Choose Your Weapon 🔥
SWAT, which stands for Special Weapons and Tactics, allowed access to resources most people will never imagine, but I continue to use the only one that both protected and convicted me.
Anger – Keeping It In Check
Remember last December when there was so much hope and optimism about the new you in the new year? There was something magical about 2020!
From Social Ghost to Holy Ghost: Surviving Police Retirement
Life was falling apart and all I could do was crumble atop the people closest to me. My wife and kids were dodging emotional boulders, and ducking away from tumbling personality projectiles.
I Stood Up In Church And It Didn’t Suck
I looked at Leah and she gave me that neutral expression that said, “I’m with you either way.”
Anniversaries Of Trauma: How Are You Marking Tragedy?
I used to suck it up and go about my days in hopes of the effects lessening or that I wouldn’t do something to myself in those darkest moments of grief and despair over the conflicting feelings brought about by another of those anniversaries.
March Madness: Day 10 | Maybe He Did Know…
And, while leaving it all behind to serve God was foreign to a little boy whose family never attended church, God knew the desire to know Him would lead me onto His path.
March Madness: Day 8 | Had I Only Known…
March Madness: Day 8 Had I only known… Have you ever been thrust into a situation and figured, what the heck? Well, […]
March Madness: Day 3 | Better Late Than Never!
I still get uncomfortable when people do kind things for me just because. But I’m working to become a better receiver of blessings.
25 Days of 31: Broken and Blue
There are a lot of great cops doing almost impossible things under the most dire of circumstances. And that’s even before they go on duty. When I was led by God to retire from law enforcement, I just knew He was going to give me something special in return. He did. It’s my life.
24 Days of 31: How Could You
Having to explain what you did, why you did it and how it is that you now have peace because of what you did placed the relationship in a bind, but friendship reset the balance.
Breaking The Chains Of Past Pain | Five Stones
“I stopped living the same year over and over again, and started taking control of my life by using the very truths I’m sharing with you.” Dr. Scott Silverii for Five Stones University.
9 of 31 Days: I Don’t See It
And sometimes, if I’m lucky, I get to go a few hours without seeing the faces of the injured, the abused or the murdered. Though I don’t think I’d like them to completely go away as they remind me of why I’ve done what I’ve done on their behalf.
8 of 31 Days: It Was Me
8 of 31 Days: It Was Me Have you ever felt your spouse’s tears roll across your shoulder? Over the last few […]
Freedom From Pain? Broken And Blue Is Required Reading For LEO & Family
Broken and Blue: A Policeman’s Guide to Health, Healing and Hope This is possibly the most important project I’ve ever worked on. […]
It’s What Heroes Do | Thank God For Them
Spoken, it inspires the faithful to be strong and courageous. With reckless expectation, press the fight no matter the foe, and without ever considering the possibility of defeat.
Dating Your Spouse: Blue Marriage
Love shifts your self-centered worldview into a shared, or partner-focused lens.
Sex In Marriage: Yes, How About You?
God’s plan for sexual fulfillment works… God wants you to enjoy sex in marriage and to have that enjoyment for the rest of your married life.
It Doesn’t Always Go The Way You Planned
And closure comes in life’s transitions… I chose to retire on August 28th because it had held such a devastating association over […]
Jesus: Team Maker – Team Breaker
Part of being a good team maker, is also knowing when to make your break from the team. We get comfortable, and the members grow complacent resting on your image, efforts and activity.
Double Minded: Single Focused
This is where you begin to believe the lies you are living. You can tattoo up, goatee down, ball cap spun around, and the Grunt-style t-shirts get rubber-banded around your new-found, pumped up pythons, but your soul knows the difference.
Sex Addiction: Blue Lights in a Red Light District
It was true 30 years ago and it’s still true today. The first time I was told, “Your badge will get you sex (he used the “p” word), and sex will get your badge,” was in the police academy.
NFL Protest: Understanding A Dent In The Dirt
I’m proud of America, and despite her flaws, this country remains blessed and prosperous. We can’t get 7 family members in one […]
FIT@50 / week 73
FIT@50 / week 73 Kinda Weird: We came back to Louisiana for a few days while the kids were tucked away at […]
Lifting These Officers Up
Please Help Lift These Officers Up: Writers – I’ve never hesitated or asked for anything in return for helping you out with […]
Understanding Police: My PhD Research
Understanding Police: My PhD Research I’m still in shock over the North Miami Police shooting of Charles Kinsey. I keep waiting for a plausible explanation before I make any comment on this. It’s hard, very hard to just remain silent. So many folks want to understand the world of law enforcement, but will never gain an objective perspective. My research conducted for my PhD has been published twice – once as a textbook titled, Cop Culture: Why Good Cops Go Bad, […]
Change Responsibly – Stretching the Police:
The occupational dichotomy between the enforcer and guardian ethos is a powerful pendulum swing in either direction.
FIT@50 / week 69
FIT@50 / week 69 Price of Pizza: This week while in Paris, Liliana Hart and I took off on the city in a series of pedicab driven adventures. To say the experience was anything less than epic would be an understatement. But at what price? I’m always talking with her and our kids about situational awareness. The boys think it’s funny, while the girls think I’m trying to make the junior high boys afraid of them (maybe both.) After […]
FIT@50 / week 66
FIT@50 / week 66 True Power: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix This week I received two notices about Chief of Police positions in Louisiana. My immediate thoughts were “No thanks.” It was about this time last year that I’d announced my August 28th retirement date. I would’ve never in a million years thought retirement from the only job I’d known would’ve been a reality. To be honest, […]
FIT@50 / week 62
It’s also that humanity that has stirred my emotions all week. I still miss each of my 7 friends who died in the line of duty. Actually, I grieve for the 20,789 names of American law enforcement officers senselessly killed while doing only what we all swore to do – Serve and Protect.
FIT@50 / week 39
I walked across water
Game Changers
Overnight, SWAT took a back seat to the Patrol Officer, as rapid response required immediate deployment to neutralize the threat.
The Donut and San Bernardino
The Donut and San Bernardino NOTE: I originally wrote this for my Facebook page, which has since gone viral across the web. I wanted to share it with you – it’s been copy pasted in the original content from my page at Chief Scott Silverii, PhD. As a non-fan of professional baseball I always thought how ridiculous it was when players stepped on deck and began swinging their bat with the weighted ring (donut) on it. Good thing I’m not the commissioner of […]
FIT@50 / week 22: Unmasked
expectation of going home and pretending like nothing special or horrific happened.
FIT@50 \ week 18
FIT@50 \ week 18 Broken: Don’t Do It “They broke me.” Those words were hard to hear. “I know. It’s what they do,” was all I could say. The somber, wooden expression in my friend’s face showed what two decades of service could do to even the most dedicated. Some professions require a certain adherence to its culture, although not part of the official policy. Mavericks, self-starters and long-haired freaky people need not apply. Unfortunately, the conflict between old school tradition and […]
FIT@50 \ week 9
FIT@50 \ week 9 Signs and wonders: As I’ve matured, leaning on faith has become something on which I focus. Wishing I could say it came easy wouldn’t be the truth. I think it’s a by-product of occupational conditioning. Cops assume everything someone says is naturally not the truth until proven otherwise. Skepticism requires a difficult deprogramming process, but is necessary for learning to trust others. The bible talks about reliance upon signs and wonders versus leaning on faith. As I’ve learned […]
Hug a Police Dispatcher – Do it today
This week honors Emergency Dispatchers – the life lines who answer frantic 9-1-1 calls, dispatches officers to the scene and records the funny or painful details of each call for service. Often unsung, Emergency Communications Operators are the true heroes – Hug a Police Dispatcher – Do it today
FIT@50 \ week 5
FIT@50 \ week 5 Legacy Building Talking with a newly promoted commander I encouraged him to consider how he wanted to be remembered. “Think about building your legacy today,” I said, “not on your deathbed.” He leapt to his feet and shared a movie scene he felt applied. Warring kings agreed to have their respective champions fight in their place. King A calls a giant, menacing soldier. King B calls a guy—who’d decided to sleep in that morning. An apprentice was dispatched […]
It’s My Anniversary:
the sacrifices are noble when offered with a sincere heart.
Why are police funerals good for the profession?
Last month I visited the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, DC. I stood over the granite wall with the carvings of more than 20,000 names of officers killed for no other reason than reporting for duty. I knelt at panel 38-E:25 and ran my fingers over his name – Octavio Rafael Gonzales. The feigned smile exchanged the grief I’ve carried over the years for a public show of respect. On the very next panel, number 36-E: 27 – Timothy Bergeron elicited […]
TPD Celebrated 3rd Annual Blue Summit
“We are a shining example to the nation that you can combine compassion and policing to achieve great things.” Those are the words heard by Thibodaux Police Department personnel as Thibodaux Chief of Police Scott Silverii spoke at Blue Summit, the agency’s annual departmental meeting. The entire department gathers once a year to share a meal, receive awards, and hear from Mayor Eschete and Chief Silverii, who recap the previous year and share a vision for the next. “We’re going to continue […]
Honor Law Enforcement’s Legacy
What is the 10-Code project? This is a first-ever collection of current & retired law enforcement officers who also happen to be published authors. Each donated their time and talent by creating original fictional stories based on a line of duty death. 10-Code is working with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund to donate all proceeds to the Memorial. Every copy that you purchase goes toward honoring the legacy of officers killed in the line of duty. Please pass this along […]
Ferguson & Public Engagement | What are they good for?
What’s the best time to plant a tree? – 30 years ago. What’s the next best time to plant a tree? – Today In general, law enforcement has made for horrible horticulturalists. We’ve not tilled the soil of community engagement as a practice. Now we wonder why no one understands us. When an incident like Ferguson erupts, the pundits hurry to fend off allegations from a civilian population incessantly asking for answers. I’ve had so many tell how they’ve unfriended people on […]
“If Not Us, Who?”
“If Not Us, Who?” My heart weighs heavy in this week before the important decisions contemplated by a civilian grand jury in another state. After nearly 25 years of serving my community and country, I see the potential for an occupationalrevolution. The potential for substantially significant cultural change. While most revolutions are spurned through violence, this cannot be one of them. Soon, events born in violence will again effect this country. Not just for today, but years to come. Regardless what you […]
Us versus Them | A Ferguson Outcome
Us versus Them: Sunday I shared the burden on my spirit in anticipation of the grand jury decision, “If Not Us, Who?” (https://www.facebook.com/CopsWritingCrime) It wasn’t about an outcome. It was that our nation rallied on either side of the issue based not on facts and evidence, but on historical perspective. Truth is, there’s more than one narrative to American history. Just before turning off the news, I received a private message. Simply, it read – We Won! In clarity, I saw this […]
Community policing starts at the top – the Very top
Thibodaux Mayor Eschete and Bicycle Patrol
Mission Possible: TPD Accepts the ALS Ice Water Challenge
I’ve been challenged by numerous fantastically caring people over the last several weeks. We sat in a light-hearted brainstorming session this week to create a response video. Within 15 minutes the imaginative group of officers took a simple idea and ran with it. More pleasing to me as their Chief of Police was that everyone dropped their guard to join in. Even if it meant making fun of themselves. It was for a cause greater than anyone of us. In this era […]
Blessed with new friends along the way
John Kerry has been a vital volunteer in promoting our Thibodaux Police Department’s social media strategy.
A Police Officer On Lessons From Ferguson
A veteran police officer says both the shooting of Michael Brown and the aftermath in Ferguson point to the need for conversation about police and community in the U.S. Jim Bueermann is president of the Police Foundation, a nonpartisan and nonprofit group that supports innovation and improvement in policing. Bueerman worked for the police department in Redlands, California, for 33 years, serving in every position, including as chief of police. Bueermann tells Here & Now’s Sacha Pfeiffer that policing is a joint activity […]
K9 Swagger
K-9 handlers share a special bond with their partners. They even take them to the agency awards banquet.
It takes teamwork to land a baby gator
It’s not unusual to step up to your backyard pool for a dip, only to see the shadowy figure lurching along the bottom.