Wasn't planning on posting, but ...

... the sun-times and tribune both had articles in the Saturday paper about JC Penney and Target stores turning over videos of coppers allegedly mistreating suspects and the FOP response. The FOP was forced to issue a "clarification" of their newsletter statement. We humbly submit our opinion and it follows closely with our previous post on cell phones (see post titled "Info for Street Cops" on 04 August):

• Look around people. Cameras and recording devices are everywhere. In fact, it's posted all over the place that when you enter certain premises, you WILL be subject to recording. Just our opinion and all, but the security office of a retail store? IT'S WIRED!
• Uncle Phil (or "P-dawg" as we call him) has stated that he is going to kick start the "cameras in squad cars" program again. This pilot program died on the vine when they first started it (in 014 if we remember correctly) and no one believed the city would spend the money to outfit all the cars. As it turned out, we were right. But times and situations change. Cameras are coming people, so is GPS (the park district already has it in all their trucks). We've seen the printouts they get on the Park guys and it sure is impressive: time on scene, time idle in one place, time NOT at where they said they were, all sorts of info.

Let's just review - Buildings? Wired. Squad cars? Soon to be wired. Public streets and alleys? Wired and getting more wired. Be smart! The days of handing out "candy" and such are numbered and we're betting that more and more cameras mean fewer and fewer coppers at some point. Don't get downsized through stupidity.

And for pete's sake, don't do anything silly like slow rolling to a "holding the offender" call. Respond as normal and if necessary, interrogate a suspect as to his treatment by the security guards. You KNOW the lockup isn't going to take him if he's beat to a pulp and guess who's going to be sitting on him at the hospital should he demand treatment? Write it all down. Document it. Our worst enemy is a LAZY copper. It's just paperwork. 95% of this job is bullshit paper, but 9 times out of 10, what screws you in civil court is bad paper, or worse, NO paper. We've been down that road once, and we've vowed once is enough. They can stick it to you for not doing enough paper, but we've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for doing too much paper. Hell, they even give you these little yellow slips of paper to fill out if the paperwork runs long.