Policing In Kalamazoo – Doing it Right?

By Robert Farago

Republished with permission from forcescience.org:

For a heart-stopping moment during his foot pursuit of an ADW suspect, a gang member with a long history of violence, Ofcr. Rick McCall was a sitting duck. His gunbelt hung up as he tried to scale a wobbly chain-link fence, pinning him at the top. The suspect lay on the ground 5 ft. below, having fallen when he cleared the wire. Looking up at the officer, he grabbed the butt of a semiautomatic and pulled it from his waistband . . .

Then as he raised the gun, he recognized who’d been chasing him. “McCall!” he exclaimed, “I didn’t know it was you!” He laid the gun on the ground and after McCall extricated himself from the fence, submitted to handcuffing without resistance.

McCall of the Kalamazoo (MI) DPS had arrested his near-assailant at least three times before. Chatting amiably on one of those occasions, they’d discovered they share the same birthday, a trivial coincidence the officer used to build rapport and a sense of respect between them.

Now walking to McCall’s patrol car, the suspect remarked, “Out of all the cops, you’ve always treated me decent.”

The R-word–Respect–is the lynchpin of an award-winning initiative in …read more

Source:: Truth About Guns