Relations Between Patrol and Narcs / Feds: How to Avoid Assholery

Patrol is the backbone of any PD, and the rest of us are SUPPORT!  That means...get this...you are not better than a patrol officer because you are narcotics / homicide / state / federal / ANYTHING.

You need patrol's support, they need yours. and we're all on the same side.  Today, as July wraps up and we get ready for cooler weather and schools to take these heathens back for ~40 hours a week, I will discuss my personal mistakes in managing these relationships.  Times my life was endangered by fellow officers and I tried to put property on patrol to log when it was really kinda my responsibility.

Don't endanger your partners, do 'em right, we're on the same team.  Here's how to put that in action.

-LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Good morning. Welcome back. And I've done previous episodes on undercover work, plain clothes work, and what I understand the difference to be, how I've always differentiated those, and patrol operations, traffic stops, all these things. Well, there is a relationship between the various plain clothes investigative units and the patrol division. And the better that relationship is, the better those cases will come out. So I want to go into how to not burn that relationship. Again, this is not theoretical. These are things that I have seen and experienced firsthand as both a patrol officer and a plain clothes investigator. And me doing it wrong and losing assistance and what I learned so that hopefully you won't have that same experience and make some of those same stupid mistakes. If you are on the plain clothes side, be that narcotics, state investigator, federal investigator, FBI, DEA, HSI, ATF, if I didn't say that, Marshal Service, any of these, and you're calling for patrol assistance, you need to do them right. Don't screw them over, or you can expect to lose help. I'll go into my experiences with patrol getting screwed over on these, of which I have several and they continue to happen. And my feeling is this, and you can spit my eye if you want to. I'm not saying don't back up your plain close partners if they're in an emergency situation. But I am saying if they've shown patterns in the past of putting you into danger, it is okay to say no. And that sergeant or that supervisor of that patrol shift that's working. I don't care how cool the plain close officers look, and or, you know, you want to impress the FBI who's asking you for stops. I'm not picking on FBI. I'm using that interchangeable with any federal agency and DEA or ATF is, you know, in the past, this agent has asked your patrol officers to do stops and it has broken bad and they've put them in bad situations by not providing information. I'm all for the sergeant of patrol going, negative, no units available. And, you know, if they're saying, hey, we need this car stopped. And last week they had you stop in a car that was loaded down with armed robbers, and they didn't tell the patrol officer that. That's bullshit. That's wrong. They should be providing that information. And honestly, something like that should have an op plan. You don't send one or two patrol officers in on a robbery crew. It doesn't make any sense. You're putting them actually at a disadvantage. They're going to be outgunned generally. So just patrol sergeants and lieutenants. I'm not saying butt in on everything and micromanage, but your officers might want to do stops for these guys. Usually it's more like a narcotics unit. That's what it always was where I was, or, you know, when I was on the Marshall Task Force, we'd have guys do stops. And if they're screwing your guys over, and I'll go into some details of some of that here in a minute, it's okay to not support it. And I'm all for the conversation first. You know, give them the benefit of the doubt. And then if they put your guys in a jam, getting a hold of that supervisor and going, hey, I didn't really like how that went down. We need to sit down and talk about this. I'm all for supporting you guys, but we need to talk about how this is being done. And if they're dismissive because they're too cool because they have a beard and tattoos and, you know, they're in narcotics, then let them know. Hey, we're not going to be stopping cars for you anymore. You can call my boss if you want, and then we'll have that sit-down conversation that I just mentioned. And I'll be glad to tell my lieutenant that you put my officers in danger. And again, we'll get into some deets on that, but you do sometimes get the plain clothes guys, the feds, that their priority is the case and they're not thinking about is this being done properly. I'm all for if you're on a plain clothes unit, you having a guy, you having a go-to guy. I think it makes sense that you have somebody that embodies the traits that I discuss on this show. That's who I look for. You know, I've spent years as a federal agent, and if I want somebody to do a traffic stop for me, I want somebody that's fit, that practices shooting, that understands the Fourth Amendment. I don't want somebody that's going to go blob up on the car and get themselves hurt or just violate the law and be like, well, I searched because Leo told me to pull the car and search it. I'm like, no, I didn't. I said, can you pull the car over and identify them? Well, what are we talking about here? I didn't tell you to break the Fourth Amendment. So have a guy that understands the rules and enjoys doing it and wants to do it, or is just on board with it. They don't have to be excited, but they should be, they shouldn't be resentful about it. And if you are a patrol officer and you want to get to a specialized unit or be a Fed or do something or be a state investigator down the road, you should strive to be that person that they call. I mean, I was always excited when I was a patrol officer and the ATF agents in the area would call me to stop a car or put me on a target, or often it was just the narcotics unit. It was our, it was CNT, it was the counter-narcotics team, and they'd call me and be like, Hey, can you stop this car for me? So by being that guy, they saw exactly how I worked. The supervisor saw how I worked, saw me creating cases. And then I was a leg ahead when I went to the interview, which meant I got to go there earlier than policy stated. It was supposed to be like two years on, and I went to narcotics well before that because they knew me and because I was doing stops for them all the time. I was the guy that they'd call. So if you can be that guy, it does give you a call. You get to know the people, they know what they got, they know you're not with the shit, you're not starting drama, and you understand the rules and you can handle a difficult stop with an abrasive criminal. Let's get into op plans. When do you need to do it? This will not be for the patrol officers, but this is for the investigators. We all have op plans. If you're a homicide detective, uh, you should know how to find an operational plan where you put it together. Now, a lot of time investigators don't want to do this. There's times that you obviously have to have one, generally a search warrant, you're gonna have an op plan, right? If you're doing a by walk or a by bust, you're going to have an op plan. Some places require you to have an op plan just to do surveillance. If you're gonna go sit on a house, they want you doing an op plan for that. It's gonna be pretty boilerplate. Fugitive work. The Marshalls have like a general op plan for we're going out on a fugitive. But if it's high risk, there's nothing wrong with doing an op plan. It takes you like 20 minutes. You bang it out, you hammer out some details and how you're gonna do perimeter. If it needs an op plan, do it. And what that means is trying to work around it by saying, like, oh, it just turned into this. I didn't know that was gonna happen. If it's a reasonable, foreseeable outcome, if I'm the supervisor, that's a talk we're gonna be having. Okay, so we're let's say we're a mild narcotics unit and I see a drug deal happening, and I call patrol and just tell them, hey, can you stop this guy? Am I doing them right? No, I need to give them information. Now, let's say I set up a buy and I am planning to send a guy to go meet a guy at a store, right? I have my informant, he's gonna meet this dude at a store to buy some crack rocks. And I decide for whatever reason I don't want to do it. So I have patrol go and say, hey, these guys at this store, they should have some crack on them. Is that something that should maybe have an op plan? And then it breaks bad. Then it turns into a shooting. And my first question as the supervisor would be wait, so we're sending patrol to do our arrests now? You're not even getting out with them and support? No, this is not how we roll. That's an op plan. That is a planned enforcement action, which to me, that's the simple line, but you need to know your own line. But when I have supervised special operations and various different things, that's my line, is if there's a planned enforcement, meaning, are we trying to put some people in handcuffs today? If we're doing that, I need an op plan. And if you try to work around by having somebody else do the stop and putting them in danger, it's kind of not right. Because if it was you, you'd want the op plan, you know, spelling out what everybody's gonna do and making it clear so there's no confusion. So don't pass that buck to patrol or somebody else that's eager. If you're on patrol, here's where I'll get into a personal story. Give them you should uh you should want info. If you're on patrol, it's okay to ask. If DEA comes over the radio and says, hey, I need a marked unit to stop this car, do you need probable cause? Are they gonna support you if you end up getting sued for stopping somebody with no reason to stop them and it escalates? So personally, I'm fine with 104, you got probable cause. And if they get mad at you, that's on them. If they say, just stop the damn car, okay, you're not my boss, actually. You're a Fed and I'm patrol. I don't work for you at all. Negative. I'm fine with that. They should be willing to talk to you and communicate with you. Because what if they're surveilling a cartel hitman and they want him stopped and identified? And you have no idea. They're just saying, go on and do it. And you don't have a reason to stop them. They're driving a legal vehicle, they're going within the speed limit, they're hitting their turn signals because they're a hitman going to kill somebody, and you pull them over on this agent's word, and it's it's just a recipe for a hot mess. So, you know, feds, narcs, homicide detectives, if it's liable to get a little frisky out there, go ahead and give that patrol officer some info. If you have their phone number, call them. If you don't, maybe call the supervisor. Hey, we're watching this dude. It might get a little weird. He runs every time we deal with him. Uh, we're trying to get him stopped, whatever the situation may be, but provide info to that patrol officer. And patrol officers, they're not in your chain of command. They're not too cool to put you in danger. So F that. That's what I say. Tell you one of my personal stories is I was on patrol and narcotics was they were watching a drug, drug dealer's apartment, a crack dealer's apartment, and they saw a car pull in and park at the hotel next door, not park in the apartment complex. And female driver, black male, and white male get out of the car, walk over to the apartment, and stand outside it in the shadows. It was nighttime, middle of the night, they go stand in the shadows for like 10 minutes, and then uh narcotics is just watching, like, what the heck is going on? Then they leave without buying any drugs, they walk back to their car and get back in and drive away. Well, what they were doing was casing the place to rob it. What narcotics did was called me and said, Hey, can you stop this car? I'm a new patrol officer. What do you think I think when narcotics is calling me to stop a vehicle? It's a drug dealer or a drug buyer. So I didn't ask questions. I didn't realize they were doing a robbery casing. You can't you can't tell me that you thought they were there to buy drugs or sell drugs when they didn't knock at the door. They just lurked. So I pulled the car over. I was riding solo, and the driver's nervous. She's just staring straight to the front, being a weirdo. The dude in the front seat was freaking me out. There was something that just had my sixth sense going bonkers. His eyes, his pupils were all dilated, he was sweating. He was just staring at me like he was a caged animal. And the dude in the back was like trying to get my attention without showing the people in the front. So I get the dude out of the back, I'm like, backpastor, step out. And it was this small car. So the girl in the driver's seat had to like crunch forward while he got out. It was this whole mess. And I bring him to the back of the car, start patting him down, and I'm like, what's going on? And he was like, There's guns under those seats. And I was like, All right, I'm putting you in handcuffs real quick. You're not under arrest, but you are going in my car. So I handcuff him, put him back there. About that time, I had a backup officer arrive who was kind of mentally checked out. And I say that because I know him. I've worked with him. He's not the dude you wanted backing you up with some violent felons in the car. So then I go back up, end up getting them out safely and getting everybody handcuffed. And there was she had a fake gun, like a black airsoft gun with the orange tip painted black. And there were real guns under both seats, and there was ski masks and gloves in the car, like littered throughout the car. So they were, they were a robbery crew, period. No questions asked. And narcotics should have read that. They probably just weren't thinking and were like, oh, this is weird. Let's get, you know, Leo to stop it, which I did. But I was pretty fucking pissed off when I found out what they had seen. And I was pretty new. I doubt I stood up and bucked the system at that point and told them what I thought. And I think I went to narcotics very shortly after that. I probably told them once I got there and got on the team, like, hey, that was kind of shitty. But that is shitty. And if you expect them to be armed, you better fucking tell them that. Or you're dead wrong. Uh or if you've seen them carrying a gun, a lot of times you'll just catch a glimpse. Or it takes two seconds to be like, hey, I got a suspected drug dealer, no evidence of firearms. Can somebody do a traffic stop? Like, that's not to say there are no firearms, but that's a quick, concise providing of information to that patrol cop. So I haven't done anybody like that. I've never done patrol like that that I can remember. But let's get into evidence where I have done the wrong thing, and I don't do that anymore. No, I'm not about to confess to a crime on here. It was just shitty behavior. It was lawful but awful. I would, it was more when I was working fugitives, and man, I had a certain sergeant that worked the area we were in a lot. Sorry, Pooh Bear. He did the right thing and he would stand up to me and be like, we're not taking your fucking evidence, dude. You're a cop. Go log it. I was in kind of a tough spot because my boss was a deputy U.S. Marshal and like a supervisory deputy. And I didn't work for the patrol sergeants, but they are still, they're not in my chain of command, but they're still a supervisor, and I'm not on the police department. So we would hit a house, get a fugitive, and you know, get drugs and guns consistently and call patrol and be like, hey, can you guys log this? Because my boss wants me to go on the next hit. He doesn't want me bogging down on that. He'd just as soon not see the evidence because our job is fugitives. And, you know, I was a Savannah police officer, so I felt obligated, like, especially if we're doing murder warrants, like, no, dude could beat the murder case. Murder cases go to trial consistently because dudes get life in prison. And if he beats that, you know, if we get him with a couple kilos and a Draco, he's still doing time. You know what I mean? Because of what, because we handled the evidence correctly. But it's kind of shitty for a patrol sergeant to have to deal with the evidence that's gathered by somebody else. So just think about that if you're screwing them over. There are some units that have a reputation for gathering evidence illegally outside of the Fourth Amendment. My fugitive team, we didn't do this. We're not opening drawers if we're looking for a fugitive, but they are out there. So if you're looking for a person and you search a drawer and find a gun, and then you try to give that case to patrol or call out the ATF and get them to take it, like, what are you doing? Don't do that. You're doing the wrong thing. So I don't know. I felt like I was in a tough spot because my boss was like, you're not going to log evidence right now. And that's my direct supervisor. He's like, we're not doing that. Call patrol. And then I call patrol and the sergeant's like, why are you calling us? You're a cop. Do your job. Go log the evidence. I also had a couple, not incidents, but conversations with the SWAT commander where we didn't agree. And I'd been on his SWAT team before, mad respect for him. Excellent commander, very smart guy, tons of personal experience, been in shootings himself, the kind of guy you want leading the team. But, you know, when we were on the Marshalls, we would create incidents by, you know, going after these guys, and we didn't always agree with him. So we managed that, but, you know, he didn't, he often didn't agree with my supervisor on the Marshall Task Force. Uh, so that's something you got to deal with if you're a patrol cop and you're dealing with these unmarked, you know, various organizations where they want it to be their way, but you have a boss. My way of handling that, if you're a patrolman or if you're the narc, is say, talk to my boss. If you're a narcotics officer and the patrol sergeant is saying, here's how we're gonna do it, and you think your narcotics supervisor wouldn't want it done that way, you need to go, can you talk to Sergeant Leo? Because like he's saying something different. And I feel like mommy and daddy are fighting. You know what I mean? I'm in the middle and I don't want to be there. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to disrespect either one of you. So I need y'all to work it out. That's the best way to do that. You know, if it's a federal agency and there's a resident agent in charge and your patrol supervisor is saying one thing and some federal agent is saying something else. Patrol supervisor trumps that. You work for them. So I will go, hey, here's my sergeant's phone number. Can you give him a call? If he tells me to go log this stuff, I'll do it. But as of right now, I'm not. Give him a call. You don't even say, as of now, I'm not, but just like, can you call my supervisor and y'all talk? And let him make those choices. And that just kind of goes into chain of command. You see it all the time. Any, any of you that have worked narcotics or been patrol supervisors, you've seen it. People go to specialized units and get too big for their britches. And I've checked people as a patrol supervisor. I've had narcs be dismissive to me and be like, uh, like me as a sergeant who's done, I already did narcotics. Like I've been there, and a lot of the sergeants that you see on patrol, they might be clean cut and not have the cool guy beard and you know, wearing a backwards hat and all the shit that doesn't really matter. They've done it already. They might have been a 10-year homicide investigator. They've put people in prison for life more than they can count on two hands. So, you know, if you're a narcotics investigator, you are still a cop. Usually that most places that's not a promotion. You're not an equal to them. You are a subordinate. So I've had narcs talk crazy and be like, hey, Sarge, I need you to put up a perimeter and here's basically here's what's about to happen. And I go, all right, who's your supervisor? And they're looking at me crazy. And I just call them and I'll be like, hey, hey, this is Leo. Your guy's out here like directing me on how to run my shift. Can you talk to him so he understands? And they'll be usually it's somebody I know, and they'll be like, Yeah, my bad. I'm like, it's cool. We got no problems, but he's not about to be directing my patrolman and pulling four patrol officers off the street. That's up to me. So he's got me fucked up a little bit. So just keep in mind your chain of command. You see it from homicide detectives. Yes, it's their scene if it's a homicide scene, but you still can't talk crazy to a sergeant, a lieutenant. You're gonna have lieutenants barge into your crime scene. Your supervisor needs to be handling that. Yeah, you can speak up if you want to. Hey, you mind not coming in here? But if they say they are, you need to have your chain of command involved immediately if you don't want them on the crime scene log. That's the that's the easiest way to keep them out, kind of digressing. Like, hey, sir, can you sign the crime scene log if you're gonna be in here? That way we can subpoena you when it's time for trial. Like most people are like, ugh, maybe I don't need to see the body. I'm gonna skip this. So just remember your chain of command and use it. Don't buck the chain of command. If they're higher than you in the rotation, then they are. And it doesn't really matter if you work in different units. Doesn't always mean they can tell you what to do, but it does mean they know people that can tell you what to do or get you reprimanded if you're cocking off, rolling your eyes, sucking your teeth. Come on, doing all that. So the moral of it all is there should be a healthy, respectful relationship between the MARC units that are the bread and butter of any police department, and the various investigative agencies that are more or less support. I would call every investigative agency a support function. Homice homicide supports patrol in something that they can't do. And Uh narcotics supports patrol, blah, blah, blah. SWAT supports these different units. You're all support functions of patrol. So treat patrol with respect or expect those frontline supervisors to go, nah, we're unavailable. And then you're crying and you're going to cry to the chief or your assistant chief buddy. And when they call me, who's the one that said no, I'm going, yeah, let's go ahead and look at this last stop. Let me show you why. You know I'm not a jerk, so let me show you why we don't want to help them anymore. They put my officer in in danger. And then when I tried to have a conversation, they were dismissive about it. They didn't say, that'll never happen again, which to me is the only reasonable response. If you, as an unmarked, put an officer in danger, it's sorry, that'll never happen again. You're exactly right. But if your answer is, hey, what happened, happened, I didn't know. How was I supposed to know all that was going to happen? Because you have case knowledge. And one more thing, if you're a narc, unless you're doing frequent undercover, get your ass out with the patrol officers. If you want to ask them to do stops, could it burn your car? Maybe. Can you park down the street and walk up to it? Yes. If you're doing undercover all the time, can you walk up with a COVID mask on with a badge around your neck? Yes. Most cities, you can still do that, even if, you know, they had all the laws coming out, officers were getting doxxed or whatever and getting their personal address exposed and all the shit. Most of the time, UCs just either think they're too cool or they don't do a little bit of undercover. Most of them do not do frequent undercover, three, four days a week, regular stuff. So get out and support patrol. Show them that they're not alone. You're still a cop. Have your gear squared away so that you're not using a zero retention holster and no badge out because you're in narcotics and your shirt's hanging over it. Like people don't even really know if you're a cop or not. So give patrol the respect because they're simply doing a different job than you. You're not cooler than them. So I know that hurts some feelings, but your ass can get wiped back to patrol real quick and they can get pulled there. And you would want them to treat you right if they're calling for a stop or a perimeter or a guy running or whatever. So just it's usually that direction. It's usually they're shitting on patrol, not vice versa. But also if you're patrol, just try to support them as they're just an equal cop trying to do a job. Thank you. Have a great day.