Great things come in unexpected ways and times. You cannot plan for these defining moments, you just have to be ready to grab the brass ring and make the run. So it was at the 2005 ILEETA Conference when Lt. “Big Al” Kulovitz, my training partner of 35 years, found me at the vendors show and said, “There’s a guy here you need to meet; he’s starting a new magazine and looking for writers.” That was my introduction to Editor-in-Chief Dale Stockton, who was a police captain from Carlsbad (Calif.) PD. I knew that something special was happening as I listened to Dale tell of his vision for this new police magazine. He asked if I was interested and I told him I surely was and that I had a few more friends he might be interested in speaking with, attorney Laura Scarry (Legal Eagle) being first on the list.
As you often hear, the rest is history. From my perspective, the past 99 installments of Law Officer Magazine have been focused on the important issues of officer safety, survival and success. From tactics to gear, driving to fitness and other core elements of police work, Dale has directed the writing team to hit the issues hard, continuously and with a sense of urgency. “The next success or disaster is around the corner and we have the power to make a difference,” he once told me. And he’s been correct; we do have the ability to enhance officer safety and we have the means to do it—communication is the way and the magazine and website are the means.
We started with a mission to educate ourselves, our law enforcement brothers and sisters, and the effort began in earnest. Many of the issues were focused on recent events and threats to the community. The terrorist events of 9/11 were of strong interest to our readers and the November 2008 attack in Mumbai, India was a forewarning of what we would face.
Just as the first issue of Law Officer was arriving in mailboxes, Hurricane Katrina struck and presented challenges that law enforcement had rarely faced. As part of a team of officers deployed to Louisiana, I had the opportunity to see the devastation and report back. I had no idea if anyone was reading what I managed to record after those long days spent in that shattered region. It was important to me to keep a history because I knew it would soon be off the news and out of the public’s awareness. Law Officer took my words and shared them with thousands. And they went even farther, organizing Project Inspire to deliver supplies and gear along with a healthy dose of encouragement to those who had their world swept away by Katrina. In 2008, when a tornado devastated Macon County (Tenn.), Project Inspire II was launched and brought relief (along with new duty jackets) to a hard-hit sheriff’s department just as a late-season snow storm struck. And that’s the real story of Law Officer: Over the course of publishing 100 issues, so much more has been done than appears in print, all as a result of do-the-right-thing efforts that had their roots in our combined writing and interaction.
One certainty is that our readers are as involved as our writers. We share the same concerns, the same dangers and the same need for better information. You are the reason that Law Officer exists and has been successful. Without our readers, we are speaking to an empty auditorium.
As writers, we meet for dinner every year at the ILEETA conference and we use the opportunity to talk over issues face to face. It seems we always focus on officer safety issues in these discussions. There was, and still is, great frustration that we were suffering from the same problems we faced since the beginning of our collective careers, and we were losing too many officers to both dangerous criminals and dangerous conditions.
It was at this writers’ dinner in 2010 when Tulsa (Okla.) PD Captain Travis Yates made the comment that we could really make a difference and reduce LODDs to fewer than 100 per year. That simple statement ultimately led to the Below 100 initiative that uses a common-sense approach to officer safety and has taken off worldwide. To my amazement, a friend in New Zealand requested information about the program; that is how far this vital effort has reached. Lives are being saved as seat belts are buckled, vests are worn and attention is paid to the task at hand. As Lt. Col. Dave Grossman said to me, “We must be the Paul Revere of our time and shout out the warning call loud and clear: ‘To arms brothers and sisters, to arms, the enemy is upon us.’” But the enemy is not necessarily base criminals or terrorists, the most deadly enemy is complacency because it leaves us open to all the other threats. There are no “routine” traffic stops or calls. Below 100 makes this clear and each of us must make a choice––join in or fail to act.
As we read this 100th issue and consider where we started, let us look to the future. We must take the lessons that have been learned in fire and blood and burn them into our collective memories. Every new officer needs to receive a history lesson. In the classes I teach, I ask about past incidents, including the 1966 Austin Tower Sniper, the 1970 Newhall Massacre, the 1974 SLA/LAPD Shootout, the 1986 FBI Miami Shootout and 1997 North Hollywood Shootout. These new recruits have no idea what these events were and what life and death lessons they taught. As a reader of Law Officer, make it your mission to educate, train and assist all officers who are willing to expand their education. And don’t forget the importance of a courageous conversation to address those who fail to use safety equipment or who take unnecessary chances. The job is unending and fatiguing but it will be the most important effort you will undertake. You too will be a writer, perhaps not in print but in the pages of the lives of those around you.
It has truly been an honor to be part of this magazine. Thank you for riding this wave of 100 issues. Surf’s up for another 100.
Stay safe and ready.
