EDITOR'S POINT VIEW
/By George Beck, Ph.D.
Welcome to another excellent issue of Blue Magazine. We are proud that our last cover was featured on Fox News to seven million viewers. Yes, over seven million viewers saw our previous cover! While we are honored and pleased with this mention, we must continue to keep raising the bar of success by staying focused and staying true to our core values. We exist to be the independent national voice of active and retired officers. We exist to stand up for injustices against our profession when many others will not. We take on these risks knowing there will be pushback, haters and lunatics out there who want to silence us. But we must always speak the truth, regardless of how inconvenient the truth is.
Our cover story, written by our managing editor, Dr. Joseph Uliano, exposes a grave reality that friendly fire is, unfortunately, something we must discuss. We can no longer pretend it doesn’t exist. After recent friendly fire deaths, the NYPD announced they would increase training for plain-clothes officers by subjecting them to live-fire exercises and training simulators. Although this is excellent news, we must ask why now and not before these tragedies occurred? I believe many administrations are to blame. Administrators must always make sure their men and women, who are risking their lives to protect and serve the community, are not disadvantaged. They must insist they are equipped with every training and tool needed to safely perform their duties, reduce the risks, and survive this dangerous profession. Think about it. Why hasn’t every officer received firearms simunition and simulator training? We are quick to show the media these technologies as a way to demonstrate the difficultness of the nature of our work, yet there are many officers who have never had these trainings. Also, it is no secret that many agencies are operating patrols at bare minimum staffing—some with only one officer.
Additionally, many agencies are not equipped with life-saving devices such as long guns, tourniquets or QuickClot. We can all agree making this training and equipment a requirement is paramount, so why wait until after a tragedy to implement? The common reasons admins use to explain these “acceptable” risks are budgetary constraints. This is unacceptable. Officers are placing their lives on the line; they should at least take these risks knowing their departments are giving them every chance for survival. Officers do not need to die for change to occur.
On Nov. 21, 2019, at the Venetian in Garfield, NJ, we will hold our annual law enforcement dinner. We are partnering with Brothers Before Others and Moment of Silence. Both of these organizations are run by respected law enforcement leaders, Michael Burke and Steven Olimpio, respectively. These organizations are doing an excellent job for our profession, and we are honored to be partnering with them for this event! So many officers are flying in from all over the United States to attend. We are looking forward to a night to unite law enforcement like no other night. We are blessed to be working together with so many passionate people, and we thank everyone for all their efforts.
Until next time!
