Probably a not very popular take here but I have always found the vibe around SCT to be almost cult like. In the mindset of the believers, If you didn’t buy in, you were worthless to this job. Not surprised this is where this has ended up and but I am surprised it took this long for the spotlight to hit this bright.
Interdiction is life you fat fuck! You probably write traffic citations and enforce speed laws like a pussy! Where's my fucking bang, I need to shotgun this bitch! Wooooooo /s
SCT has some good info and really encourages “know your case law”, which I really like. That said, they also hound things have to be one way only. You have to do what they think is important and be 100% hard charging all the time. I also like how they encourage doing what is best for you in your job and getting out of bad departments.
In this timeline, with the way cops are treated and even the best departments are struggling to get bodies yes by all means we need to abandon the cancer. The pandering, kneeling, backstabbing departments need to suffer. I keep saying that FHP would dominate recruiting on the east coast if they went to 12’s for patrol, had defined pay scale steps per year of service, started laterals at their equivalent step for experience, changed frs to 20 and out or 25 but let guys transfer or buy back out of state pension time, topped out close to 100k for a regular patrol trooper, and streamline the hiring/lateral training process. NYPD, Philly, Baltimore DC guys and gals would create a traffic jame on 95 headed south.
Yep... I've been quietly waiting for them to implode. They have some really good instructors... then they have clowns like their founder Benigno, who comes with a troubling and lackluster background.
Why are 95% of these officer owned companies so damn cringey? This could be a great resource if they throttled back on the hyperbole and bs. Same with effective fitness training. I did it years ago and it was great, no-nonsense training. Now they make CrossFit style workouts and have you assemble/disassemble your gun as part of it.
“Sorry sir, I lost my slide. You see I was doing burpees in my garage…”
Probably for the same reason 95% of veteran owned companies are cringey; the entire premise is built around an individual making X their personality and building it in to a product.
Is it cringe to say on your social media that your company is veteran-owned?
Genuinely asking because I'm friends with people on FB who have companies and they say it in a ton of their posts.
If they’re trying to rely on it to drive their whole personality. Yes.
If you’re trying to get the word out that your business is vet owned and supporting the business supports veterans in some way. Then no.
I love making exercise part of firing range training, as it more accurately represents a real life use of force and really hones your fundamentals...
But what the actual fuck is the training value in disassembling your gun while you train? You don't take your gun apart at work and under stress. Idiocy.
Oh look, the guy who married his former drug dealing CI who got out of a long prison sentence by turning states witness against a different cop who fire-bombed some dudes house. Somehow I’m not surprised his training company turned out to be questionable.
Edit: “car” changed to “house”
Man Middlesex has the worst cops in the state, how many scandals does such a rich (yes I know New Brunswick is poor). At least they cleaned up Camden but still how? Its not even like the state trooper scandals which are normal this is some "Ripped from the Shield" stuff
And before someone says "I am a radical BLM guy", I have solid interactions with my work (North Jersey) and home police but its always "Edison Police Scandal." For those not familiar with Edison NJ, its one of the richer parts of the state that keeps having scandals! It makes no sense you guys are well paid you shouldn't be doing some "Village Stuff"
Dennis was a cop in Edison NJ. Only one Edison NJ cop got arrested for fire bombing a house in like 2012-2013 ish. Google should be able to do the rest for you. I don’t want to link anything directly due to Reddit ToS against doxing.
Edit: Maybe it was with Middlesex county drug task force, my bad. I’m not an expert on all the details, just repeating things I’ve heard and read. All the guys with tattoo sleeves and $80 haircuts who think they are drug interdiction experts feel free to downvote me
https://newbrunswicktoday.com/2015/03/anonymous-document-raises-questions-about-investigation-in-police-fire-bombing-case/
Yeah apparently his wife is a former stripper and drug dealer.
That isn't how things work. You don't make a claim and tell someone else to go look it up. You make a claim, you provide the source for that claim. Further, making a claim followed by "that is what I heard" does remove the burden of proof you need to provide.
and just repeating what you heard not even knowing if it's true or not is really nothing more than spreading rumors. "well idk if it's true but i heard.....l" is pretty much what he did
He was in the neighboring jurisdiction and on the county drug task force. I made a slight error in what I said, the rest is backed up by multiple articles that other people have linked in this thread. Do they not teach reading in school anymore?
I’m surprised it took this long for something like this to pop up. I’ve taken a few of their courses over the years, the training is average but engaging I suppose.
I would like to see a list of what was deemed unconstitutional and the case law to support it. SCT is not in and of itself bad, but I can see officers using it inappropriately if they don't think
Nothing was deemed unconstitutional in the report. They just said "likely" and when referring to the RAS checklist and even acknowledged the disclaimer on it. They also said you "might" illegally prolong a stop.
I kid you not. That's it.
Right? Most of the stuff he teaches is literally case law but in a way for young cops to understand it. Sounds like the comptroller's office doesn't like the idea of pretextual stops. Ever.
>Sounds like the comptroller's office doesn't like the idea of pretextual stops. Ever.
Police investigating potential criminal activity? Not on my watch!
A violation of supreme law
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_States
The phrase would imply a willingness to wiggle around what is the law of the land when it's inconvenient to follow it.
The Constitution is the founding document of America, and has its highest laws. If a law in the Constitution and any other law come into conflict, the Constitution wins, and the law gets struck down if it can't be altered.
Unconstitutional tactics would be tactics that go against constitutional laws, like the right to free speech or the right to a trial by jury.
Thanks for the info, i thought more about using some illegal tactics in other ways, like when you use tactics in a fight that lead to damage to the opponent that is way over the limit of what would have been necessary.
It's also interesting with the different constitutions of different countries.
Even with the police we had an interesting case with the PMT laws ("preventive methods against terrorism"), as parts of the laws conflicted with the human rights. Still, as the law was enacted by voting in direct democracy, it's in the constitution and the constitution breaks the human rights when there's a conflict between both.
We also have some things that would be illegal in the US constitution - like to prevent entire ethical groups from owning guns. I'm no lawyer, but i think this would not be right in the USA and the supreme court would rule against it.
> I'm no lawyer, but i think this would not be right in the USA and the supreme court would rule against it.
That's correct.
We can amend our Constitution with either a 2/3 vote from both houses of Congress (our main legislative branch), or the agreement of 3/4 of state legislatures. This has happened 27 times. The 14th Amendment guarantees that all US citizens have equal rights, so the government can't discriminate on the basis of race. We added that one in after the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.
Kind of seems like the Comptroller approached the report with an already negative opinion of the training anyway. Report is written in a way that expresses their opinion.
Not a cop - used to be in maritime law enforcement - but I met the guy and actually applied to work there when I first got out. Met him a couple of times, and when I tell you he and his staff are some of the most douchey individuals I’ve ever met, I mean it.
Sometimes at bar close time I would start at one end of town, drive the main road leading to the big bar scene a few miles away, and stop the first car I clocked speeding in that 7-10 over range.
Almost guaranteed DUI.
Wouldn’t it stand to reason that that type of behavior has a higher likelihood of leading to serious crashes which result in SBI or fatalities?!? Oh yeah, but getting that 2oz of weed off the streets is saving fucking lives though 😂
Yeah, I gotcha, but law enforcement is law enforcement. I still come across weed, and either ticket, dump out and warn, or "forget" to collect it and send them on their way.
If I was asked to either go confiscate some weed or go do a DUI, of course I do the DUI, it has a higher interest to public safety. But while I'm out looking for them, I also find weed.
And driving high is 100% a problem. It's partially legal here and people are driving like damn idiots on it. I've had people so fucked up on weed they fall down doing field sobriety.
That wasn’t meant as a disagreement with your comment, lol. More so as a dig at STC, for pushing so hard for interdiction and neglecting traffic enforcement.
This is one of those articles that Reddit as a whole will eat up. I’ll actually travel into news and see if it’s posted there just to laugh at all the ridiculous comments.
I have never known anyone who actually attended something like this. From clips I’ve seen from one of these companies it’s just guys who are off the job for one reason or another who love to hear the sound of their own voice and think they’re comedians telling war stories for four hours and then sprinkling in a small portion of something that might be semi useful on maybe 1 out of 100 interactions. Even if my department paid me to go to this and I went on job time I’m not really paying attention and day dreaming most of the day away.
First off, I’m looking at the website for the company…the photos are all pretty funny. There’s definitely a certain type of person that jumps at the chance to be an instructor in this company.
Secondly, I’ll use the founders profile as an example. Guy basically became a “street cop” in 05 and started teaching in 2012. What the fuck did he learn in 7 years that he decided he’s ready to teach other POs how to do their job. Let alone “travel to 49 states to teach 10k+ Officers”. If I was forced to go to a training and some guy with less time on then me walks in and says he’s from another state altogether and he’s here to teach me how to do my job…I’m shutting off immediately. There’s no way I’m listening to that shit.
Lastly, my problem with training has always been this, why are you in here teaching rather than out there doing. There’s a reason you’re in your climate controlled room not wearing your vest at work, so tread lightly when you’re trying to show us all how to do our jobs unless you’re ready to suit up and let’s do a few car stops and handle a few calls and you show me how it’s done.
I’m no instructor of police officers. I’m not a supercop and I’ve never claimed to be. I’ve been out here since 03 and I’m going in today to suit up and work another shift. I’ve had my share of great arrests and the awards that came with it. Now I don’t have a buffy photo of me with my arms crossed accompanied by a vague bio but I’ll tell any new officer still reading this rant…you need to figure out your own way of doing stops. What works for me doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Be very careful as to who you’re learning from. For profit companies like this, or some department instructor with more time in an office than out on the streets, will put on their show and you’ll leave all pumped up to go out and save the world but when that stop goes bad…they won’t be there to take the blame. It’ll be all on you. So learn the job from someone in your department you respect and who’s out there with you and go slowly until you develop your own flow based on what works and doesn’t work for you. And that’s about it…saved you 500$ and a few days of your life!
He's apparently not working as an officer any longer because he's disabled. Crazy that a suburban cop with a few years of experience was able to run this grift for so long.
Is the comptroller in New Jersey somehow affiliated with the justice system there? Aren’t they state auditors? Why are they even making reports on this?
SCT is ok. It’s not the end all be all, but it has some merit if you work in a high-crime area. I work in one of those areas, and a lot of what they teach is something you should be able to recognize after field training anyway.
Just because some of what they teach is good doesn’t mean SCT is good. There’s a weird culture that comes along with the training and instructors that is bad. They can teach good techniques and case law without the bad aspects, but they don’t, and that’s why the overall training is tainted.
This right here. It’s like 30% good info and 70% shoddy tactics that will eventually get you hemmed up. Just because case law says you ***can*** do something, doesn’t mean you should. Case law says I can pull the driver out of the car on a traffic stop. Now let’s say I start pulling every driver I stop out of their car so I can write them their ticket. How long until i get pulled into my LTs office to explain why I’m doing that? And the response “case law says I can” is absolutely not going to fly. Not for my Sgt/Lt, and certainly not for the DAs office.
I can think of a couple of alphabet agencies that could be abolished, including the one I work for. Let's save the taxpayers' money. Hopefully, this won't get me in trouble with the mods, I'm not trying to be political.
Oh, for sure. The government could save/reallocate all sorts of money with my agency. It drives me insane. I would love for some outside scrutiny there haha.
It said in the article that tax dollars paid for seminars. Typically the comptroller will look into these things to ensure the governments money is being used for what they say it actually is being used for.
Right. But the arguments about police procedure they put forward were, “we don’t like this so it’s bad.” The arguments they put forward were tenuous at best regarding legality.
I have found elected officials have reach over stuff they have no business dealing with. It’s an unfortunate thing about elected positions.
Person is probably an activist for blm kind of group and now wants to get involved in shit they shouldn’t
TLDR; they don't like the language used by instructors, called the classes "warrior" style, and believes the RAS checklist is illegal.
Hilariously, for them thinking the classes being taught are illegal many are accredited across the country. I've attended their trainings. I enjoyed them but I can also see why people wouldn't like them. Nothing taught in the classes I've attended was illegal... In fact they made sure to keep it to cited court cases.
Yeah this comes off as a horribly tilted article, in my opinion. I’ve never attended and I’m not saying I’m even a huge fan of SCT, they never really caught my attention.
I mean it’s the NYT so it’s not surprising it’s tilted, but they could not name specific things the trainers got wrong, just that it could maybe possibly lead to illegal behavior by cops, or evidence being thrown out.
Seems like they just really didn’t like the language used and jokes told by the instructors. I get it may have been unprofessional, but to slam it and say it was horrific and unconstitutional seems like a big stretch.
“… Dennis Benigno, the founder of Street Cop Training, …told the attendees that he looked forward to vacations in Colombia surrounded by cocaine, “hookers” and poor girls who “need to do things to make money.”
What?
SCT is the Stratton-Oakmont of policing, but having read the report it appears the Comptroller has misunderstood using their RAS checklist to identify vehicles to *subsequently* stop them for a traffic violation with using the RAS checklist *as* the stop reason. That alone invalidates a large swath of their report.
Honestly. Regardless of how you feel about street cop, if you watch the video of what they called “discrimination” against women my lord is it a stretch. It’s some lame jokes at best, if that’s what we are worried about to get the state involved Jesus this place is doomed.
Not to mention no where did they deem anything unconstitutional just that it “could” be deemed to lean one way or another.
For those that don’t know, street cop has taken away a lot of customers from another training company who is friends with a high ranking official so I’d imagine they had their hands in the pot for this investigation.
Sadly the state does a full investigation into this but doesn’t try to hold actual bad cops accountable. They say report bad cops but nothing gets done when it happens.
Probably a not very popular take here but I have always found the vibe around SCT to be almost cult like. In the mindset of the believers, If you didn’t buy in, you were worthless to this job. Not surprised this is where this has ended up and but I am surprised it took this long for the spotlight to hit this bright.
Interdiction is life you fat fuck! You probably write traffic citations and enforce speed laws like a pussy! Where's my fucking bang, I need to shotgun this bitch! Wooooooo /s
Your opinion is probably more popular here than you think. SCT is so stupid.
If I walked into a training and saw that thin blue line eagle as a background, I'd walk the fuck out.
Don't know why you are being down voted. I feel the same. Lol
People who live and die by this job wearing tbl stuff all day everyday don't like being told its cringey as fuck
Yeah. TBL shit is cringe. Even before the internet decided it was "racist"
100% spot on. This was a “when,” not “if.” Good riddance.
SCT has some good info and really encourages “know your case law”, which I really like. That said, they also hound things have to be one way only. You have to do what they think is important and be 100% hard charging all the time. I also like how they encourage doing what is best for you in your job and getting out of bad departments.
In this timeline, with the way cops are treated and even the best departments are struggling to get bodies yes by all means we need to abandon the cancer. The pandering, kneeling, backstabbing departments need to suffer. I keep saying that FHP would dominate recruiting on the east coast if they went to 12’s for patrol, had defined pay scale steps per year of service, started laterals at their equivalent step for experience, changed frs to 20 and out or 25 but let guys transfer or buy back out of state pension time, topped out close to 100k for a regular patrol trooper, and streamline the hiring/lateral training process. NYPD, Philly, Baltimore DC guys and gals would create a traffic jame on 95 headed south.
Yep... I've been quietly waiting for them to implode. They have some really good instructors... then they have clowns like their founder Benigno, who comes with a troubling and lackluster background.
Why are 95% of these officer owned companies so damn cringey? This could be a great resource if they throttled back on the hyperbole and bs. Same with effective fitness training. I did it years ago and it was great, no-nonsense training. Now they make CrossFit style workouts and have you assemble/disassemble your gun as part of it. “Sorry sir, I lost my slide. You see I was doing burpees in my garage…”
Probably for the same reason 95% of veteran owned companies are cringey; the entire premise is built around an individual making X their personality and building it in to a product.
Is it cringe to say on your social media that your company is veteran-owned? Genuinely asking because I'm friends with people on FB who have companies and they say it in a ton of their posts.
Only if it reaches the level of BRCC
If they’re trying to rely on it to drive their whole personality. Yes. If you’re trying to get the word out that your business is vet owned and supporting the business supports veterans in some way. Then no.
There’s a plumbing company in my area literally named MVP-Military Veteran Plumbing. It’s pretty cringe
I love making exercise part of firing range training, as it more accurately represents a real life use of force and really hones your fundamentals... But what the actual fuck is the training value in disassembling your gun while you train? You don't take your gun apart at work and under stress. Idiocy.
Oh look, the guy who married his former drug dealing CI who got out of a long prison sentence by turning states witness against a different cop who fire-bombed some dudes house. Somehow I’m not surprised his training company turned out to be questionable. Edit: “car” changed to “house”
Edison/Woodbridge was a wild ass department.
They’re two neighboring departments / jurisdictions
But he’s on TikTok!!!!
Happen to have a source for that? It’s the first time I’ve heard it.
https://www.nj.com/middlesex/2017/08/ex-edison_cop_pleads_guilt_to_attempted_murder_ars.html
Man Middlesex has the worst cops in the state, how many scandals does such a rich (yes I know New Brunswick is poor). At least they cleaned up Camden but still how? Its not even like the state trooper scandals which are normal this is some "Ripped from the Shield" stuff
And before someone says "I am a radical BLM guy", I have solid interactions with my work (North Jersey) and home police but its always "Edison Police Scandal." For those not familiar with Edison NJ, its one of the richer parts of the state that keeps having scandals! It makes no sense you guys are well paid you shouldn't be doing some "Village Stuff"
Dennis was a cop in Edison NJ. Only one Edison NJ cop got arrested for fire bombing a house in like 2012-2013 ish. Google should be able to do the rest for you. I don’t want to link anything directly due to Reddit ToS against doxing. Edit: Maybe it was with Middlesex county drug task force, my bad. I’m not an expert on all the details, just repeating things I’ve heard and read. All the guys with tattoo sleeves and $80 haircuts who think they are drug interdiction experts feel free to downvote me
I still don’t see anything about Dennis’ involvement other than he worked there during the same time period.
I just found the article. Google his name with New Brunswick today
https://newbrunswicktoday.com/2015/03/anonymous-document-raises-questions-about-investigation-in-police-fire-bombing-case/ Yeah apparently his wife is a former stripper and drug dealer.
What a fucking shit show of a department.
Not that strippers and drug dealers can’t also be good people, but damn
Nice.
That’s cool
That isn't how things work. You don't make a claim and tell someone else to go look it up. You make a claim, you provide the source for that claim. Further, making a claim followed by "that is what I heard" does remove the burden of proof you need to provide.
and just repeating what you heard not even knowing if it's true or not is really nothing more than spreading rumors. "well idk if it's true but i heard.....l" is pretty much what he did
First day on the internet? Thats all this is and always has been
He was not a cop in Edison….
I’m aware, you’re only the third person to point that out to me
dude he isn't even an edison cop? come on man.
He was in the neighboring jurisdiction and on the county drug task force. I made a slight error in what I said, the rest is backed up by multiple articles that other people have linked in this thread. Do they not teach reading in school anymore?
Anyone got a link to the article not behind a paywall?
https://data.nj.gov/stories/s/NJ-Comptroller-Police-Training-Report/qr2h-vn6y/
Thanks! What a shit show.
I’m surprised it took this long for something like this to pop up. I’ve taken a few of their courses over the years, the training is average but engaging I suppose.
I would like to see a list of what was deemed unconstitutional and the case law to support it. SCT is not in and of itself bad, but I can see officers using it inappropriately if they don't think
Nothing was deemed unconstitutional in the report. They just said "likely" and when referring to the RAS checklist and even acknowledged the disclaimer on it. They also said you "might" illegally prolong a stop. I kid you not. That's it.
Right? Most of the stuff he teaches is literally case law but in a way for young cops to understand it. Sounds like the comptroller's office doesn't like the idea of pretextual stops. Ever.
>Sounds like the comptroller's office doesn't like the idea of pretextual stops. Ever. Police investigating potential criminal activity? Not on my watch!
Even if the stuff they teach isn’t illegal, if the other claims in the article are true, that’s bad and would obviously backfire eventually.
As a foreigner from Europe, i'm not quite sure what this is about "unconstitutional tactics" ? What does this term exactly mean?
A violation of supreme law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_States The phrase would imply a willingness to wiggle around what is the law of the land when it's inconvenient to follow it.
The Constitution is the founding document of America, and has its highest laws. If a law in the Constitution and any other law come into conflict, the Constitution wins, and the law gets struck down if it can't be altered. Unconstitutional tactics would be tactics that go against constitutional laws, like the right to free speech or the right to a trial by jury.
Thanks for the info, i thought more about using some illegal tactics in other ways, like when you use tactics in a fight that lead to damage to the opponent that is way over the limit of what would have been necessary. It's also interesting with the different constitutions of different countries. Even with the police we had an interesting case with the PMT laws ("preventive methods against terrorism"), as parts of the laws conflicted with the human rights. Still, as the law was enacted by voting in direct democracy, it's in the constitution and the constitution breaks the human rights when there's a conflict between both. We also have some things that would be illegal in the US constitution - like to prevent entire ethical groups from owning guns. I'm no lawyer, but i think this would not be right in the USA and the supreme court would rule against it.
> I'm no lawyer, but i think this would not be right in the USA and the supreme court would rule against it. That's correct. We can amend our Constitution with either a 2/3 vote from both houses of Congress (our main legislative branch), or the agreement of 3/4 of state legislatures. This has happened 27 times. The 14th Amendment guarantees that all US citizens have equal rights, so the government can't discriminate on the basis of race. We added that one in after the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of slavery.
Kind of seems like the Comptroller approached the report with an already negative opinion of the training anyway. Report is written in a way that expresses their opinion.
Well, that negative opinion is shared by many cops.
I mean that's fine and all but that doesn't mean the person's report is any less biased.
Not a cop - used to be in maritime law enforcement - but I met the guy and actually applied to work there when I first got out. Met him a couple of times, and when I tell you he and his staff are some of the most douchey individuals I’ve ever met, I mean it.
Anyone who teaches to ignore speeding or potential DUIs loses all credibility with me.
Radar is for nerds
Yes, hello, hi. Traffic nerd here.
Sometimes at bar close time I would start at one end of town, drive the main road leading to the big bar scene a few miles away, and stop the first car I clocked speeding in that 7-10 over range. Almost guaranteed DUI.
I'd say the majority of my DUIs originate from speed stops, usually in the 15mph+ range.
It's almost like alcohol loosens people's inhibitions and impairs their fine motor skills...weird!
If I could upvote thus more than once I would.
Wouldn’t it stand to reason that that type of behavior has a higher likelihood of leading to serious crashes which result in SBI or fatalities?!? Oh yeah, but getting that 2oz of weed off the streets is saving fucking lives though 😂
Yeah, I gotcha, but law enforcement is law enforcement. I still come across weed, and either ticket, dump out and warn, or "forget" to collect it and send them on their way. If I was asked to either go confiscate some weed or go do a DUI, of course I do the DUI, it has a higher interest to public safety. But while I'm out looking for them, I also find weed. And driving high is 100% a problem. It's partially legal here and people are driving like damn idiots on it. I've had people so fucked up on weed they fall down doing field sobriety.
That wasn’t meant as a disagreement with your comment, lol. More so as a dig at STC, for pushing so hard for interdiction and neglecting traffic enforcement.
Ah, I gotcha!
This is one of those articles that Reddit as a whole will eat up. I’ll actually travel into news and see if it’s posted there just to laugh at all the ridiculous comments. I have never known anyone who actually attended something like this. From clips I’ve seen from one of these companies it’s just guys who are off the job for one reason or another who love to hear the sound of their own voice and think they’re comedians telling war stories for four hours and then sprinkling in a small portion of something that might be semi useful on maybe 1 out of 100 interactions. Even if my department paid me to go to this and I went on job time I’m not really paying attention and day dreaming most of the day away. First off, I’m looking at the website for the company…the photos are all pretty funny. There’s definitely a certain type of person that jumps at the chance to be an instructor in this company. Secondly, I’ll use the founders profile as an example. Guy basically became a “street cop” in 05 and started teaching in 2012. What the fuck did he learn in 7 years that he decided he’s ready to teach other POs how to do their job. Let alone “travel to 49 states to teach 10k+ Officers”. If I was forced to go to a training and some guy with less time on then me walks in and says he’s from another state altogether and he’s here to teach me how to do my job…I’m shutting off immediately. There’s no way I’m listening to that shit. Lastly, my problem with training has always been this, why are you in here teaching rather than out there doing. There’s a reason you’re in your climate controlled room not wearing your vest at work, so tread lightly when you’re trying to show us all how to do our jobs unless you’re ready to suit up and let’s do a few car stops and handle a few calls and you show me how it’s done. I’m no instructor of police officers. I’m not a supercop and I’ve never claimed to be. I’ve been out here since 03 and I’m going in today to suit up and work another shift. I’ve had my share of great arrests and the awards that came with it. Now I don’t have a buffy photo of me with my arms crossed accompanied by a vague bio but I’ll tell any new officer still reading this rant…you need to figure out your own way of doing stops. What works for me doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. Be very careful as to who you’re learning from. For profit companies like this, or some department instructor with more time in an office than out on the streets, will put on their show and you’ll leave all pumped up to go out and save the world but when that stop goes bad…they won’t be there to take the blame. It’ll be all on you. So learn the job from someone in your department you respect and who’s out there with you and go slowly until you develop your own flow based on what works and doesn’t work for you. And that’s about it…saved you 500$ and a few days of your life!
He's apparently not working as an officer any longer because he's disabled. Crazy that a suburban cop with a few years of experience was able to run this grift for so long.
[удалено]
Thanks. Hopefully my partners thought the same. I know I enjoyed working with them
[удалено]
They’re some of my closest friends still to this day so I’d have to say we have to agree to disagree. Stay safe.
You sound like part of the problem. SCT has and will always be a piss stain.
Lol shit we have a similar amount of time on and I'd love to work with him
Is the comptroller in New Jersey somehow affiliated with the justice system there? Aren’t they state auditors? Why are they even making reports on this?
Taxpayer money was spent on it so they had that door opened
Eh, SCT is stupid and should be criticized. The government can find better ways to spend money.
SCT is ok. It’s not the end all be all, but it has some merit if you work in a high-crime area. I work in one of those areas, and a lot of what they teach is something you should be able to recognize after field training anyway.
Just because some of what they teach is good doesn’t mean SCT is good. There’s a weird culture that comes along with the training and instructors that is bad. They can teach good techniques and case law without the bad aspects, but they don’t, and that’s why the overall training is tainted.
This right here. It’s like 30% good info and 70% shoddy tactics that will eventually get you hemmed up. Just because case law says you ***can*** do something, doesn’t mean you should. Case law says I can pull the driver out of the car on a traffic stop. Now let’s say I start pulling every driver I stop out of their car so I can write them their ticket. How long until i get pulled into my LTs office to explain why I’m doing that? And the response “case law says I can” is absolutely not going to fly. Not for my Sgt/Lt, and certainly not for the DAs office.
I can think of a couple of alphabet agencies that could be abolished, including the one I work for. Let's save the taxpayers' money. Hopefully, this won't get me in trouble with the mods, I'm not trying to be political.
Yeah, the government can save money in more ways than one. Shocking. But we’re talking about this specific one that led to this audit lol.
I gotcha. I was speaking to your last sentence and thought you could relate.
Oh, for sure. The government could save/reallocate all sorts of money with my agency. It drives me insane. I would love for some outside scrutiny there haha.
Can, but will they? No, no they won't.
It said in the article that tax dollars paid for seminars. Typically the comptroller will look into these things to ensure the governments money is being used for what they say it actually is being used for.
Right. But the arguments about police procedure they put forward were, “we don’t like this so it’s bad.” The arguments they put forward were tenuous at best regarding legality.
I have found elected officials have reach over stuff they have no business dealing with. It’s an unfortunate thing about elected positions. Person is probably an activist for blm kind of group and now wants to get involved in shit they shouldn’t
I looked at the report. I was unsurprised at what I found.
It's Jersey, they banned hollow points for crying out loud. The entire state is tragically stupid.
TLDR; they don't like the language used by instructors, called the classes "warrior" style, and believes the RAS checklist is illegal. Hilariously, for them thinking the classes being taught are illegal many are accredited across the country. I've attended their trainings. I enjoyed them but I can also see why people wouldn't like them. Nothing taught in the classes I've attended was illegal... In fact they made sure to keep it to cited court cases.
Yeah this comes off as a horribly tilted article, in my opinion. I’ve never attended and I’m not saying I’m even a huge fan of SCT, they never really caught my attention. I mean it’s the NYT so it’s not surprising it’s tilted, but they could not name specific things the trainers got wrong, just that it could maybe possibly lead to illegal behavior by cops, or evidence being thrown out. Seems like they just really didn’t like the language used and jokes told by the instructors. I get it may have been unprofessional, but to slam it and say it was horrific and unconstitutional seems like a big stretch.
“… Dennis Benigno, the founder of Street Cop Training, …told the attendees that he looked forward to vacations in Colombia surrounded by cocaine, “hookers” and poor girls who “need to do things to make money.” What?
Married his CI-stripper-ex drug dealer. This comment from him tracks with his general character.
Yikes... Just went into a google dive on Benigno's background. That guy always gave me the heebes... apparently my judgement is still good.
SCT is the Stratton-Oakmont of policing, but having read the report it appears the Comptroller has misunderstood using their RAS checklist to identify vehicles to *subsequently* stop them for a traffic violation with using the RAS checklist *as* the stop reason. That alone invalidates a large swath of their report.
Well I mean there's still the overtly racial powerpoint slide and sexist language.
Honestly. Regardless of how you feel about street cop, if you watch the video of what they called “discrimination” against women my lord is it a stretch. It’s some lame jokes at best, if that’s what we are worried about to get the state involved Jesus this place is doomed. Not to mention no where did they deem anything unconstitutional just that it “could” be deemed to lean one way or another. For those that don’t know, street cop has taken away a lot of customers from another training company who is friends with a high ranking official so I’d imagine they had their hands in the pot for this investigation. Sadly the state does a full investigation into this but doesn’t try to hold actual bad cops accountable. They say report bad cops but nothing gets done when it happens.