Police unions need to negotiate an AVO system

[NNN0LHI]

AVO where I worked stood for Avoid Verbal Orders. It was system negotiated by our union.

Let me give you an example. Suppose a supervisor gave you an order to do something that the worker doesn't think is safe to perform. That is where the AVO comes in to play.

Once had a superintendent order me to roll a press over. It was a hot job that had to run. Now, I knew from my training that this wasn't a good idea. So I explained to this superintendent why I didn't think this was a good idea and I would only do as he ordered if he wrote out an AVO describing exactly what he wanted me to do and signed it.

He did. And I rolled the press over as ordered. Cracked the die in the press right in half and tore up that press all to hell. Over a million dollars worth of damage done in about two seconds. Soon as I did it I knew someone was going to get fired. But with that AVO in my hand it wasn't me who got fired. It was the superintendent who was fired.

If I were a cop and my boss had ordered me to pepper spray innocent protesters I would have refused to do it without an AVO from my supervisor. And I very much doubt any such police supervisor would have signed such an AVO either. Because he would have known doing so would have probably cost that supervisor his/her job. So there would probably would have been no pepper spraying that day.

Now common sense has to be used here. If some worker had their hand caught in a press I would have never waited for an AVO to get the emergency set of hydraulic jacks and begin lifting the press off of that person. I would have just done it.

Same with police. If they see a bank robbery in progress or someone getting beat up common sense dictates they don't wait for an AVO from a supervisor to intercede. They would just do what had to be done.

But when there is no emergency situation like in a case of non-violent protesters there is plenty of time to pin down exactly who is giving the order to pepper spray them. And the supervisor who signed that order should have been fired the next day.

Police unions need to get a handle on this.

Don

[Earth_First]

1. I like it... n/t

[reACTIONary]

2. Good idea....

The need to have written SOP for civil / crowd control and written "rules of engagement" for any situation where the SOP isn't going to be used.

I was listening to a C-SPAN retrospective on George Wallace last night. There is still controversy about his orders to the police and the police violence surrounding the march from Selma to the state capital.

Of course, back in the day, those good old boys didn't know they might end up on national television!

[Sirveri]

3. Lt Pike WAS a supervisory officer. Good idea otherwise.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I don't understand how rank is established in police departments

We had supervisors and superintendents and higher. Supervisors weren't authorized to sign an AVO. Only superintendents, area managers and above could make those kinds of decisions.

Pretty sure there was someone above Lt. Pike who gave that order.

Don