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Any good websites that have this kind of police advice for writing?

H

harmonica44

For my current script I need to decide the ranks of the cop characters. It's a microbudget thriller about a gang creating terrorist attacks and causing chaos all over the city, to make their point. In real life there would probably be a couple of dozen cops from different departments making all the decisions in a scenario like this but my limited budget I have chosen three characters to be in charge, for my story.

I've read books and sites that offer real police advice for writing, but they do not describe the types of duties, of who would do, in a scenario like my plot. I've asked real cops what ranks would my characters be if they were performing these duties, but they said my plot was so fictional that they couldn't answer that question. So asking for real advice is not the way to go, but are their any websites or anything, that tell of which officer of what rank, would do what, in which scenario, etc? I found this site, but are their any others? That wasn't doesn't really go as in depth. Thanks.

http://www.daviddylanthomas.com/blog/understanding-police-rank-through-film/
 
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Here is a typical police department ranking from bottom to top and the amount of gunplay involved at each level:

Patrol officer: Does a lot of grunt work - fires gun often.
Detective: Does less grunt work - fires gun less often.
Sergeant: Responsible for the grunt work - rarely fires gun.
Lieutenant: Passes along grunt work orders to Sergeants and Detectives - only fires gun on TV or in movies.
Captain: Gives the grunt work order to Lieutenants - only fires gun on TV or in movies.
Chief: Thinks up of grunt work - gets fired often.
Mayor or Commissioner: Gets caught by grunt level cops often.
 
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The bigger the department, the more specialized the duties. The smaller the department the more general. An agency of 12 members will have everybody except the Chief doing most things. A department with 1000 Officers will be pretty specialized. Another point is that the more likely a decision is to result in a law suit the higher up the chain of command it is made.
 
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Thanks I checked out the wikipedia one and it gave me some insight. But for my script the officers have to perform, duties specific to the plot that are not on the sites exactly.

Cop A patrols on a motorcycle or car, but also goes out and does some arresting and protects a witness, after the chaos starts. This could be anywhere from lowest to middle, I'm guessing, but not sure where exactly.

Cop B ranks higher and supervises, but is also tactical commander in the field. He also clashes on ways to handle things with Cop C, but Cop C, seeks his opinions and works close to him.

Cop C is the one in charge of the station, and even though he realistically would not be in charge of everything, he is calling all the shots, in the script since there are only 3 main cop characters, aside from the background ones. He works at the same station, but also does all the work of talking to the press, and forced to decisions in the interest of political/social issues that the acts of terrorism are affecting. This would be anywhere from middle to highest rank, but may depend since he works so close to Cop B, and passes orders directly to him.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Thanks I checked out the wikipedia one and it gave me some insight. But for my script the officers have to perform, duties specific to the plot that are not on the sites exactly.

Cop A patrols on a motorcycle or car, but also goes out and does some arresting and protects a witness, after the chaos starts. This could be anywhere from lowest to middle, I'm guessing, but not sure where exactly.

Cop B ranks higher and supervises, but is also tactical commander in the field. He also clashes on ways to handle things with Cop C, but Cop C, seeks his opinions and works close to him.

Cop C is the one in charge of the station, and even though he realistically would not be in charge of everything, he is calling all the shots, in the script since there are only 3 main cop characters, aside from the background ones. He works at the same station, but also does all the work of talking to the press, and forced to decisions in the interest of political/social issues that the acts of terrorism are affecting. This would be anywhere from middle to highest rank, but may depend since he works so close to Cop B, and passes orders directly to him.
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All you need to worry about is who takes order from whom.

Ok, so B seeks opinion of C, is that because C is higher ranked? or is C like an advisor, and B gets to make the ultimate decision. Sounds like A is lowest ranked of all. I'm guessing from highest to lowest, B,C,A, but you decide.

When you've got that sorted, decide how much lower do you want each one to be. B and C maybe one or two rank apart? A seems a few tiers lower? you decide

Cool, now that is settled, place A anywhere that seems resonable, and count upwards

I think Officer, Lieutenant and Captain is pretty good. but once again, you decide.
 
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No C seeks opinions from B. I was thinking that too, or Sergeant, Lieutenant, and Captain, but the captain will have to make a lot of media and PR decisions, and it seems that that would be someone of a higher ranks, like even Comissioner. It seems that the Comissioner, or chief is always the ones making speeches in real life anyway, at least where I live. But would a Comissioner work with the Lieutenant directly all the time? Plus the captain will have to be boss of the station that it takes place, in, if the Captain is the boss of such.
 
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harmonica44 said:
I guess. I can't see the Captain handling all the tasks the higher ups do but the Captain in SWAT (2003) did I guess.
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The only thing set in stone is who takes order from whom. Other than that, there's just a vague tendency in term of who is doing what, but nothing is set in stone. anyone can pretty much do anything. It's a pretty flexible system you know? Police has to be flexible, after all, they deal with all sort of things everyday.
 
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Courses in beginning police work, designed for people planning to work in the field, are taught at colleges by people who are or were police officers themselves. You can call a local college and find out where such a course would be taught and try to talk to an instructor.

Such courses have textbooks, like one called Police Administration, which you may be able to get used.
 
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I don't know how it is in Canada, but here in the USA rank is irrelevant when it comes to critical incident response. The Incident Commander will be the person with the most training/experience in that type of incident. You could conceivably have a Captain taking orders from an Officer in such a situation. That is highly unlikely though. A new Captain or Lieutenant without much real world experience (like someone with an accounting degree that made rank in Administration and was assigned to a Patrol unit) would likely turn to seasoned veteran Sergeant for advice, but would ultimately have to take responsibility for whatever decision he/she made.
 
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