Beyond Officer Survival What’s Your Plan? Part 1

I’ve often wondered how dangerous is our profession when compared to others?

When you compare ours to other professions, we as cops only just made it into the top 10 just recently.  On the List of Most Dangerous Jobs we only made it to number 10 in 2007 and that was only because we as law enforcement officers were lumped in with other protective service occupations and that was just in the United States.

In 2007 police officers finally made it to number 10 according to this article on most dangerous jobs.  “Badge-wielding types took a serious hit.  Of all occupations, protective-service occupations suffered the greatest relative increase in workplace fatalities in 2007, jumping 20% to 314. Nearly one-half of those were police officers… Continue reading

Cops Can Make Money and Have Fun With Social Networking

Social Networking is a bit of a stray from my typical financial planning topics, but earning money is not.  I’ve received a lot of questions about social networking after I was quoted in several news articles about Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.  Financial advisors were the audience of the articles, but the information is relevant to any business or profession.  You can Google my name if you’re interested in reading the articles. (Isn’t it neat how Google has become a verb?)

Let me begin by addressing the many that are reluctant to try these websites.  My introduction to social networking began a few years ago… Continue reading

CopsAlive.com Goes Multilingual

You can now translate any of the pages on CopsAlive.com into 34 languages thanks to a gadget from Google Translate that you see in our right sidebar.  Thanks to this modern technology we can be read by many more police officers around the world.  Thanks Google!  Learn more… Continue reading

Line of Duty Death: A Widow’s Perspective

Join CopsAlive next Thursday July 30th for a live interview with Kelly Young widow of slain Denver Police Detective Donald “Donnie” Young (E.O.W. May 8, 2005).  Detective Young was killed in the early morning hours on Mother’s Day 2005 while working off duty in uniform at a private baptismal celebration.  Young and his partner had asked some young men who were trying to crash the invitation only event to leave, and they became combative, so they were escorted out by Detective Young.  A short time later one of the men came back to the party with a gun and shot both police officers from behind.  Young was shot twice in the back and once in the head and was killed while his partner, Detective John “Jack” Bishop was wounded but saved by his bulletproof vest.  The suspect 19 year old Raul Garcia-Gomez fled the United States to Mexico and was involved in a lengthy court battle… Continue reading

Keeping Your Edge – Homework for Cops

What are you doing to keep your edge as a cop?  Sure you went through the police academy, you probably have some sort of annual retraining and maybe you even get some occasional roll call training, but what are you doing to keep your professional edge?

Let me offer a couple of resources for you.  I was speaking to a group of over 150 police officers and sheriffs deputies last week and asked how many of them read the FBI’s Law Enforcement Bulletin.  I was shocked to find that none of them did.  The Law Enforcement Bulletin is a monthly magazine that many law enforcement agencies around the world subscribe to and at least at my agency are posted or passed around for everyone to read.  They also have a free online version… Continue reading

CopsAlive First Teleseminar a Success!

Our first Teleseminar was broadcast live today over phone lines and free over the internet.

“5 Critical Concepts You Must Know to Start a Business” with Laurie Taylor.

Click the button below for the replay or to download an mp3 file for your audio player.

Learn more… Continue reading

Teleseminar for Cops on Starting a Business

Join CopsAlive Friday July 10, 2009 at 2 PM Mountain Time for our first Teleseminar training session on: “5 Critical Concepts You Must Know to Start a Business” with Laurie Taylor from FlashPoint!

For this free training session, targeted toward police officers… Continue reading

Spirituality in Law Enforcement?

I had the privilege to attend an excellent seminar last week hosted by the Denver Police Department on “Spirituality, Wellness & Vitality Issues in Law Enforcement Practices”.  Our presenters were FBI Supervisory Special Agent Samuel L. Feemster, J.D. and Sergeant Ginger L. Charles, Ph.D. of the Arvada Police Department.  They asked some interesting questions and offered some unique perspectives on modern law enforcement practices.  Some examples include: “Is Law Enforcement a calling for you?” and “What courses were you trained in at the police academy?”, then  “What courses should you have been trained in at the academy?”

This seminar was not about just religion but about any spiritual influence that gives police officers the kind of character that allows them to endure the toxic nature of police work and maintain their sanity over the years of a demanding police career.  There was information presented that many, many more officers die from suicide, cancer and heart attacks than ever are killed in the line of duty and we discussed what leads police officers, true leaders of our communities, to chose suicide over life.

The question was asked how do you become a well rounded police officer?

They led an excellent discussion on… Continue reading

Hey Officer, What’s Your Number?

As a hard working police officer have you ever wondered what you’ve been saving all your hard earned money for?  You probably answered with the obvious—retirement.  But let’s be more specific; what is retirement?  What does retirement mean to those of us in law enforcement?  Does it mean quitting your job and spending the rest of our life on a golf course?  I doubt you’d be golfing long before you’re just as board with golf as you were at the job you retired from.

I think a better description of retirement for cops is “financial independence.”  This means different things to different people, but I suggest it means you no longer HAVE to work, because your money works for you.  It does not necessarily mean you quit working, but in a law enforcement retirement maybe you stop doing police work and only do the kind of work you want to do.  To get there, you need to have saved enough money so… Continue reading

Law Enforcement Retreat at Sea

Start your New Year off right with a law enforcement cruise to the Exotic Caribbean as part of the CopsAlive Cruise 2010.  We sail January 9th – 16th, from Port Canaveral near Orlando, Florida and you can be part of the fun and educational programs.  We will be stopping in Cozumel, Belize (Central America), Isla Roatan (off the coast of Honduras) and in Costa Maya (Yucatan Penninsula) .  For the last three years the staff at CopsAlive have been joining a larger group of internet entrepreneurs on a Carnival Cruise the second week of January and you are invited to join us in January 2010.

Here’s what’s happening.  As a member of the CopsAlive group you will have a chance to meet with other cops in private meetings while… Continue reading