PO Potatoes- The thoughts and musings of a crime fighting Potato

When I was in the Chicago Police academy I had a chance to sit down with one of the training sergeants.  His imposing figure was impressive and he carried himself extremely well, not to mention the stories around him as a blue shirt just added to his aura.  I remember asking him what books he has read that has helped him as a cop, and he was so impressed by the question he told me to stop by after class and we would talk. That led to multiple meetings, book suggestions which I bought, and loaned me several of his own personal books to read. It was the conversations that really hit things home for me and brought me a lot of perspective.  While I was a product of Chicago public schools and City Colleges and had a diverse group of friends, I had never been a cop.  I had enough mentors in my life prior to police work that I knew the best way to learn about a field was to find the person that is intimidating and ask them how they think.  I knew if I could go into the field with the right me

  I'm going to preface this entire post with this: This is strictly my opinion, my observations, my experience, and my story.  You may not like it, and while I'd love nothing than to put this supervisor on blast by name, if you know me, you know who this person is because I've been vocal about this since it happened. The other reason is I've always felt that when the upper echelon of supervisors in a department DO NOT lead their people correctly, the toxicity that lack creates disseminates itself into the front line officers.  It is in that toxicity that trauma (job caused or otherwise) festers and comes out as the dark side of policing: addiction, alcohol/drug abuse, violence at home and work, risky behaviors, and far, far too often...suicide. One more point: I'm not writing this for accolades but to give a back story.      My police pedigree started in the 011th district, as for those of you who read this outside of the Chicago Police Department, think of the dist

  When my star was pinned on my chest during the ceremony at the academy I had a great sense of pride and relief.  Relief that the academy was over and I had made it, and pride because I had joined what I felt to be the greatest department this profession has to offer.  Every kid at some point wants to be a cop…along with a firefighter, astronaut, soldier, racecar driver, and so on.  I just wanted to be a cop more than most; my closest friend, also a cop, was the one who pinned my star on my chest and a huge reason I even joined the profession.  The idea to become a cop was solidified at the funeral for 1st Deputy John Thomas as then Superintendent Terry Hillard talked about his friend.  I could see the respect and admiration in how he spoke of his friend and colleague and I wanted to desperately be a part of that fraternal feeling. I knew the job would be hard, not just physically but mentally.  I filled my head with as much knowledge on the human reaction to stress, violence, opposit

676 retirees 237 resignations 130 on leave of absences That is 1,043 officers no longer part of Chicago's police force at the end of 2021. Add another 300+ set to retire the first 2 months of 2022 and that's a 10th of the manpower IF  the department was fully staffed (at 13,100).  Which it isn't, and hasn't been for a few years now, so we are talking about an even higher percentage, I'd surmise that is more like 10%.  Even Rahm's 1000 (the 1000 new hires) didn't get us back to fully staffed.  The department has struggled to hire, and yes I know its everywhere , but when I first got on cops left other departments to come here.  I can count off the top of my head a dozen cops who have left here to go to other departments.  Some taking significant pay cuts to have a less toxic work environment, actually have their days off, and more support. Other departments are seeing big city cops leaving in droves, and they are seeing an opportunity to save on training exp