The most powerful position in any police department is patrol officer.

While chiefs and deputy chiefs and commanders can set policy, decide budget priorities, discipline members, and apportion resources, it is the patrol officer – almost always working without supervision – who determines how effective or ineffective the police department will be.

Law enforcement agencies may not be the only organizations in which power flows upward, but they are certainly one of the few.

Don’t let the use of military ranks fool you.  Police departments are among the most unmilitary organizations in America. In the U.S. Army, soldiers go where they are sent by the organization. When they leave the FOB or the post or wherever, they are going out to conduct a specific mission.   The actions of individual soldiers are coordinated within the squad, the actions of individual squads are coordinated within the platoon and the actions of individual platoons are coordinated within the company. Soldiers receive intensive training, – vastly more than police officers – their missions are planned in detail, and they are under near-constant supervision by more experienced and knowledgeable personnel.  None of these things are true about law enforcement officers.

When an incident occurs, and police officers arrive on the scene, it is the first officers there – virtually always patrol officers – who take the initial action and set the stage for whatever follows.  Whoever shows up later – sergeants, lieutenants, SWAT, detectives, etc.- can only build on the foundation laid down by the individual patrol officer who was there first and who might be the least experienced, lowest-paid member of the entire organization.

Because of the unpredictability and complexity of law enforcement operations, and the overriding need to respond as quickly as possible, police departments do not have the option to plan their responses in detail. Every police officer has experienced arrival at a chaotic scene, not knowing what happened or who to believe, receiving conflicting information from various strangers, and having to make an instant decision about what to do without access to the lawyers, advisers and other policy-makers of the organization.  It is no wonder that one of the absolute imperatives of police culture is to support the actions by the person on the scene, regardless of how the situation ultimately turns out.

Finally, when considering who has the real power in a police department, think about how departments employ deadly force.

If you are going to be shot by a police officer, it is not going to be because the chief, in consultation with his highly experienced command staff and the prosecutor, having reviewed all applicable rules, regulations and laws, decided that in the interest of public safety you should be eliminated.  It will be because a patrol officer, whose training was limited by budget constraints, who has only the sketchiest information about what you are doing or who you are, who may not be able to see you clearly in the dark or the rain, who has seen countless victims of violent crime, who knows that he or she is alone, and who has only fractions of a second to decide how to respond to what he or she sees, made the decision to shoot.

January 2, 2019

Image: Cleveland, Ohio police recruits, 2019, Cleveland.com