The presentations from the Minneapolis Police Department this week concerned the Criminal Court Process and the Canine Squad. Each in their different way presents challenges when writing stories that use a police protagonist or involve police procedure.

City Attorney Tim Richards took us through an overview of the criminal court process as it is practiced in the city of Minneapolis. His presentation provided renewed insight to the welter of rules, regulations, and procedures that govern law enforcement practice. His description of each step in the process resembled a grid or matrix that each law enforcement official must understand and act within for justice to be enforced. Just in charging a suspect with a crime a police officer must decide to employ one of three methods: arrest,  ticket, or formal complaint. Each has its own procedure with a set of checks and balances that trips certain levers in the justice system. Add to this the distinctions between felony and misdemeanor activity with their attendant qualifications, and you begin to understand why it takes 12 weeks of police academy training along with several years of on-the-job training for an officer to perform his job adequately and with confidence. 

The canine squad involves complexity of a different sort–the bonding between a dog and his or her master that permits criminal activity to be detected and/or apprehended. Not all police officers are suited to work on the Canine Squad, and only a few breeds of dog, German Shepherds, primarily, but also Dutch Shepherds and Belgian Maliwas, make suitable police dogs. Ferocity or viciousness is not so desirable a trait as is an ability or disposition to be trained and to respond without letup when a command is given. Police dogs learn to respond to hand signals and one-word commands given only by their master. That is why most of them live with their master and travel to crime sites in one-person cars designed specially for their canine partners.

The implications for writers are many: arrests can’t be made willy-nilly by an officer without due cause and without following due process. In many cases they might not be made at all without a sober evaluation of the facts as they present themselves at the time of the incident. A citizen’s arrest may occur, but only under limited circumstances with several legal caveats. Police dogs and their handlers operate under a similar set of restrictions that mitigate unnecessary risk and protect handler and canine alike.