Re: Bosch rides again

On 2025-07-10 3:30 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

Jul 10, 2025 at 8:22:43 AM PDT, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

BTR1701 <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

 

. . .

 

Yes, LAPD reserves have full police powers. I actually looked into signing
up as a reserve when I retired but with my deteriorating knees, I'd never
be able to do the 1.5-mile run up to their standards.

 

I didn't know that was a thing. Is it like Army Reserves or the National
Guard, that you have to report for weekend training every so often to
maintain skills, and that you can get deployed when ordered to?

 

Not really. They're like a force multiplier. You basically get to choose
your division and if I remember right, you have to work a minimum of
three days/week but you get to choose which days. But when you're working,
you're a full-fledged officer just like any other LAPD cop.

 Interesting. I've never heard of Chicago Police Department offering
anything like that. I suppose certain suburban police departments, like
Rosemont that expect large crowds for major events, are like that, but
those are strictly for patrol.
 

I went to a Canada Day celebration on July 1 and, given that it was in downtown Kitchener with a large crowd present, was surprised by a very substantial police presence. I noticed that quite a number of the officers there had vests that said "Auxiliary Police". I'm not sure if that is the equivalent of an LAPD reserve officer or more like a bylaw enforcement officer. I don't think they were full-fledged officers since I didn't see a firearm on one Auxiliary that I scrutinized. (But maybe he was wearing it on his other side causing me to think he was unarmed.)
I assume they were just there to help beef up the numbers to make it look like more of them were there than actually were. Mind you, I'm not sure why they felt the need for a significant presence in the first place. It's not like Canada Day celebrations are notorious for rowdiness.
The contrast with an event I saw in Montreal back in 1980 was striking. Quebec has a Quebec-only holiday called St. Jean Baptiste (St. John the Baptist) a few days before Canada Day and it tends to be an expression of Quebec nationalism. I happened to be in Montreal that day and went to the festivities with a friend. I was deeply surprised to find that there was virtually no police presence at all. We were in the old town area of Montreal and I'd guesstimate 100,000 people were in attendance; I only remember seeing two (uniformed) cops in all that crowd. Meanwhile, there must have been over 100 at the Canada Day event last week in a city that's not a tenth the size of Montreal.

I was surprised to find there's no upper age limit. As long as you
can complete their abbreviated police academy, you can be a reserve. I
could get through everything with no problem except the run. I basically
can't run anymore. Which is ironic because the doc tells me it was all
the running I did in the past 25 years to keep in shape for my fed
job that has turned my knees into the wreck they are today. I could
get knee replacements but that seems like a lot of pain and expense to
go through just to run again. I'm fine with normal day-to-day walking,
so I don't see the need for major surgery. And I have a rowing machine
to do cardio that doesn't impact my knees at all.

 Well, that sucks. Maybe cartilage regeneration will become a thing in
not too many years. Good luck.
 

In the tv series, are the reserve officers working full time on specific
cases and when the case concludes, they are off duty with no specific
call up expected?

 

Haven't watched the show but in the book, they're all volunteers. It's a cold
case squad and they each pick a case out of the archives of all the old
unsolved cases and work on it. They're only required to work one day per week
but most come in more often because they're all retirees or people with
nothing else to do, so they treat it like a full-time job.

 If that were reality, it wouldn't be a terrible scheme to solve cold
cases and to get work on very low profile cases performed.

--
Rhino