I was wondering what they teach new recruits at Knight Errant academy, assuming you're actually a promising candidate (so no skillwire packages please). This is just about the basics, what every field detective should know. Also, this will probably be ridiculously expensive in BP, but doable in Karmagen.

The list thus far:
Basic physical and mental exercise/screening: No stat below 3.
Athletics 2
Firearms 2
Close Combat 2
Perception 3
Etiquette 2
Pilot Ground Craft 2
First Aid 2

Anything I might have missed?

Maybe add Con? Cops often have to trick people when trying to get confessions or witness testimony. Tracking might be good too, for investigations.

MAybe those are both detectives' skills?

Anyway, requiring all of Firearms and Close Combat is unnecessary. Pick one or two skills from each.

Intimidation is a must for law enforcement I'd say.

Also, police have to be excellent drivers so you might consider the pilot skill being a minimum of 3, maybe even 4.

Here are the standard stats I use for a standard beat cop. This isn't specifically a detective, nor is it a desk jocky or a meter maid. Stats assume human

Physical Attributes 4
Mental Attributes 3

Automatics 2
Longarms 2
Pistols(Automatics) 2(+2)
Perception(Concealed Objects) 3(+2)
Etiquette 2
Leadership(Crowd Control) 3(+2)
Pilot Ground Craft(Car) 2(+2)
Computers 1
Data Search 1
Close Combat Skill Group 2
Athletics Skill Group 2
Forgery 1
Intimidation 3

Public Security Protocol 3
City Navigation 3
City Laws 2
City Gang Recognition 2
Street Drugs 1

Ares Predator IV
Armored Jacket
Monocle w/Image-Link, Smart-link, and Low-Light Vision
Earbuds
AR Gloves
Holo Projector
Stun Baton
Custom Knight-Errant Public Security Commlink(System 3, Signal 3, Response 3, Firewall 4, Analyse 3, Scan 3, Edit 2)

What would be the difference between getting the whole Close Combat skill group as opposed to investing only in Unarmed and Clubs? Or is there another necessary skill in the group, like Dodge?

Unarmed Combat (Subdue) and Clubs (Batons) or Clubs (Prods) instead of Close Combat.

what ever happened to the "Police procedures" skill?

Or "Security procedures" for that matter.

Perhaps you want to include first aid in there too.

Check out this old thread.

Pistols (Tasers) 2
Automatics (Submachine Guns) 2 - Note: Personal belief is cops should have additional clip, one clip with S&S, one with APDS. Anyone still standing after being told to lie down with their hands on their head and a hefty spraying of S&S gets the ADPS.
Unarmed Combat (Shock Glove) 2
Athletics 2
Pilot Ground Craft 2
Influence 3
Intimidation 3
Perception 3

Additional weapon skills per job.
Additional pilot skills per job.
Some may have stealth skills.
Some may have computer or even hacking skills.
Some may have additional levels. What's above is a minimum.

I'm a tremendous advocate of the whole Firearms skill group for cops (in part because of how weird individual gun skills are). For the most part the basic equipment SR gives to patrol officers is largely based on real life (for once).

Everyone's got a pistol and qualifies with it regularly (one skill), the "go to" backup gun in most cruisers is still a pump action shotgun (a second skill), and more and more departments are adding an M4 of some kind to the trunk, for real shit hitting the fan situations (another skill). Since even just a default uniformed officer cruising around in a squad car needs to certify once a year with three different gun skills, the Firearm skill group just makes sense.

And training in Automatics also gives your SWATties a basic grasp of Automatics (so some can go on to use an SMG if they want), and the Long guns they have for Shotguns means eventually someone can branch out into sport/sniper rifles if they want to. SotA 2064 has a good rundown of the SWAT/Fast Response Team load-outs for those who are interested, and starting each officer off with the Firearm skill group at a reasonable level is a great way to get them halfway to where they'll need to be, die-pool wise.

"Knowledge skill of 'Law'" might come in handy. Just sayin'.

Someone who just graduated from K-E academy would not be a 'field detective'. Detectives are chosen from the ranks of regular cops that apply each year, and then get added training. Almost every detective has an undergrad degree in CJ, as most PD's require it.

Today, cops spend 6 months in the Academy. They are paid a full salary as soon as they are hired, so there is motivation to get them trained and on the street asap. While in the Academy, cops learn all about police bureaucracy, police and court procedure, law, and local ordinances. Recruits learn to fire handguns and shotguns, learn basic small-unit tactics, train with their 'billy-clubs', and learn hand-to-hand submission and control techniques. Recruits also learn to drive their cruisers and maximize advantages in chase situations. In a handful of cities in the U.S. officers learn to fire a semi-automatic rifle similar to the AR-15. Cops do not learn first-aid, and are trained to call the paramedics if they suffer an injury in the line of duty, if they see someone with an obvious injury, or if someone makes a credible complaint of an injury.

The other reason training is only six months, is that there really is only so much a recruit can learn in the classroom. The second half of training takes place on the street under the tutelage of specially-prepared Training Officers. This usually lasts six-months, but can be extended up to a year in most cases if a recruit needs more time to get up to speed. After that, most cops are largely on there own, literally and figuratively. They spend their shifts by themselves in a squad car, driving around answering calls. TBH, if there are not many calls, there is little to do. It takes an exceptional officer to initiate any kind of pro-active 'policing' other than just making a presence. Most recruits make it to the streets. Chances are, the recruiting class was 10+ bodies short of what was requested, and the department needs warm bodies.

Sheriff deputies follow a similar arc, but often work for six months to a year as guards in the county jail, in addition to the other training. This time is spent learning to manage criminals,i.e. intimidation and negotiation, and learning the finer points of paperwork and bureaucracy.

The vast majority of cops never fire their weapon in the line of duty. Over half of a departments officer-shooting incidents revolve around less than 5% of the officers. The point being, that most street cops get very familiar with the areas they patrol, and get very proficient at filling out paperwork for car accidents and dui's, and very little else.

After spending several years in uniform, most agencies allow officers to apply for more specialized positions. Detectives get additional training, some in a classroom setting, and some on the streets. Their study concentrates on advanced interrogation and intimidation techniques, along with the psychological implications of dealing with dishonest or deceptive individuals. As far a forensics go, most detectives learn about crime-scene integrity and little else, unless they have personal interest. In almost ALL the cops shows, ALL the detectives go to the morgue and talk to the coroner, but this is mostly a fiction, irl, the detectives are extremely busy, and they already saw the dead body and learned what they could at the scene; reading the report is about as good as it gets.

Now, this is a world where law-enforcement is publicly funded. Today's police departments use private-security firms to handle basic security at facilities/parking lots, etc. That's right, many cops have to show their ID to a security guard on a daily basis. Private security is very affordable compared to staffing those areas with cops, which is how it worked in the past.

Now, K-E is probably a great corp, that cares about its employees and spends top-dollar training their officers. Right? A K-E officer would have to be highly self-motivated to match the type of character described in the OP.

This got kind of off topic, sorry. I have a minor in CJ, and know some cops btw.

Actually, don't we have some real members of police forces on here? Let's hear their two cents on their old Academy days?

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Other than what happened with the Llama that you smuggled into the men's shower room. No one wants to hear about that.

Remember that you use social skills to defend against other social skills - cops without Con are easy to lie to, for example.

I would suggest:
Probably they have more like a minimum of 3 in physical stats and 2 in mental stats. Someone with a minimum of 3 is going to be above-average, maybe significantly so if they have a few 4s or 5s. Half of all people are below average, and "KE Beat Cop" isn't exactly a glamorous profession that's going to attract nothing but the best and brightest.

I don't buy Athletics 2. Is your average beat cop going to be as good at gymnastics as a high school athlete? I think they should probably have Running 2 and maybe Climbing/Swimming 1.

I agree they need Firearms 2.

I don't think they should have close combat 2. Is a beat cop going to know what to do with a sword? They should probably have Clubs (Batons) and Unarmed (Subdual) as suggested.
Perception 3, First Aid 2, and Piloting 2 I agree, although they should maybe instead have Pilot Ground Vehicle (Wheeled) 1 (3) since they mostly just drive cruisers.

Social-skills wise, they should definitely have Intimidation (Physical) and Con, probably both at 2. Etiquette should probably be specialized in Police and at 1(3). They should also probably know Leadership, since it's used to exercise authority and thus would cover "getting citizens to do what you tell them."

Police Procedures 3 and Law 2 are also probably good.

Since, oddly enough, "gymnastics" is your "dodge ranged fire" skill, and since I've seen cops practicing skills such as forwards rolls, I think you're focused too much on the name of the skill rather that the actual abilities it implies. Yes, I don't expect police officers to compete in gymnastics, but I do expect them to tumble, keep their balance when walking a beam, vault a counter, etc.

Which is what Dodge is for, with a Ranged Specialty.

Not a single person mentioned Shadowing? Or is that generally considered more of a detective skill than a typical cop?

I saw the skills in that group being skill some, but not all, cops would have.

Of course, the counterpoint to some of these is thusly:

Most modern cops get very good at DUIs, car accidents, speeding tickets, and maybe handling the occasional drunken disturbance. Procedures, law, bureaucracy, and making sure you don't get sued are all very important functions.

If you were a beat cop in say, 1970's Harlem, you very likely had a somewhat more...immediately physical...skill set after a while. And there's a reason departments on I-95 train more on vehicle search and seizure, and the LAPD of the 90s was somewhat more combative in nature.

Because "firearms 2, law 2, bureaucracy lots" might be fine for policing 2011 suburbia, but I can't imagine its the basic skill pack in a world where go gangs run free, trolls are your domestic disturbances, there's such a thing as an ork flash-mob, and there's even the occasional shadow runner mucking about.

Security Procedures (Call for reinforcements)

Should any of them have it?

I mean, hell, I can typically spot a police officer even off-duty. It's the eyes, hands, and walk. Very distinctive.

I was thinking shadowing for tailing and the like. Especially for undercover officers. Disguise probably wouldn't go amiss either.

Right, but he's talking about rookies fresh from the Academy.

That sounds remarkably like "gaydar". How do you know the people you don't think are officers aren't officers?

Same way you can tell someone that's been in combat opposed to someone that hasn't if you know what to look for.

Gaydar doesn't work because there's so many different types of "Homosexuality", just like any other society. A Police Officer (And I'm talking city cops here, I don't have the experience to spot a country officer) that's been on patrol likely has had to deal with a lot of the same issues, and will have ingrained instincts that you can watch for if you know how.

Again: Eyes, hands, walk. That said, I've been mistaken for military (REMF) a few times because of the way I move, so false positives are certainly possible. And if you know about those motions, you can train yourself not to be obvious about them the same way a professional gambler hides their "Tells".

I'll break the rule of dumpshock and repeat myself. Are you asking the people you do and don't think have been in combat if they have or not or are you just convincing yourself? As an example, have you ever gone to a gathering of 100 random strangers, written down who was and who wasn't and then asked them to verify your answers?

Have you ever found out with large sample of random strangers how accurate you really are?

That would be... interesting. I'd also place bets that the guys most likely to say "yes", are the guys you'd least expect, depending how wide an idea of "combat" you are using. I have never been in military or gang warfare-range of combat, but I have been on the recieving end of several "fights" involving getting my ass beat into the ground, as well as learning to fight with melee weapons in friendly, competitive combat, which has caused some blood to spill non-lethally.

I defiantly think the beat the cop walks will affect their skills, as will how experienced they are. As for active skills, as I mentioned above, the skills I think a beat cop would have at 3(professional) level are perception(cops need to be alert and able to notice concealed weapons/contraband), intimidate(to resolve situations non-violently), and leadership(to get random people to comply with orders).

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Damnit, where's Keith Richards when you need an enforcement of the rules?

All right, have I done so scientifically (Which, in a nutshell, you're asking)? No. I haven't.

Am I trying to convince myself? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't live in a lifestyle where being able to conclusively ID a plainclothes or off-duty policeman is a required skill, so the point is moot.

But the skill is there. How to recognize someone from the way they react and move? Very much exists.

So far as I know, cops get the First Responder course in training. Which, when I took it, was a 40 hour course. Which sounds to me like First Aid:1.
I'm also guessing that there is less paperwork and political BS in a private police force. Fewer paper pushers and less time filling out reports means more profit.

Or a lot more of it at drekkier pay.

I'd toss in an area knowledge for whatever city they serve in.

Haven't worked police. Have worked prison, got told the training is similar. Understand this is State of Colorado and I /know/ it varies from state to state and municipal to municipal. It'll still give some basis.

1/3 of it was paperwork. Laws, regs, and policies, and what paperwork has to be done when and what the standards are supposed to be so appropriate action can be taken. Court and hearing procedures took a bit. Weapons familiarization was very short; I'd be hesitant to give more than a 1.

Got a 1, maybe a 2 in unarmed combat: subdual. We got a surprisingly (it seemed at the time) large amount of training on social skills for defusing situations: approaches, speech (patterns, tones, pacing) and stance both as primary and as backup. Add another huge block of recognizing situations -- call it defensive con and perception training.

Most things at 1 or at most 2; not enough to have to rely on default but far from expert. The vast majority on the "boring" parts of the job; the parts you do 80 to 95% of the time (more if you're lucky).

To repeat myself, it was training for a category II law enforcement officer: correctional officer. The police I worked with in Colorado Springs said the training was pretty much the same for them except they got more street and less facility situation training.

I know quite a few cops, and I was loaned out to military police so here are my observations.

Firearms Group: Good, a cop will need knowledge of a wide variety of firewarms, primarily pistols and long arms, but in Shadowrun automatics might come up enough to make it usefull.
Unarmed Combat (grapple) cops in my experience spend a disturbing amount of time trying to physically wrestle someone to the ground in order to get the cuffs on them.
Batons - Beating the crap out of people is a good way to get compliance, you can use this for softening before the above subdue.
Influence Group - Cops spend most of their time dealing wit the public, this is a large part of making sure they can do it effectively, and as others have said this is also used to tell if someones lying to you.
First Aid - Knowing basic CPR and trauma care.
Perception - Natch
Athletics group - The physical requirement to get to be a cop are actually fairly high, and most places due require a sliding scale of upkeep to stay a cop. Bad diet, odd hours, and other factors erode this but realisticly most cops are in better shape then the population norm.
Intimidate- Most cops will have a smattering of this, but a lot of the time they lean on their situational modifiers.

Now personally i found the cyberware package given to the police in the book a joke and more symptomatic of the cyber-hate that fourth seems to have qutie a bit on. Most cops are going to be wared, likely as soon as they get through the academy and own their ware after five years on the force. This ware will include: eyes, ears, internal comlink, light bone lacing. Most municipalities will likely spring for wired reflexes one, others will use jazz and autoinjectors.. The point of this ware isn't to make the beat cop able to deal with shadowrunners it's to help him deal with the public day in and day out reducing the chances of being injured or killed and missing work. In short it's to get the best return on investment. The other stuff is to make anything he sees or hears admissible in a court of law (at least against a public defender or a perp without a hacker).

Can't find it at the moment, but the picture of the riot cops from Transmetropolitan washing the blood off their shields came to mind when you talked about the baton usage.

EDIT: Cops also get a bonus to their intimidate when dealing with the general public. They are "The Man", of course, and everyone knows they can be nailed on something... Anything.

I agree with most of this, but I doubt some of the ware would be available to even peace officers. Bone lacing, for instance, is a forbidden, and I'm willing to bet only military would spend that much on it. However, the rest I agree. Especially for the recording. Hell's, just today I was thinking that it would be stupid for officers to not share information, in a tacnet-like way, if not an actual tacnet, for the purpose of having someone able to verify accounts, and having someone able to react to the tense situation from outside.

Well the swat setup in augmentation already has bone lacing, I just felt that what they see as a swat setup should actualyl be standard issue for many officers. The other caveat is many toys that officers get are forbidden to the public, i do think a tacnet or other central data collection makes a lot of sense, I just didn't want to explicitly add it.

When running a Lone Star hack for my group, I informed them that Lone Star either had Biomonitors installed in the officers themselves, or in their uniforms. If one of them goes unconscious or dies, the link-up from the squad car to the HQ (Which was how they were back-dooring to get the paydata) disconnects. Just made sense to me. Also sets off a screamer to DocWagon.

Good news, getting the hacker into the back seat of the squad car worked great! Bad news, yeah, critically failing your "Gangs" Knowledge roll and getting the Halloweeners to be a distraction wasn't so drek-hot an idea...

Also scared the hell out of the Heavy Weapons Troll in the group with the Ruger Thunderhawk by my description of it's functioning. "SONOFACRAP! What the HELL was that?" was his question, followed by, "I want one!"

Speaking of US cops here, not german ones.

Now you have to elaborate, are there lots of fat German cops? Or are they in way better then the population norm?

German cops don't have to re-do the initial sports/ physical tests once they're accepted into service. That means that most cops don't stay in good shape after they've finished their training (which is 2-3 years long iirc).

Ah, American cops do have to re-qualify in most places (there is a lot of variation from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) but traditionally the standards get more lax as they get older so there is a certain grain of truth to the overweight detective one sees on American TV.

Tacnets should be used by any and every semi-professional team, from law enforcement, security, the fire brigade, and DocWagon to American Football teams and rally drivers.

I mostly agree, but I'm not sure average cops should have Negotiation.

Intimidate, I agree not all modern police officers would have it, but Dark Eighties Future cops should probably all have it as one of their higher skills.

Now all the above said, I've got this picture for how Lone Star and KE and all them work "these days".

The first layer is cameras (and other sensors) everywhere. There are too many to watch, actually. Their use is twofold: first, the fact they're known to be watching is a bit of a deterrent. Second, they're good for seeing what happened so appropriate actions against the right people can be taken. Well, mostly, provided the angle isn't bad or something like that. But still, they help a lot.

The next layer is good old officer presence. An officer riding around in a squad car. There are two tiers here: the good parts of town and the bad parts. The good part first. An officer in a reinforced sedan that has a drone pad which is carrying a doberman. The doberman goes everywhere the officer goes. In addition to officer command there are some automatic events that'll have the doberman signal the rigger back at base that officer attention is needed. Not necessarily a jump-in, but more than the automatics.

The doberman's sensors are always recording. It's got an over-under weapon mount, with a grenade launcher and an automatic weapon. Both have several types of ammo in their bins, and the smartgun ammo selector picks what's needed.

Speaking of ammo, the doberman's got one fairly simple deterrents against spoofing in addition to the standards. Not perfect, mind you, but workable. The standards are decent firewall and system, and both signal and node are encrypted, some commands authorized at security (from officer) and others requiring admin (from rigger). The bonus is that the weapons are unloaded. The first action to use them MUST be "load weapon". As you might guess, this is one of the auto-calls for riggers. If the dobie is loading either things are going down or it's being spoofed/hacked.

The officer... Cyber implants aren't standard, though many choose to get some. The commlink and other sensors are always recording. The comm is running face identification, maybe gait id, and lie detector software. There's a knowsoft with laws and regs loaded as well. The AR is tied into the copnet - a net that checks location, checks nearby RFIDs, and highlights everything that has a file in the records. That guy walking along with a yellow highlight? Tagged as possible suspect in a couple of cases. That lady over there? a slew of traffic tickets - paid, but they still exist. That doorway over there with the flags? Marks a crime site - actually a place where several crimes have occurred over the past month. And on, and on. Officers adjust the flag level, especially as pretty much everyone has some sort of record. Oh, don't forget: black flags around people with no record. Whether it's because their ID is falsified or they've somehow removed every RFID or they're just running everything in hidden, the absence is a warning all itself.

Some armor, a handgun with SnS and smartgun, a couple of handcuffs (one for mages), extra armor and a heavier weapon in the vehicle. It's also got a decent first aid/medical kit, a range of ammo, RFID and other tags, and so forth.

Oh, and the cage in the vehicle is heavily reinforced. It won't hold a heavily cybered troll, but it'll manage the normal street troll, drugs or no drugs.

Bad neighborhood? Fewer per area, riding small vans or trucks instead of sedans, more heavily armored, and the officers and their dogs travel in pairs.

Just my picture, of course.

I have a hard time thinking there's a single style of enforcement. When I was writing up the local area (as a distraction) I found that I has very different forms of law enforcement depending on the area.

1) Multi-company military/research town. The goal of the police isn't to enforce the law, it's to enforce the peace. There's a lot of military, ex-military, high end security, and consultants walking around with everything from forbidden ware to magic skills best ignored. It became the town where you could retire and no one would look at you funny for carrying obsolete, but incredibly deadly, cyberware. In that setting I decided the police cared about keeping things peaceful. Instead of making sure all the cogs were in the right place, their job was to make sure the machine was well greased.

2) State capitol filled with refugees and academics. Here, we have the flip side. These police are about as fun to be around as the TSA. They know what rights you have and they know how to abuse them. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PDhjNF9eUQ ). The resulting situation is just a mess.

3) Gang filled remnants of what was once a city. Here, enforcement is block by block by whomever controls the block with treaties, alliances, and an understanding that one does NOT mess with the mafia copters or ground cars because they will erase your block from the map and let the next group move in to what used to be your territory.

4) A private town/enclave. Once you're inside the wall, you're either a citizen for life or you're watched 24/7. This is a peaceful place and there isn't a lot of need for an active police presence.

In all 4 cases, the presence, abilities, and load-outs of the police are likely to be different despite these towns all being connected to varying degrees.

I don't think it should be part of a somewhat mandatory package for a guy just fresh out of the academy, as the recording/perception enhancement function of those can be done by worn equipment that is cheaper to buy, has no implantation cost and is easier to upgrade/alter/modify or recycle to a new user if for whatever reason someone quits.

Whatever other skills a cop has, he needs to be able to twirl his pistol like TJ Lazer before holstering it.

I will say about the physical fitness of cops - most younger detectives I see around the local station house seem to be pretty fit. I am thinking the difficulty of making detective tends to favor the more aggressive and disciplined street cops, who also are probably more likely to keep themselves in shape.

Those street cops you see with the gut hanging over their belts? Probably are gonna stay street cops for the rest of their career.

I do see older detectives that let themselves go, too, though. I suppose after you make detective the years of endless work hours, stress, coffee and donuts, no time to exercise, etc takes it's toll.



-k

I'd say you're standard street cop in SR would have above average physical attributes(especially if we're talking Knight Errant public security), but wouldn't have 'ware as part of their standard package. I'm sure after a few years of service they can totally get a company discount on 'ware and a payment plan, but no way Ares is going to shell out to augment street cops when most of them spend more time writing parking tickets than fighting.

Now detectives are going to likely have some augmentation, and SWAT definatly will(most SWAT is ex-military).

I disagree heartily, augmenting it's officers save KE and other law enforcement company money, especially when you factor in economies of scale. Frankly i'm so sick of this ware is too expensive or inconvenient mindset, because frankly compared to the other expenses incurred to feed, house, train, and medicate a police officer up to readiness for duty a ware package is pretty trivial.