The Business of Policing: Volume VII: Practical Scenarios and Promotional Oral Boards

By Dr. Michael Wood

This is the Oral Board and Scenarios for operational supervisors section of that effort. These materials are not the theoretical information that you find in the sources envisioning a false reality of what policing has become. This is for real police by real police that understands what goes into the promotional processes, what works, and what we need to know. All of the fluff has been taken out, just the facts, the tricks, and guidance.
I seek to open the curtain on the promotional process to make it fair for everyone and, most importantly, to raise the bar and reserve the honor of supervising police officers for those genuinely worthy.

This guide is a collection of scenarios that law enforcement supervisors and supervisor hopefuls will face oral board promotional testing and in practical application. These scenarios will prepare you for the oral board phase of promotional testing and the challenges of law enforcement supervision. They are the most extensive, detailed, and complete scenarios assembled.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iMemberMedia LLC
• Release date: Mar 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463208540

Dr. Michael Wood

Dr. Michael Wood is a police management scholar who after spending a career in the USMC and Baltimore Police Department, took to dismantling the blue wall of silence and creating the pathway to reform; a model called Civilian-Led Policing. You can find Dr. Wood in hundreds of media appearances, from HBO’s Fixing the System documentary with President Obama, to The Joe Rogan Experience, to published opinion pieces in The Guardian and Baltimore Sun, and everything in-between, where he furthers the discussion on criminal justice systems and institutions, and the needs of society.

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Foreword

### 2020 Update Comments ###

It seems that a lot has changed since this book was first being written in 2011 or so. But, I really want to guide us away from that type of thinking right off of the back. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And that has been one of my key lessons in life. Don’t get ahead of yourself.

Often we already know that nothing has really changed. Maybe we buy into the narrative because it would be more exciting if things changed. There have always been people hoping for some version of the zombie apocalypse, for just a change of scenery for once. Many of us have found ourselves in policing because of variability in what we face from day to day.

The thrill of the unknown was something that excited me, for sure. Since writing this guide, my focus has shifted away from the technical to the philosophical aspect of policing. My perspective has been broadened quite significantly. I do not even feel like the same person that worked those streets. Point being that I have been on the blood-filled streets of Baltimore, lead, supervised, managed, studied, been thoroughly absorbed in policing for decades, and I keep finding myself to be laughing at my friends as they now sound exactly like the old veterans from 20 years ago.

I probably do too, but when they write their own books, then they can skip over their own incrimination, just like I am right now. Those veterans who were preaching to the doe-eyed rookie Police Officer Trainee Wood were actually setting me up to not just see that in that data, policing does not change, but police themselves do not change. This is all the same stuff. Somewhere between 8 and 10 years of grinding on the streets, the thrill wears off because even going from shooting, to stolen car, to fire, to robbery, to fatal vehicle crash, feels like groundhog day because it is!

Personally, I find our lack of evolution to be quite concerning. Not as individuals, but as a profession. The truth is that, once you get enough experience, once you can see beyond the immediate, our profession is fighting the same battles on the same corners over the same issues, dying in the same ways. Yes, there are long term trends, but these are societal trends that extend beyond our cities, counties, states, and even our nation. Crime is down, and cops are more likely to die in cars than on the job, but soldiers were more likely to die driving in the States than they were in theater in Iraq. I implore all of you to read or listen to my philosophical work and research on the causes of crime to help break this cycle, but that is not the topic of this book. For this book, we are working at getting you into a position to make those changes when the time comes.

I am off on this tangent because body cameras, protestors, school shootings, political turmoil, #metoo, and all the blah, blah, blah, is the entertainment and manipulation narrative of the media and those lacking the experience to see how the cycle repeats and repeats. These things really are not the changes that we fear (or maybe hope for). Just like any homicide detective knows, forensic science has changed the way people talk about murder cases, but boots on the ground and door to door are what always has and always will find the truth and signify an expert investigator. Leadership and handling the incidents that we are called to remains about the basics. Do not outthink your self. We are not that special. The same general psychology and steps guide our actions because these are human beings in social situations.

I am reminded of two facts pertaining to this topic. The first is a classic quote often attributed to Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) but is a universal truth that far precedes and proceeds one of my favorite Americans.

"If you don’t read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."

I have always been confused about how society could have gone through events like the Saleem Witch Trials and the McCarthy era until I watched it happen right before my eyes in multiple ways from cancel culture to Russian election influence. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The second example was the general frustration I also partake in over people staring at their phones and not communicating with one another. I saw this picture of a train full of passengers all with their faces mostly obscured by their heads being buried in the newspaper. Arguably, the cellphone activity is at least occasionally interacting with other human beings, the newspaper readers were just in their own worlds’ getting misinformed.

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This guide is the updated oral board portion of a complete guide that I wrote for the promotional process in the Baltimore Police Department. While the written piece of police promotional testing is unique to the rules and laws of a particular jurisdiction, the core elements of the oral board are nearly universal. When you partake in the written portion of your promotional testing, study hard, and integrate those local policies and laws into this guide. While I am speaking from a Baltimore Police Department perspective, the vast majority of the material transfers to any first responding law enforcement agency.

While I was with my first and only squad as a Sergeant, in the Eastern District, there was a moment when I was sitting with my Lieutenant discussing various aspects of policing, as we often did. This particular Lieutenant, although I have been with many supervisors that I respected and some that I loathed, remains the member of the department that I admire the most. We came upon the subject of who on our shift would make Sergeant on the upcoming test. The Lieutenant began naming a few potential candidates, many of whom would have made excellent Sergeants. I laughed at him and stated that there was no way any of them would make Sergeant because they were either aggressive Eastern District style (i.e., real police) police, more concerned with the art of their craft than getting promoted, or they simply lacked the initiative, intelligence, and/or desire.

The Lieutenant made attempts