A Police Officers Guide and Handbook to Tactical Casualty Care

Rafael Navarro a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy releases a new book on Tactical Casualty Care entitled: “A Police Officers Guide and Handbook to Tactical Casualty Care (Under Fire) First Aid and Self First Aid for Law Enforcement”.

After returning from his overseas tour, Rafael was given an assignment within the training unit at his agency. It didn’t take long before he realized that there were some shortfalls to the First Aid and Self First Aid program they were offering.

The most outstanding concern was the lack of training concerning the use and deployment of a tourniquet.  After taking a good look at their existing program, he proposed a lesson plan, which included the purpose and use of the tourniquet. This was approved after a short review and the trend began. Slowly, he was able to affect the entire agency, by exposing them to tourniquet training.

This is when he realized the enormous communication gap between our military and law enforcement agencies. Rafael began a personal campaign to bring attention to the fact that our soldiers (young as they may be) are considered trainable in combat lifesaving skills by our government, whereas most of the law enforcement agencies in our country consider this type of training “out of the realm or scope” and perhaps too difficult.

The fact of the matter is, that the skills needed to become proficient in combat lifesaving skills can be taught to police… Continue reading

The Police PTSD Paradox

The Problems with Police PTSD – A Call for Comments

Editors Note: This is a very important topic to law enforcement officers all  around the world.  Please leave your comments in the box below so we can start a dialogue on this very important issue.

We have a Police PTSD Crisis: “Take care of our own” v.s. “Throwaway Cops”

We have a problem in our profession.  It has to do with excessive stress caused by the job of law enforcement and, in it’s extreme form, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.  We all know that the stress from this job can be toxic and at times debilitating.  What we don’t seem to believe is that it can happen to us, or someone we work with, because when it does, we don’t know what to do about it.   We seem to have created a paradox, which is a contradiction or a situation that seems to defy logic or intuition.

The Police PTSD Paradox is created by… Continue reading

Thank You to Law Enforcement Everywhere!

On this Thanksgiving day in the United States we say thank you to all law enforcement professionals around the world.  Thank you to all the police officers, sheriff’s deputies, corrections officers, detectives, parole officers, probation officers, SWAT team members, traffic cops, police supervisors, law enforcement managers, and police chiefs from around the world.  Thank you for all that you do to protect and serve our communities and make the world a better place.

We also want to thank and recognize all of those people who support, love and encourage law enforcement officers.  Thank you to all the police wives and police husbands, police mom’s… Continue reading

Keeping Your Edge – Homework for Cops

What are you doing to keep your edge as a cop?  Sure you went through the police academy, you probably have some sort of annual retraining and maybe you even get some occasional roll call training, but what are you doing to keep your professional edge?

Let me offer a couple of resources for you.  I was speaking to a group of over 150 police officers and sheriffs deputies last week and asked how many of them read the FBI’s Law Enforcement Bulletin.  I was shocked to find that none of them did.  The Law Enforcement Bulletin is a monthly magazine that many law enforcement agencies around the world subscribe to and at least at my agency are posted or passed around for everyone to read.  They also have a free online version… Continue reading

CopsAlive.com Needs Your Ideas and Input!

CopsAlive needs your help. Our mission is to create a forum for cops to help other cops by engaging in discussions and sharing ideas and information to help each other plan for happy, healthy and successful lives on the job and beyond the job.

Most of all we need readers. If you like what you are reading here please pass it on. Send a link or a note to all of your law enforcement friends online or tell them to check out Continue reading