PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Jason Curtman (573) 568-3576

P.O. BOX 350 BLOOMFIELD, MO 63825

BLOOMFIELD POLICE DEPARTMENT

Press Release 2/04/2010

Buckle Up to Avoid a Ticket and Arrive Alive

Nearly one in four Missouri motorist fail to regularly wear their seat belt in a motor vehicle. Only 77 percent of Missourians buckle up regularly, seven percent less than the national average of 84 percent.

The Bloomfield Police Department will be joining with other law enforcement agencies through out the state on February 25 for an aggressive "Click It or Ticket" mobilization to crack down on Missouri's safety belt law violators and to reduce highway fatalities.

Failure to regularly wear a safety belt can be deadly. In 2008, 489 people killed in traffic crashes weren't wearing their seat belt. Seven out of ten Missourians killed in traffic crashes were unbuckled.

For information on Missouri seatbelt usage, visit www.saveMOlives.com.

"Come on, this is Bloomfield!

This morning I had a lady in a local convenience store stop me to ask me a question.

She asked me if I thought our department was getting a little…”slap happy.”

I asked her what she meant and she stated that she had observed an increase in traffic stops and then she said….”Come on, this is Bloomfield.”

I would like to point out that our officers do not stop cars without any legal reason at all. That would be unethical and illegal. We also do not manufacture reasons to pull over cars. If I ever caught an officer doing this he would be fired. If a car is pulled over it is because there was a violation committed. It is our job to advise, warn, and sometimes issue citations to the people who are committing these violations.

If I see a person driving without a license plate light on at night - do I HAVE to stop them? NO. Officers try to use their discretion when stopping cars. At the same time I ask you to look at it like this: If an officer sees a car being driven with a broken license plate light (a legal requirement) and they do not stop them, the officer is not doing their job. Period! I am not recommending that my officers stop every car for a broken license plate light. I am merely pointing out that it IS there job to do so.

In response to, “Come on, this is Bloomfield,” I would like to make a few points.

1. Our job is to enforce the same state statutes as all the other municipal, county, and state agencies in Missouri are mandated by law to enforce.

2. The Bloomfield Ordinances are in essence the same as every other city in Missouri, including St. Louis and Kansas City. These are the basic ordinances that involve traffic enforcement and the keeping of the peace.

3. We take the same oath of office as every other sworn law enforcement officer in Missouri.

In response to, “Come on, this is Bloomfield,” I would like to ask the following questions to a few people:

What makes you or any other person who lives or works in this town so special that they are above being stopped for any violation? Why should we selectively enforce the law just because “This is Bloomfield?” Give me one legal and ethical reason.

While some of you may say that this is not the attitude we need in our town I would also like to point out that this is the type of attitude that is required to enforce the law fairly and firmly.

Instructors, Make your beds!

The BPD has recently attended several training sessions. I attended an OC instructor course in June.

In August, Officer Wheetley and I attended the Missouri Highway Patrol Academy and took an instructors course in radar and laser.

We stayed in their dorms. We learned that even the visiting officers have to follow some of the rules that apply to the cadets. We even had to make our beds!

Officer Wheetley is shown on the right making his bed. I had already made my bed, as you can see. As you can tell, I did a pretty good job. I just know when my wife sees this I will be making our bed every morning. Oh well!

They did feed us though and it was quite a show to watch the recruits routine in the dining hall. I got tired of hearing, "Sir, Good morning, sir!"

During WWI some of the soldiers that fought on the oversees fronts were called doughboys. There are many theories as to why they acquired this name, some of which can be traced to the mid 1800's. One of the ideas is based on some of the concoctions these men would cook up in their foxholes and bunkers. One of which, I am told, is the doughnut.

After WWI these soldiers returned home to find jobs in factories, offices, construction companies and....police departments. A good many of the veterans, especially of of Irish descent, found themselves working in the large police departments of cities like New York, Boston, St. Louis, and Kansas City.

Working the foot beat on a midnight shift can be grueling and tiresome work. They didn't have energy drinks back in those days and it was hard to stay awake sometimes. There was a simple solution to the problem of boredom mixed with fatigue.

The only thing open in the early morning hours in those days was the local bakery. The night officers would stop to enjoy some conversation with the folks that ran these places. While they were there they would enjoy a fresh doughnut and a hot cup of coffee. Think about it. Stimulating conversation, Sugar, Carbohydrates, and Caffeine! What more could be asked for?

The rest is history...

By the way....I don't eat doughnuts very often and most of my fellow officers do not either. Most officers these days are better educated about nutrition. Don't get me wrong, I still like a good cream filled one every now and then but not too often.

I refuse to buy them or eat them while in uniform.

What is a cop? Written By Preston Wood and Delivered by Jack Webb

To hear Jack Webb's delivery: http://www.geocities.com/jdcurtman/whatisacop.mp3.mp3

"It's awkward having a policeman around the house. Friends drop in, a man with a badge answers the door, the temperature drops 20 degrees.

You throw a party and that badge gets in the way. All of a sudden there isn't a straight man in the crowd. Everybody's a comedian. "Don't drink too much," somebody says, "or the man with a badge'll run you in." Or "How's it going, Dick Tracy? How many jaywalkers did you pinch today?" And then there's always the one who wants to know how many apples you stole.

All at once you lost your first name. You're a cop, a flatfoot, a bull, a dick, John Law. You're the fuzz, the heat; you're poison, you're trouble, you're bad news. They call you everything, but never a policeman.

It's not much of a life, unless you don't mind missing a Dodger game because the hotshot phone rings. Unless you like working Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, at a job that doesn't pay overtime. Oh, the pay's adequate-- if you count pennies you can put your kid through college, but you better plan on seeing Europe on your television set.

And then there's your first night on the beat. When you try to arrest a drunken prostitute in a Main St. bar and she rips your new uniform to shreds. You'll buy another one-- out of your own pocket.

And you're going to rub elbows with the elite-- pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos, girls who can't keep an address and men who don't care. Liars, cheats, con men-- the class of Skid Row.

And the heartbreak-- underfed kids, beaten kids, molested kids, lost kids, crying kids, homeless kids, hit-and-run kids, broken-arm kids, broken-leg kids, broken-head kids, sick kids, dying kids, dead kids. The old people nobody wants-- the reliefers, the pensioners, the ones who walk the street cold, and those who tried to keep warm and died in a $3 room with an unventilated gas heater. You'll walk your beat and try to pick up the pieces.

Do you have real adventure in your soul? You better have, because you're gonna do time in a prowl car. Oh, it's going to be a thrill a minute when you get an unknown-trouble call and hit a backyard at two in the morning, never knowing who you'll meet-- a kid with a knife, a pill-head with a gun, or two ex-cons with nothing to lose.

And you're going to have plenty of time to think. You'll draw duty in a lonely car, with nobody to talk to but your radio.

Four years in uniform and you'll have the ability, the experience and maybe the desire to be a detective. If you like to fly by the seat of your pants, this is where you belong. For every crime that's committed, you've got three million suspects to choose from. And most of the time, you'll have few facts and a lot of hunches. You'll run down leads that dead-end on you. You'll work all-night stakeouts that could last a week. You'll do leg work until you're sure you've talked to everybody in the state of California.

People who saw it happen - but really didn't. People who insist they did it - but really didn't. People who don't remember - those who try to forget. Those who tell the truth - those who lie. You'll run the files until your eyes ache.

And paperwork? Oh, you'll fill out a report when you're right, you'll fill out a report when you're wrong, you'll fill one out when you're not sure, you'll fill one out listing your leads, you'll fill one out when you have no leads, you'll fill out a report on the reports you've made! You'll write enough words in your lifetime to stock a library. You'll learn to live with doubt, anxiety, frustration. Court decisions that tend to hinder rather than help you. Dorado, Morse, Escobedo, Cahan. You'll learn to live with the District Attorney, testifying in court, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, judges, juries, witnesses. And sometimes you're not going to be happy with the outcome.

But there's also this: there are over 5,000 men in this city, who know that being a policeman is an endless, glamourless, thankless job that's gotta be done.

I know it, too, and I'm darn glad to be one of them."

From Episode 96 - "D.H.Q. -- Night School" (Written by Dick Morgan)

Officers Killed so far in 2009

Total Line of Duty Deaths: 33
Accidental: 1
Automobile accident: 10
Duty related illness: 1
Gunfire: 11
Heart attack: 1
Struck by vehicle: 3
Vehicle pursuit: 1
Vehicular assault: 5

By Month:
January: 10
February: 7
March: 12
April: 4

By State:
Alabama: 1
Arkansas: 1
California: 6
Florida: 3
Georgia: 1
Massachusetts: 1
Minnesota: 1
Montana: 1
New Mexico: 1
New York: 2
North Carolina: 1
Ohio: 1
Pennsylvania: 5
South Carolina: 1
South Dakota: 1
Tennessee: 1
Texas: 4
U.S. Government: 1

Average tour: 10 years, 9 months

Average age: 38

By Gender:
Female: 0
Male: 33

If you were to ask my brother Paul...

I guess since I have some political work experience and military background, some have asked me what I think about different things that have been happening in America, so to keep it general…let me be specific.

"...whenever any one shall go about to bring them into such slavish conditions, they will always have a right to preserve what they have not a power to part with, and to rid themselves of those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation,... And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme power..." - John Locke

The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America
WE THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Founding Fathers of American Government, with Godly wisdom, structured the new American government to be divided into three branches; the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. This system of government was designed to keep the federal government small and to keep it from growing to powerful. If someone were to ask you which branch of government was the most powerful, what would you say? Some might say the executive, but most anything the president does can be cancelled out by the other two branches very quickly. If you said the judicial branch, keep in mind they can only strike down rulings or laws already in effect and they can only hear a limited number of cases each year. If you said the legislative branch you would be right for the legislative branch introduces and passes all legislation, and are entirely more active in that sense than the other two branches. Also, it is the Legislature which is elected more often by the citizens, therefore the other two branches are and should be subordinate.

There is a more powerful check on the American government that is written into the US Constitution that is all to often ignored. It is written into the preamble to the Constitution. It was the preamble that expressed the Founding Fathers reason and right to create a new government and it did not begin with "We who are rich" or "We who are more intelligent than the rest of the Americans", it began with WE THE PEOPLE. As the preamble to the US Constitution states, it is up to the people to establish justice and insure domestic tranquility. By this I take it that the Founding Fathers would whole heartedly expect the citizens of America to organize and act out of concern for the welfare of the American citizen when concern by our elected officials is not evident in their actions (their concern seems to always taper off after an election).

All power is given to the government by the people with trust in hopes of attaining an end, an end in which liberty and freedom is secured to the citizens. However, should that end ever be ignored and neglected or even opposed, then that trust is forfeited back into the hands of the citizens who gave it. Those citizens then decide its new placement where they think best to ensure their safety and security. Thus is a perpetual cycle in which the supreme power remains with the people and each new form of government, leaders, etc... are in danger of the people should they ever be so stupid and careless or wicked to carry on with designs against the freedom and liberty of its citizens.

The last part of the preamble establishes that WE THE PEOPLE are the ones who have ordained and established the Constitution of the United States, therefore it is WE THE PEOPLE who are supreme to the powers that it commissions.

I hope this was plain enough.

Paul Curtman