Breaking Rank
Page 25
If you want to build trust in your officers and help them get their dangerous and demanding jobs done safely and effectively, you don’t punish them when they make an honest mistake—or a conscious, defensible choice to violate policy in order to save a life.
Punitive discipline for inadvertent (or transparently excusable) violations of SOPs triggers a passive-aggressive response from affected officers, and that includes every cop who learns of the discipline. Cops stop working as hard; they refuse to take risks; they lie about or cover up future transgressions. This is especially true if said “discipline” is handed down in an insulting, paternalistic, regimented fashion that is all too common in most agencies. Treating cops like kids tends to produce childish behavior. It’s not rocket science, even though it took me a good while to figure it out.
I’m a patrol sergeant in 1970. “Cal Peters,” one of my young cops, a white male, has stopped a black youth to issue him a traffic citation. It starts badly and goes downhill from there, culminating with the young man tossing a lit cigarette at Peters who pulls the young man out of his car—through the window—prompting the young man to file a complaint. I investigate the complaint, sustain it, and secure, with approvals up the chain of command, a four-day suspension for my officer along with a transfer out of the black community.
Looking back, I made a huge mistake.
I’m not saying the cop was right, far from it. The discipline on the face of it was appropriate, if not too light. But what lesson did Peters come away with? I acted throughout the process like a nasty drill sergeant, scolding the cop, rubbing his face in it, not listening to his belief that his actions were justified. I took four days’ earnings out of his paycheck, and shooed him off to some other part of the city—where he seethed at the injustice of it all. And likely took it out on the unsuspecting citizens of his new beat.
I should have listened to the guy. Peters’s rationale for his actions was that being hit with a lit cigarette (which landed on his heavy jacket and fell harmlessly to the ground) constituted an assault on a police officer. True, his method of extracting the kid from the car was . . . unorthodox. Yet this was a terrific learning moment at this early stage of his career, and I blew it. I could have reprimanded him, kept him in the squad, and worked with him. I could sense all along that he was far from a lost cause, that he had potential to become an excellent police officer. But he’d acted like a kid, so I treated him like one.
One thing I certainly should not have done? The suspension. Those four docked days came right out of his family’s budget, hurt his wife and children and only added to his resentment toward me, and toward the brass in general. If a cop has earned that level of punishment why not go all the way and fire him? Which is exactly what I’d do today, if I thought the officer was beyond redemption.
Thirty-four years of intimate experience with police discipline, combined with research into principles of individual accountability (heavily influenced by Richard C. Grote’s Discipline Without Punishment: The Proven Strategy That Turns Problem Employees into Superior Performers, 1995), make it clear that putting an employee on the beach without pay almost always has precisely the opposite effect of that intended.
If you want your cops to actually think about their transgressions and mend their wayward ways, send them home for a day or two, with pay—and instructions to reflect on what they’ve done. (This is assuming their transgression is not a terminable offense.)
Maybe police work isn’t for them. Maybe they don’t have the patience or the courage or the maturity. By listening to them, leveling with them, and encouraging them to really think about whether their chosen career is a good fit, you’ve taken a dignified, effective path. And you’ve put the onus squarely on the shoulders of the one person responsible for the screw-up.
None of this should be taken to mean that you can’t or shouldn’t fire incompetent or willfully disobedient police officers. Police work is no place for amateurs, for individuals who lack the tools—emotional, moral, physical, or behavioral—to get the job done.
As field operations chief in San Diego, and with Chief Bob Burgreen’s blessings, I drew a new line in the sand. We would continue to discipline our cops for policy violations. But our system would be “bifurcated”: punitive disciplinary action for acts of willful misconduct or gross negligence, corrective disciplinary action for honest mistakes or performance problems.
The discipline, whether punitive or corrective, would be administered “progressively,” meaning each new violation of an identical or similar nature would result in progressively more stringent or assertive action.
To illustrate: For years in California, I taught a statewide police personnel management course. One morning, I asked my students (supervisors, middle managers, a sprinkling of chiefs): “What action do you take when one of your subordinates commits a minor infraction of department policy?” From around the room came, “counseling,” “verbal warning,” “written warning.”
“Really?” I said. “Is it possible that you might simply note it, mentally, but do nothing at all?” A few nodded in agreement. “Could it be that you don’t say a thing unless they do it a second time?” More nods. In other words, their cops got a free ride, perhaps a frown or a raised eyebrow on the first violation, with something a little more “official” the second time around. And a tougher response the third time out. That’s progressive discipline.
What disciplinary actions are available to police supervisors? Many. On the punitive side: warnings, reprimands, suspensions, demotions, terminations (with the possibility of prosecution). On the corrective side: coaching, counseling, additional schooling including remedial education or training, and—termination. If a cop is struggling with report writing, for example, he or she could be required to take a community college course, or to work with a peer or supervisor in a tutorial relationship. An officer who lacks assertiveness could be sent to a class or a counselor to gain those skills and strengthen his or her self-confidence.
The governing philosophy is to help police officers perform to the best of their ability, and to behave professionally. To build them up, not tear them down. (Even when you have to fire them: A lot of decent human beings, trying their best, simply can’t cut it as a cop. There’s no need to rub their noses in it before you send them packing.)
As a deputy chief in San Diego, I made it a habit to spend a day from time to time with each of my captains, riding around with them, chatting informally about crime and crime fighting, strategic and tactical planning, personnel issues, and so forth. I called Captain Mike Tyler on a Wednesday to confirm my visit to Western Division the next morning.
“Great,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it. But could you come a little later? I’ve got to suspend one of my graveyard cops.” I knew all about it. He was going to suspend a patrol officer for recklessness in a high-speed pursuit.
“Do you mind if I sit in? Do you think ‘Mitchell’ would mind?”
“No problem here. It’ll give me chance to teach you how the pros do it.” Modesty was not one of Tyler’s failings. “I’ll have someone check with Mitchell this afternoon and get back to you.”* Mitchell, it turned out, was cool with it.
At six the next morning, greetings accomplished, Mitchell took a seat across the desk from his captain. I sat in a corner. Mitchell had waived his right to representation.
TYLER: “We’ve already talked about your actions on the chase, Mitch, and my disapproval. I don’t have anything more to say about it. You know the discipline: four days on the beach. Do you have any questions or comments?”
MITCHELL: “No, sir. Guilty as charged. It won’t happen again.”
TYLER: “Good, glad to hear it. Sign here.”
Mitchell signed the form. Tyler gave him a copy. Mitchell started to leave. “Hold on second,” Tyler said. “When you get back to work next week I want to see you here in my office before you hit the field, okay?” Mitchell nodded. Handshakes all around. Out the door.
Tyler knew better. He knew “Guilty as charged” meant Mitchell had accepted responsibility for his actions. The officer did wrong. He got punished. Case closed.
But what’s with the meeting next week? I asked Tyler about it as we headed out for breakfast.
“I do that with everyone I suspend.” (I had let my captains and commanders know that I wasn’t prepared to outlaw suspensions . . . yet.)
“Why?”
“To welcome them back.”
“Yeah?”
“I let them know they’ve served their sentence, and I welcome them back into the fold. I tell them the reason they didn’t get fired was because they’re good cops. I tell them I’m glad they’re working for me. Then I tell them to get their ass out in the field and do the job the way it’s supposed to be done.” Sentence served. The offense not forgotten (some never will be), but forgiven. Grown-up discipline. Tyler did, indeed, teach me how the pros do it. He was in charge of that meeting because it was his division. Mitchell and all the other officers and detectives and supervisors and civilian employees who worked out of the Friars Road station reported to Mike Tyler. Not Norm Stamper, not Bob Burgreen.
Tyler’s “ownership” of the disciplinary proceeding was crucial to my campaign to push police decision-making down the chain of command to its logical locus. In decentralized, geographically based policing—in community policing—you need the precinct commander to both be and feel responsible for what goes on, 24/7, in his or her command. You want police officers, as well as citizens, to appreciate the decision-making authority of their captain.
In Seattle I took heat from my critics, internal and external, for allowing captains to make disciplinary decisions that were formerly reserved for the chief of police. But over my six years as chief I saw captains become more and more responsible (and accountable) as they grew into their expanded roles.
The biggest beef about delegating discipline authority to precinct commanders? “Inconsistency.” What if Mitchell had worked not for Mike Tyler but for Joe Schwalbach at Northeastern who would have, hypothetically, slapped the guy with a ten-day suspension? Or for Paul Ybarrondo at Central who would have handed him a reprimand? Consistency is a valid and serious concern.
We addressed it in San Diego on two levels, the first of which was philosophical: Did we want a “bail schedule” approach to discipline in which everyone who, for example, backed a police car into another car, or left a knife on a prisoner, or used excessive force, or missed court, or got rude with a citizen, would pay the exact same price? Consistency freaks said yes. Thinkers said no.* As Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” The second level dealt with something I’ll call the “Yes, but” issue.
Yes, but shouldn’t two cops with identical records, time on the department, and discipline history pay the same price for identical violations of policy? Yes. In the unlikely event that that state of affairs exists, Officer B should get exactly what Officer A has coming. If nothing else, it facilitates a healthy organizational predictability, and brings more justice to the administration of police discipline.
So with no fixed, published penalties for policy violations, how did my captains and I achieve this kind of “smart” consistency?
Recall that I knew in advance that Tyler was going to be suspending Mitchell. How did I know? Because each of my captains was required to present at our weekly Field Ops meetings an outline of all pending discipline. Listening to one another, asking one another for information and advice, getting a feel for what’s fair and appropriate became an institutionalized ethic in our administration of discipline. And there was this: Although it was the captain’s call, he or she had to inform me before sticking a disciplinary package under the nose of his or her officer. Why? Because, in the interest of citywide consistency and fairness, I retained veto power (and did not want the captains to lose standing in the eyes of their officers if I chose to overturn a decision).
Of course, if I’d vetoed more decisions than I’d accepted (or even as few as, say, 10 to 15 percent of them), I couldn’t say with a straight face that I’d truly delegated discipline responsibility to my captains. But in two or three years I vetoed only two of approximately a hundred decisions (both from the same captain, once for being too lenient, once for being too harsh). I knew in San Diego and in Seattle that I was accountable for all discipline but my captains were responsible for it.
An entirely different, and appallingly neglected, facet of police discipline comes down to this: How do you discipline your boss? The incompetence or misbehavior of one’s superior is a huge problem in police work. Before pointing fingers at some of the bosses I’ve worked for, let me confess to my own shortcomings.
In 1992, my third wife, Lisa, and I went on a delayed honeymoon, to Kauai. I was now the assistant chief. When I returned to work two weeks later my senior deputy chief walked in and asked for a meeting. We set it up for later that morning. He didn’t show up alone: All four of my chiefs filed in and took a seat in my office.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“We don’t see enough of you,” said the senior chief. “There are a lot of decisions we can’t make without you. It’s nice you get asked to speak. It’s great that you teach those classes at the Training Center and at San Diego State. But you’re just gone too much.” Gone too much? True, I was in demand as a trainer and a speaker, and I loved standing in front of audiences throughout the country. I was proud of my (often controversial) contribution to the field, and felt it was important. But gone too much? Hell, when Burgreen picked me to run the organization I’d cut back, a lot.
“Everyone feel this way?” Four heads nodded. I felt betrayed. It took me a day or two to come down. But when I did, I knew I’d been busted. I was spending too much time away from my desk, my day job. I cut out everything—no more classes, no more keynotes, no nothing that wasn’t directly related to the job.
In Seattle, I listened as a roomful of journalists bitched about supervisors denying them access to rank-and-file officers, especially in Investigations. I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was along the lines of, “Look, we’ve got a department to run but I understand your need for information. We’ll see what we can do about standardizing access. In the meantime, I know you know how to cultivate sources, and I would encourage you to do just that.”
My chief of staff, an assistant chief who’d spent a lot of time in Investigations (much of it cleaning up messes caused by loose-lipped dicks) was livid. After the meeting he walked into my office, sat down, and unloaded. “I can’t remember when I’ve been more pissed! We’re trying to stop leaks in the department, trying to avoid compromising investigations and jeopardizing prosecutions. And what do you do? You invite the press to camp out in the offices and hallways, to ‘chat up’ every cop they see! You were wrong to say what you said, and we’re all going to pay for it in the future.”
My rationale had been that there had been a failure to communicate, and we needed to correct that. As long as our cops followed our press policy I was prepared to live with the consequences of a more “open” approach to media relations. But whether I was right, wrong, or simply misunderstood, my immediate subordinate felt free to “discipline” his boss. And that’s a good thing.
I’d learned in my days as a subordinate in San Diego that there are times when you have to exercise leadership up the chain of command, as well as down.
I was a lieutenant. My boss, “Frank Stanton,” was a deputy chief. He drank his lunch. He put moves on everything
in a skirt. He didn’t show up for critical meetings (on one such occasion, taking one of our key attendees, an attractive consultant, to Tijuana for the day). He lied, daily. I confronted him. He laughed, told me not to take life so seriously. The pattern continued, unchanged. I told him I was going to snitch him off if he didn’t knock it off. No change. I snitched, to the assistant chief. He’d take care of it, he said. He didn’t. I went to the super chief. He’d take care of it, he said. He didn’t. I asked for a meeting with the two of them, the super chief, the assistant chief. I told them that if they didn’t take care of the lying, womanizing sot down the hall I’d run to the city manager. They took care of it.
A few months later, Commander Cal Krosch must have felt the same way when he came forward to suggest that we knock off our own high-level, on-duty boozing. It had been a not very well-kept secret for years, a tradition among the senior staff.
Every Wednesday at five o’clock, the Big Boys would parade into the assistant chief’s office where we’d open the liquor cabinet, pour generous portions of bourbon, or scotch, or gin and drink ourselves silly.* Krosch’s conscience got to him, and he had the guts to “discipline” not only his superiors but his peers—leadership at its toughest, leadership when it counts. He brought up the subject at a senior staff meeting. “I think we’re being a little hypocritical here, guys,” he said. He looked around the room, then at the chief. “Not very long ago you forced one of us to resign, partly for his drinking. I have to wonder if we weren’t all enabling Stanton. Regardless, what we’re doing is wrong. I can’t justify it any longer.” Neither could any of the rest of us. That was the day the San Diego Police Department went dry.