By Tiffany Williams –
Patrol mindset. Always remember when you’re on patrol, situational awareness. Situational awareness doesn’t just mean guarding yourself and looking around yourself at what the potentials are for something happening.
But situational awareness also means watching out for other things.
Like, potentially, some departments, I’m not saying all departments, some departments, IAB, Internal Affairs Bureau, now they work under the code of professional standards or professional development units or divisions, still IAB.
Some of these guys, not all of these guys that are assigned to IAB are bad guys. I know a lot of people, a lot of good cops who work in IAB.
But there are some in IAB that will go out of their way to jam up cops, other cops, good cops too sometimes.
So imagine this hypothetical. Some random person just walks up to you on the street and they wanna hand you some money to buy you lunch. You know, they don’t see you in a restaurant, so they wanna give you, you know, $20 so you can buy yourself some lunch or something like that.
What do you do in this situation?
This is another case of situational awareness.
Never, ever take money from anybody while you’re on patrol. Ever, never, ever take money from anybody while you’re out on patrol.
This could be a genuine person just wants to give you $20, but you can’t take it. You never should take it.
This could also be an IAB cop who just wants to jam you up, and guess what? You take that $20, and guess what happens next?
Always remember situational awareness when you’re out there on patrol. It means everything, but situational awareness isn’t just looking around for your surroundings, it’s also about…
…it’s also about awareness beyond the obvious.
It’s about understanding that not every situation is what it looks like on the surface. It’s about recognizing that your environment isn’t just physical — it’s professional, ethical, and reputational. The street is unpredictable, but so is perception. And perception can end a career just as fast as a bad decision in a high-risk call.
Situational awareness means reading intent, not just action. It means asking yourself: Why is this person doing this? Why now? What does this look like to someone else watching? What does this look like on camera? Because in today’s world, everything is seen, everything is recorded, and everything is judged — sometimes without context.
When someone approaches you and offers something — money, a gift, even something small — your mindset has to immediately shift from casual interaction to professional assessment. It doesn’t matter if it’s genuine. It doesn’t matter if it’s harmless. It doesn’t matter if the person means well. The answer is always the same: you don’t take it. Period.
Because the job isn’t just about doing the right thing — it’s about being seen doing the right thing at all times.
And like you said, while many people in Internal Affairs or Professional Standards are solid, professional officers doing necessary work, you still have to operate with the understanding that accountability exists everywhere. Not every test is obvious. Not every situation announces itself. Some situations are designed to see what you’ll do when you think no one’s watching.
That’s why discipline matters. That’s why consistency matters. That’s why your standard can’t change depending on the situation or the person in front of you.
Real patrol mindset means:
- You don’t cut corners.
- You don’t make exceptions.
- You don’t justify small things that can turn into big problems.
Because small mistakes don’t stay small in this job.
Situational awareness is 360 degrees:
- Your surroundings
- The people
- The environment
- The intent
- The optics
- And your own actions
At the end of the day, your safety isn’t just physical — it’s professional survival too.
Stay sharp. Stay disciplined. Stay aware of everything — including the things that don’t look like threats at first glance.
Crime Beat Nation 