the movies, although entertaining, is not reality.  We are public servants and are under the scrutiny of the public we serve.  We must use discretion and be able to make split second decisions.

One of the first questions I would like to address in this blog is:  Do police officers really like doughnuts more than the general public?  I was recently reading an article on the computer about an incident in another state where a police officer wrapped a patrol car around a pole while responding to assist another officer who was in a foot chase with a violator.  When I read articles on the web, I always like to read the comments posted by other readers.  One commenter stated that the officer must have dropped his doughnut in the floorboard which caused his foot to slip off the brake.  Obviously, this writer was trying to be funny in putting down the police.  Ha, ha.  I’m glad the officer is alive.  The article also went on to say that this particular officer made the highest amount of DUI cases for his department, which, in my book, says that he is a good officer and works hard to protect the public. 

So, do police officers really love doughnuts?  Well, just like the public in general, some do and some don’t.  Personally, I love them, although I try to keep it in moderation.  I know some officers who will not go into a doughnut shop just because of the stereotype.  I do not have this problem.  It may just be coincidence that the Krispy Kreme in my county is located so close to the jail…which is very convenient on night shift to get a cup of coffee and something to eat.  One thing that I do know about police work is that you have to eat when you can, and that often means going through a drive through window and eating in your car.  But if you are responding to a call, you throw the package on the seat beside you.  I don’t know of any officers who continue to eat in a chase or when responding to a call.  They are focused on the task at hand.  Many officers today are, like many of you, more health conscious than they were in the past.  They try to eat right and they exercise.  But whether you are a police officer, a firefighter, or an EMT, eating right is often hard due to the demands of the job. 

Police officers, in general, are just like you. We have families, we go to church, we pay taxes, and sometimes we eat doughnuts.  The job duties that we perform may be much different from what you do.  There are different people for different jobs.  Did you ever look at someone performing a job and think “I wouldn’t want to make a living doing that”?  Law enforcement might fall into that category.  It does not always make us popular, though, when we have to put someone in jail in order to keep the public safe.  Did I mention all the paperwork we have to do?  They really don’t show that part of the job very often on TV.  It’s not very exciting.

If you have questions that you would like to have answered in this blog, please send them in.  I’ll try to get you an answer.  But right now, I’ve got to brush the doughnut crumbs off my shirt.

Check back here regularly for the latest news updates. As breaking news happens that we alert you of, you will see it here first. As always, you are welcome to cal our crime hotline with concerns or to report a crime: 888 CRIME SC

Below are some links to crime statistics, crime rates and other safety and security issues affecting Duncan and surrounding areas. If you’re looking for information you don’t see here, we’re routinely updating this page to better serve you.

SC Statistical Abstracts

• Current statistical abstract | 1998

SC Crime and Public Safety Reports

• South Carolina Department of Corrections – Statistical Reports – includes inmate populations & offense distributions
• South Carolina Office of Highway Safety – Statistics – traffic collision fact books
• Police protection and crime – police expenditures, crime rates, & arrests – SC compared to Southeast and US
• US Bureau of Justice Statistics
• FBI Crime Statistics and Reports – Uniform Crime Reports
• White House Social Statistics Briefing Room – crime statistics