On an episode of a TV show, an off-duty NYPD cop happened to walk by an armed robbery in progress. The cop pulled his weapon and captured the bad guy with no shots fired. Long story short; the cop had had a couple of beers and faced an administrative hearing. The ensuing debate seemed to make the following points:
The cop was expected to carry a weapon off-duty.
Pulling his weapon with any alcohol in his system was a fireable offense.
The proper response would have been for the cop to call 911, and stay away from the robbery.
Obviously, we don’t want drunken cops brandishing firearms. My questions concern the policy. If an officer is expected to carry a weapon off-duty, does that mean that cops are expected never to drink? Or is it OK to drink but the weapon must remain holstered? Or, like in the TV show, are cops expected to be completely passive in any situation after consuming any amount of alcohol? I realize that it was just a TV show, but if off-duty cops do routinely carry weapons, what are the expectations regarding alcohol?
I’ve wondered that, too, since watching Law and Order episodes where off-duty cops regularly stumble across crimes. I remember an SVU where a detective did pursue after having had a couple of drinks but in this case someone did end up getting shot. I always wondered the same thing you did.
I still disagree. myself and others who have been carrying a concealed handgun for decades get pretty good at hiding it. No alteration of a suit coat is needed if you know what you’re doing.
This would depend on the written policy of the individual agency. Most people are extremely ignorant of the importance of written policies for law enforcement officers.
Almost 100% of the time when a cop is canned it’s for violating a written policy.
We just had a case here in Milwaukee where an officer was found justified in a shooting, yet was still fired for violating the departments written policies. It was complete horseshit but the firing was upheld.
Some agencies policies only forbid carrying an agency weapon if intoxicated. Federal law allows police officers to carry off duty as long as they are not under the influence. Having some alcohol in the bloodstream does not meet that standard.
It’s a little scary how much of our legal knowledge (or lack thereof) comes from script writers.
My dad was a state trooper, but he never carried a backup/off-duty handgun. His service revolver was considered to be part of the uniform; he was not allowed to wear one without the other. This was a few decades ago. (His weapon was a .357 magnum.) My memories of him are closer to Andy Griffith than Law & Order.
Yea, that makes sense. In the show I was referring to (Blue Bloods, BTW), the cop had not violated the law, but the administrative judge recommended termination for violation of policy. The wise police commissioner announced publically that what the officer had done was wrong, gave him a year’s probation, and told him to keep up the good work.
Depends. They can’t tell an agency to fire someone, but in some circumstances, like a disciplinary hearing, an administrative law judge can recommend termination of somebody for misconduct.
Here, for instance, is Department of Finance v Jones:
in which, in kind of a funny situation, a deputy sheriff in New York was falsifying service of summons. He got caught because he was in a car accident and was taken to the hospital, and the idiot had prefilled out the attempts at summons so the sheets said he had attempted to serve them at the time he was in the hospital.
Getting back to the OP, a female Secret Service agent attended a wedding reception and was wearing a tight fitting dress, mid thigh length. She was carrying her 357 SIG but there’s no way she had it on her. It had to have been in the small clutch purse she carried.
My agency required that weapon and ammo be stored in separate locked containers when not be carried. I don’t know anyone who actually did that but it minimizes the exposure of the agency to lawsuits in the event one of their issued guns was mis-used.
On my mother’s side of the family, all my uncles and many cousins were cops of one kind or another. Mostly NYPD, but a few in New Jersey, and one Secret Serviceman.
The New York cops carried guns when off-duty, but not their official on-duty guns. They carried much smaller, lighter guns.
At family gatherings, there was always a designated, locked drawer for guns. The guys would come in and put their (presumably unloaded, but I’m not sure) guns in that drawer. The host would have the key.
I know a couple of them rarely carried guns when off-duty. The two uncles who were New York City cops always did. I don’t know if this was because they were required to by the NYPD, or just because they preferred to have a weapon with them.
As far as what they did with their guns at home, I was often in their homes. There always seemed to be a locked box on a high shelf somewhere where the guns were kept. One uncle, who collected interesting (to him, anyway) guns had a display case, but that was locked, too.
I am not a particularly large woman, and have been carrying a Glock 19 for 20 years in NYC, (where people are totally unaccustomed to seeing anyone out of uniform carrying a firearm) without any special tailoring. No one ever seems to notice I’m carrying it, including the actual police, even when I am doing whatever bending and twisting occurs in normal life.
back to the OP- I’m not required to carry off-duty, and rarely do. When I’m at home it’s in a small safe, but that’s mainly out of habit, as when I got the job and the firearm I had small children. Even if I were to carry off duty, it would never be in a purse or a backpack - there are thigh holsters and bra holsters and garter holsters. It may be that I couldn’t wear a tight , short dress with one of those holsters- but I’d rather wear a longer or more flow-y dress than make the newspaper after a mugger took my firearm.
I was wondering if that Secret Service agent could wear a thigh holster. I suppose it’s possible she was, but not likely. She was definitely not wearing a bra holster (well, I’m pretty sure. It’s not like I was looking for a concealed pistol on her).