Gordon Graham
Category: Public Safety

Gordon Graham here with Today’s Tip from Lexipol. Today’s Tip is for public safety.

Do your job right. Do it thoroughly. Not just some of the time or when you think the call is legitimate.  

Today’s tip deals with doing your job and doing it right. It applies to all my friends in public safety. 

I recently read a story about officers who were responded to a 9-1-1 call reporting a domestic violence situation. The officers arrived at the location and saw nothing outside. I am sure there was more to the story, but the article said that they never even got out of the car to investigate. And a woman was late found inside. Strangled to death.  

Maybe it was just plain laziness. But there had been prior domestic disturbance calls at the house. So maybe they were tired of going to the same old place for the same old thing. Nothing serious was going on the last time we were so nothing serious can be going on today. This is complacency.  

What are some minimum steps that could have been taken?  The first and simplest one? Get out of the car. This is not rocket science here. Look around. Listen. Knock on the door. Have dispatch call back. Talk to the neighbors.  

Fire and EMS personnel can fall into this trap of complacency too. It might be tempting to skip your normal procedures when you respond to the hypochondriac who calls every week. But it will be a tragedy if the one time you don’t check it out thoroughly those reported chest pains are real.   

This can happen in a jail setting, too. The inmate who is a chronic complainer. Do you handle the fifth complaint the same way did the first one? 

Really smart people thought long and hard to develop the protocols we have in place. Sure, it takes longer to follow them. But not following them could lead to tragedy. And when they look back on your actions, the excuse that you didn’t think it was a big deal is just not going to cut it.  

Do your job right. Do it thoroughly. Not just some of the time or when you think the call is legitimate.  

And that is Today’s Tip from Lexipol. Gordon Graham, signing off.