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The Police Department & You


Big_Smokes

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19 minutes ago, Zayyy said:

image.png.3b4317e39aa1408b2b01e9dea971c0d6.pngmeanwhile pd members pm'ing their partner during a shootout. ? ? ? 

 
This is why players cry of cops mg'ing. Not all of them MG's. But.. there is some players who do that. This is a good example. 
 

If you’re gonna try to attack someone at least try and talk to the person? Firstly, the person accepted death immediately after they were shot down. No meta gaming was incited due to the fact that it’s a very common problem for someone to run back to a scene after their friend was killed to pick up their friends items. Feel free to report though! The person clearly went to Falcone to tend their wounds either way. You’re trying to use an example at least get the facts first? Feel free to take this to a private message instead of derailing this topic and you’re welcomed to submit a forum report! Also off duty so that really has NOTHING to do with the PD btw.

Edited by Frezemis
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Hey BigSmokes, thank you for opening up an avenue for people to discuss the PD. As for suggestions - aside from the one I sent you in PM on the LSPD forums, I think the biggest thing I would like to see from the LSPD is facilitating realistic roleplay and training opportunities for officers. While I am not on the PD, I was present at a shooting outside a public venue. Officers came, got reports, and quickly left. While I don't think any of them were bad at roleplaying- the interaction in general was very much a positive one - I think this is a perfect example of where Police RP could be taken to the next level in engaging with the community in a realistic way. In my opinion what should have been done in the situation to add a sense of realism, Officers should have gone inside the establishment, and locked it down, the same way they would have in the real world to ensure the safety of patrons in an active shooter scenario. They should have tried to engage with the patrons to identify everyone who was present at the scene, get IDs, block off the parking lot, walked the grounds for evidence. Sadly none of these things were done. And this isn't a complain necessarily as more as it is a suggestion for future interactions. As a result, they not only missed an opportunity to engage with the community outside of the normal scope of their usual roleplay, they also completely missed the five bullet casings left on the lot by the shooter (critical evidence) that could have been later used to identify the weapon, and the wielder at a later date. 

And to be fair, I look at this situation as an outsider with some Law Enforcement knowledge, but no knowledge about how training is facilitated in GTA World to help prepare officers for these scenarios. I know there is no actual IC Academy, but do not know for example, if there is monthly classroom trainings to discuss tactics and strategy at tackling these scenarios. I think that would be awesome to help take these interactions to the next level. In general, I'd like to see people push RP to their limits, rather than taking a gamified approach to rushing, and moving on to the next as quickly as they can, not so differently in the way that we often see truckers trying to rush to their next delivery for quicker cash, roleplay be damned.

So I guess if I wanted to water down my suggestions into a TL:DR - it would be:
 

  • Engage with the community
  • Push for quality in police call outs, not quantity.
  • Design a strategy to help facilitate better police roleplay and practices - hell approach this IC'ly by developing an actual IC academy, or periodic training sessions.

    One last suggestion - and this is kind of circling back to my recent experience with the application process. I've noticed several applicants that have had character backgrounds denied because of Special Warfare Training of some sort. The reason I've seen most commonly is "Unrealistic Character Background"

    To put it bluntly, I personally do not understand the justification for this claim, as there are several examples of this being common practice in the real world, and several reasons why a member of the SOF (Special Operation Forces - blanket term for all special operation units) would be an ideal candidate for Law Enforcement. That said I understand WHY you are likely putting that rule in there. I think its probably to weed out the Sam Fishers and Mary Sues. What I think is a better approach, would be to try and tackle this in the Interview Stage by gaining an assessment of how you feel the character would react in certain situations. 

    Sadly, media depicts Special Operation Forces veterans in a very unrealistic manner. They depict them as indominable badasses, like Sam Fisher, Solid Snake, Ghost Recon, but the reality of these people in the real world are much closer to home than most people realize. I have met several former SOF veterans that work on my own local police department, which is no big city of great repute, like Los Angeles, and the LAPD (which Los Santos is modeled after). I have at least two SOF veterans in my family, one is an active police officer, one is retired.The LAPD and SWAT (which was born in the LAPD, cool little history lesson) is arguably one of the most difficult, most heavily trained, and most elite law enforcement agencies in the United States. The job role of a SWAT officer, the equipment, and the training is nearly identical to that of military special operations units. So the realism factor of a service member with this background seeking out a role and career opportunity in an organization is the LSPD is not only very much real, but also entirely relevant to future career roles within the organization.

    Again, I think focus less on the subtext, and more on the context. If you would deny an application for that reasoning alone, I think a better idea would be to interview characters with that background, provided they meet all the preliminary requirements to move on to the interview, that way you can get a feel for how they roleplay. Will they play a Mary Sue, or will they play their character relevantly and realistically to people in the real world SOF community, which as I can speak only to the people I know in RL from these communities, are just people, trying to get by and make ends meet the same as the rest of us.

    Also - as a side note - one of the reasons you find a lot of former SOF operators going into Law Enforcement is because Veterans in our country are shit on. less than 20% of veteran SOF members that are discharged honorably, have work waiting for them as soon as they get out. If you want to add another layer of realism to the roleplay, and there may be concerns of PTSD, or psychological issues that could affect the veteran's ability to perform within the LSPD, conduct an IC mental evaluation as both an IC and OOC means to screen the mary sues, and how IC'ly they might be a good fit for the department.

    Hell, for a final layer of realism, back to bridging the gap with the community, rather than repel people of these backgrounds, and push against them, SEEK THEM OUT. Help your fellow veteran looking for work. Because a sad and unfortunate reality in the real world, is they're left to figure it all out once they're out, to figure out how to assimilate back into civilian life where they're skills, training, and experience is most likely going to be under-utilized, under appreciated. And maybe consider in future applications whether a character is being depicted realistically as a veteran, than as a blanket consensus, black listing veterans from future roles with the 'unrealistic' tag. Because unrealism, is just not a true justification for this scenario when compared to the real world and how things are done with Law Enforcement in the United States.

    Here's a few articles to perhaps utilize to get some insight on this:
     

    https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2018/333/Analyses/h0333z.CRJ.PDF
     

    https://www.wearethemighty.com/infantrymen-become-swat?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5
     

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/02/florida-program-puts-commandos-back-in-uniform-and-out-on-the-streets-as-law-enforcement-officers/


    Take care, and looking forward to more interactions with this group. So far the roleplay has been great and I look eagerly forward to more!
     


     
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3 hours ago, Wes4mu089 said:

Hey BigSmokes, thank you for opening up an avenue for people to discuss the PD. As for suggestions - aside from the one I sent you in PM on the LSPD forums, I think the biggest thing I would like to see from the LSPD is facilitating realistic roleplay and training opportunities for officers. While I am not on the PD, I was present at a shooting outside a public venue. Officers came, got reports, and quickly left. While I don't think any of them were bad at roleplaying- the interaction in general was very much a positive one - I think this is a perfect example of where Police RP could be taken to the next level in engaging with the community in a realistic way. In my opinion what should have been done in the situation to add a sense of realism, Officers should have gone inside the establishment, and locked it down, the same way they would have in the real world to ensure the safety of patrons in an active shooter scenario. They should have tried to engage with the patrons to identify everyone who was present at the scene, get IDs, block off the parking lot, walked the grounds for evidence. Sadly none of these things were done. And this isn't a complain necessarily as more as it is a suggestion for future interactions. As a result, they not only missed an opportunity to engage with the community outside of the normal scope of their usual roleplay, they also completely missed the five bullet casings left on the lot by the shooter (critical evidence) that could have been later used to identify the weapon, and the wielder at a later date. 

And to be fair, I look at this situation as an outsider with some Law Enforcement knowledge, but no knowledge about how training is facilitated in GTA World to help prepare officers for these scenarios. I know there is no actual IC Academy, but do not know for example, if there is monthly classroom trainings to discuss tactics and strategy at tackling these scenarios. I think that would be awesome to help take these interactions to the next level. In general, I'd like to see people push RP to their limits, rather than taking a gamified approach to rushing, and moving on to the next as quickly as they can, not so differently in the way that we often see truckers trying to rush to their next delivery for quicker cash, roleplay be damned.

So I guess if I wanted to water down my suggestions into a TL:DR - it would be:
 

  • Engage with the community
  • Push for quality in police call outs, not quantity.
  • Design a strategy to help facilitate better police roleplay and practices - hell approach this IC'ly by developing an actual IC academy, or periodic training sessions.

    One last suggestion - and this is kind of circling back to my recent experience with the application process. I've noticed several applicants that have had character backgrounds denied because of Special Warfare Training of some sort. The reason I've seen most commonly is "Unrealistic Character Background"

    To put it bluntly, I personally do not understand the justification for this claim, as there are several examples of this being common practice in the real world, and several reasons why a member of the SOF (Special Operation Forces - blanket term for all special operation units) would be an ideal candidate for Law Enforcement. That said I understand WHY you are likely putting that rule in there. I think its probably to weed out the Sam Fishers and Mary Sues. What I think is a better approach, would be to try and tackle this in the Interview Stage by gaining an assessment of how you feel the character would react in certain situations. 

    Sadly, media depicts Special Operation Forces veterans in a very unrealistic manner. They depict them as indominable badasses, like Sam Fisher, Solid Snake, Ghost Recon, but the reality of these people in the real world are much closer to home than most people realize. I have met several former SOF veterans that work on my own local police department, which is no big city of great repute, like Los Angeles, and the LAPD (which Los Santos is modeled after). I have at least two SOF veterans in my family, one is an active police officer, one is retired.The LAPD and SWAT (which was born in the LAPD, cool little history lesson) is arguably one of the most difficult, most heavily trained, and most elite law enforcement agencies in the United States. The job role of a SWAT officer, the equipment, and the training is nearly identical to that of military special operations units. So the realism factor of a service member with this background seeking out a role and career opportunity in an organization is the LSPD is not only very much real, but also entirely relevant to future career roles within the organization.

    Again, I think focus less on the subtext, and more on the context. If you would deny an application for that reasoning alone, I think a better idea would be to interview characters with that background, provided they meet all the preliminary requirements to move on to the interview, that way you can get a feel for how they roleplay. Will they play a Mary Sue, or will they play their character relevantly and realistically to people in the real world SOF community, which as I can speak only to the people I know in RL from these communities, are just people, trying to get by and make ends meet the same as the rest of us.

    Also - as a side note - one of the reasons you find a lot of former SOF operators going into Law Enforcement is because Veterans in our country are shit on. less than 20% of veteran SOF members that are discharged honorably, have work waiting for them as soon as they get out. If you want to add another layer of realism to the roleplay, and there may be concerns of PTSD, or psychological issues that could affect the veteran's ability to perform within the LSPD, conduct an IC mental evaluation as both an IC and OOC means to screen the mary sues, and how IC'ly they might be a good fit for the department.

    Hell, for a final layer of realism, back to bridging the gap with the community, rather than repel people of these backgrounds, and push against them, SEEK THEM OUT. Help your fellow veteran looking for work. Because a sad and unfortunate reality in the real world, is they're left to figure it all out once they're out, to figure out how to assimilate back into civilian life where they're skills, training, and experience is most likely going to be under-utilized, under appreciated. And maybe consider in future applications whether a character is being depicted realistically as a veteran, than as a blanket consensus, black listing veterans from future roles with the 'unrealistic' tag. Because unrealism, is just not a true justification for this scenario when compared to the real world and how things are done with Law Enforcement in the United States.

    Here's a few articles to perhaps utilize to get some insight on this:
     

    https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2018/333/Analyses/h0333z.CRJ.PDF
     

    https://www.wearethemighty.com/infantrymen-become-swat?rebelltitem=5#rebelltitem5
     

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/08/02/florida-program-puts-commandos-back-in-uniform-and-out-on-the-streets-as-law-enforcement-officers/


    Take care, and looking forward to more interactions with this group. So far the roleplay has been great and I look eagerly forward to more!
     


     


Hello! 

 

Thank you for your feedback! Some of these questions I feel I can answer.

Passive role play on scenes is something we are currently aiming for right now. My supervisor team is working on improving the experience not only within the faction but the interaction with the public. So far it's going great however naturally there is areas we are still working on and we are hoping to see more people interact with us more as well. Already this week I've seen a lot more back and forth rp with suspects and community members on scene which is great to see more people are willing to rp with us more as well rather than simply force an aggressive approach. We had a fantastic scene the other day which involved a lot of negotiation skills, patience and roleplay that was much more natural, depth to the roleplay and extended a lot more avenues to progress.

Something of interest to see from your point of view, though at times it can be difficult to block off nightclubs as they have a habit of being oblivious to anything going on outside. Casings can be so difficult to see, took me three times to find all of the casings on the scene the other day, however this is something that could happen in real life. Officers can miss evidence, granted not often. 

Training is something I feel we do well and are continuing to push more. Although no more academies, that does not mean that we don't train anymore. Our focus is now on the field training with our field training program and not with an hour of academy that really didn't teach much but more to get an idea of roleplay ability. The guys in FTP have made a fantastic course for new officers that already people who have went through the old system and are training officers in the new have said that the students are leaning a lot more. 

Scene management comes into the supervisor training programming that I run myself. This trains our sergeants and high level detectives within the team and we look at things like you pointed out with scene management.

Then we also have Command Training for Lieutenants, as well as numerous training for different divisions depending on what they need. So platoons in metro might train in breaching, K9 in searching for suspect, officers training how to use a rifle etc. All really important to us and for some fun roleplay. 

We also have just introduced the new Police Training and Education Division. The division looks into educating officers in everything from pursuit and vehicle control to report writing. It's relatively new but they have made great starts and looking to start with the new Police Office Is with additional training they might want. 

 

As for applications, I'm sure someone else will chip in more with this as this isn't my area. However, we don't deny simply because someone has decided their character has a military background that's completely fine. It tend to be that people haven't researched what they are saying they have in experience. There has been a lot of cases where applications have years and years of experience, been to three wars, got themselves a degree and a high rank and then decided to join the PD all by the age of 22. There is a number of officers in the PD that have very realistic military backstories that work well for the character. 

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50 minutes ago, Cascade said:


Hello! 

 

Thank you for your feedback! Some of these questions I feel I can answer.

Passive role play on scenes is something we are currently aiming for right now. My supervisor team is working on improving the experience not only within the faction but the interaction with the public. So far it's going great however naturally there is areas we are still working on and we are hoping to see more people interact with us more as well. Already this week I've seen a lot more back and forth rp with suspects and community members on scene which is great to see more people are willing to rp with us more as well rather than simply force an aggressive approach. We had a fantastic scene the other day which involved a lot of negotiation skills, patience and roleplay that was much more natural, depth to the roleplay and extended a lot more avenues to progress.

Something of interest to see from your point of view, though at times it can be difficult to block off nightclubs as they have a habit of being oblivious to anything going on outside. Casings can be so difficult to see, took me three times to find all of the casings on the scene the other day, however this is something that could happen in real life. Officers can miss evidence, granted not often. 

Training is something I feel we do well and are continuing to push more. Although no more academies, that does not mean that we don't train anymore. Our focus is now on the field training with our field training program and not with an hour of academy that really didn't teach much but more to get an idea of roleplay ability. The guys in FTP have made a fantastic course for new officers that already people who have went through the old system and are training officers in the new have said that the students are leaning a lot more. 

Scene management comes into the supervisor training programming that I run myself. This trains our sergeants and high level detectives within the team and we look at things like you pointed out with scene management.

Then we also have Command Training for Lieutenants, as well as numerous training for different divisions depending on what they need. So platoons in metro might train in breaching, K9 in searching for suspect, officers training how to use a rifle etc. All really important to us and for some fun roleplay. 

We also have just introduced the new Police Training and Education Division. The division looks into educating officers in everything from pursuit and vehicle control to report writing. It's relatively new but they have made great starts and looking to start with the new Police Office Is with additional training they might want. 

 

As for applications, I'm sure someone else will chip in more with this as this isn't my area. However, we don't deny simply because someone has decided their character has a military background that's completely fine. It tend to be that people haven't researched what they are saying they have in experience. There has been a lot of cases where applications have years and years of experience, been to three wars, got themselves a degree and a high rank and then decided to join the PD all by the age of 22. There is a number of officers in the PD that have very realistic military backstories that work well for the character. 

All of these are very great points!

At least in my own application I can speak to having done the research, but that is something that can be discussed in the proper channels at some point. 

All together my experiences with the PD and RPing with members of the PD has been a good one. I particularly have a few run ins with Off Duty cops that had been great, and I definitely looking forward to interacting with more.

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Just now, Wes4mu089 said:

All of these are very great points!

At least in my own application I can speak to having done the research, but that is something that can be discussed in the proper channels at some point. 

All together my experiences with the PD and RPing with members of the PD has been a good one. I particularly have a few run ins with Off Duty cops that had been great, and I definitely looking forward to interacting with more.

Glad to hear you have some good interactions! Look forward to seeing you around the city as well ?

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Usually it is Big_Smokes that posts on this thread however this month, I want to cover the upcoming projects for the month of May 2020. For those who don't know me yet, I am roozles, one of the Faction Leaders of the LSPD. I am currently overseeing the Operations Bureau, our "backbone" of the department, both IC and OOC. 

It has been mentioned before that there were plans for a second area however we did not disclose what that second area entails. I will give you a brief context by explaining on how exactly our Operations Bureau works, who the representatives (internal terminology, Commanding Officers, Directors,...) are in the Bureau and what they are responsible for.

 

The Operations Bureau is responsible for all patrol operations within the City of Los Santos. Our patrol operations are divided in Geographical Areas (currently one, Mission Row Area) that operate from a Community Police Station (currently, Mission Row Station). Each Station houses a Patrol Division (currently, Mission Row Patrol Division) in which our Patrol Staff are part of. The Patrol Staff is divided in several patrols (currently, four patrols) each ran by a Patrol Sergeant and a Senior Lead Officer. In charge of the Patrol Division is a Commanding Officer and Assistant Commanding Officer.

 

To summarize the paragraph: Operations Bureau > Geographical Area > Patrol Division > Patrol

As I mentioned between brackets, there is currently one Geographical Area, namely the Mission Row Area. It is currently responsible for the citywide operations as we only have one area. Due to the significant increase in players and faction members, we have decided that it is time to consider opening a second area. We had a discussion about this with not only the Faction Leaders, Faction Management and the representatives in the Operations Bureau, but also the people that will take part in this, namely the Patrol Sergeants and Senior Lead Officers. 

 

We came to a conclusion that we will settle our new Patrol Division in Rockford and name it the "Rockford Hills Patrol Division". It will cover the western and northern part of the City of Los Santos, which comes at a great timing with all the new scripted houses and their new owners. When this Area will be launched is not known yet. An interior will have to be mapped, new forum boards will have to be set up and the right candidates to run the Patrol Division will have to be appointed. Now this might not be very interesting to you (the GTA World community) and not what you specifically asked for, however that will now be covered in the upcoming paragraphs.

One of the biggest requests by the community is more passive roleplay, community engagement and community policing. It has always been a challenge for us and is not something easy to fulfil. To make a significant change in this, one of our Senior Lead Officers proposed a project similar to something existent in the Los Angeles Police Department. The idea is to have Geographical Areas divided in "zones" or "districts" (the exact terminology has not been determined yet) each under supervision of a Senior Lead Officer. Under this Senior Lead Officer, there will be several officers from the Patrol Division assigned to this "zone" or "district" and make it their primary. They will be tasked with getting to know the community, including local residents and business owners. They will act as the primary point of contact of the department.

 

This might sound like something that is not possible, which is true. You cannot simple know each person that lives there, however an effort can be made. It is expected for these officers to be the one that responds to the nine one one call in that area, simply because they want to know what exactly is going on in that area. A sudden crime spree (i.e. burglaries or robberies), an event hosted by the local residents, domestic violence calls, you name it, they will be attended to by the assigned officers.

Does this mean that they can only patrol in this zone or district of the area? No. They are still expected to patrol area or citywide, simply because not every zone or district is as active as the other. This means that the amount of officers per zone or district may vary, depending on the activity and also means that the map indicating these zones or districts may change over time to spread the activity as equal as possible over all zones or districts.

 

This projects is still in the works and what I said earlier should not be taken for granted. A pilot of the project will be launched to trial it in one or two zones or districts and changes might happen throughout the launch, to optimize the project and meet the faction and also the community's demands. This was to give you a global idea of what we are currently working on behind the scenes for the month of May and in preparation for the summer holidays. Next month, we will be giving an update on the matter and inform you about new development.

Also, here is the logo for the Rockford Hills Patrol Division, credits to @Lloydski for the design.

 

RHPD-logo-radial.png

Edited by roozles
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Good work and the Rockford Hill's station was a good idea, it brings a cool dynamic to the area — culture role play that differs from division to division should have emphasis in my opinion, it'd be great to see intricate role play differ from each. Good work on that logo too, looks great! ?

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13 hours ago, owen said:

Good work and the Rockford Hill's station was a good idea, it brings a cool dynamic to the area — culture role play that differs from division to division should have emphasis in my opinion, it'd be great to see intricate role play differ from each. Good work on that logo too, looks great! ?

Something I forgot to mention is the culture roleplay. It is one of the important points that has been brought up by one of our representatives in the Operations Bureau. With the launch of our second area, it is important to us that each area has its own culture, established by history or the (future) officers of that area. A good example by one of our Senior Lead Officers (@santaclaws who also brought up the whole idea around districts) was the fact Rockford Hills is the more wealthier area, where officers could roleplay "bias" towards the richer people.

 

In the end, the aim for all these changes and implementations are to provide more roleplay opportunities for both our faction and the community.

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