Expert: Dick Rogers - 4/9/2008

Question
Sometimes officers, like EVERYONE else, make mistakes. Grabbed the wrong guy, lost my temper, etc. Happens to all of us. What I do not understand is, when this happens, why does their boss (Chief or Sheriff) get in front of the press and answer questions? Why not let the patrolman answer the questions? "Yes, I lost my temper." "I though he was the guy who just robbed the store down the street..."

You know, situations like that.

I just never see or read about that. Always the boss does the talking.

I was wondering why that is?

Answer
David, great question!  Before I was assigned to homicide, I spent eight years in what could be called the "Sheriff's Spin Machine"...basically a unit that dealt with information flow in and out of the department.  When an officer is involved in an incident that involves force or an incident involving possible procedures violations, there is always the threat of litigation.  With this in mind, whatever is released to the media goes through a process that tries to minimize the potential for this information to be used in a lawsuit.  Many times, a potentially damaging situation can be mitigated by cautiously considering how the department is to respond.  I'll give you a classic case.  Two deputies are called to respond to a "man with a gun".  It is late at night and citizens spotted a man walking down the middle of the street with a handgun in his waistband.  The deputies spot the guy and pull up to within thirty feet of him, get out and at gunpoint order him to put his hands up.  He turns, confused,and reaches for the gun.  Both deputies fire and kill the man.  It turns out that the guy, inebriated, bought the toy replica of a .38 to give to his nephew.  It was a spitting image of a real gun...but made with black plastic.  It could be argued that the man was going to show the deputies that it was not a real gun...tragic mistake.  The morning papers have a headline..."Deputies kill man with toy gun".  The Sheriff has his top brass in his office that morning to figure out how to handle the blitz of reporters asking for an interview regarding the case.  A member of my team suggested calling a news conference that afternoon and displaying a half dozen revolvers on a table and have the toy gun used in the shooting as part of the array.  When all the reporters were gathered, there was a nylon barricade separating them from the table with the guns.  The Sheriff, after a few words about the shooting, asked if any of the reporters felt confident enough to pick out the "toy" gun.  A television person volunteered and picked out a pearl handed revolver...a real gun used in a killing.  Two more were picked, both real...one a cheap nickel plate, the other a .22 cal piece of crap...both used in killings.  The Sheriff then picked up the replica and handed it to the reporters. You can imagine how the evening news played this up.  The media in general had to eat humble pie with an appetite.  Long winded David, but I think telling it might have brought you in a bit on how convoluted this media thing can be, and how troublesome it is responding to the how and why we do things in law enforcement.  I believe in a department being up front and admitting to mistakes made, but one has to be careful not to feed in their type of hype.