Some Honest Info about SPPD

LISTEN TO THESE POSTS BECAUSE THEY ARE TRUE. I LEFT AND WORK FOR PINELLAS S.O. THE GRASS IS ALOT GREENER.

SPPD IS A HOLE. IF YOU GO, GO TO GET YOUR ACADEMY PAID FOR AND THE EXPERIENCE BUT JUST BE CAREFUL BECAUSE THEY TRY TO WRITE YOU UP A LOT IN THE BEGINNING TO MAKE YOU LOOK LESS ATTRACTIVE TO OTHER AGENCIES WHEN YOU APPLY ELSEWHERE, AND YOU WILL APPLY ELSEWHERE.

JUST THE AMOUNT OF OFFICERS LEAVING EVERY YEAR SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. THEY ARE NOT LEAVING BECAUSE IT IS A GREAT PLACE TO WORK.

THOSE ARE THE FACTS!!!! GOOD LUCK!!

TRUE: You will get valuable experience handling lots of calls, and dangerous, in-progress ones, at that.

BUT - SPPD will try hard to prevent you from leaving during your first 3 years so as not to lose out on their investment.

TRUE: You will be "left alone" provided you don't see or hear anything.
You will be left alone when you need chain of command support. You will be left alone when you request schools. And you will be left alone in civil matters.

Why start off here? No good reason.

For higher pay, better benefits, go elsewhere. Ask around. Check with deputies and officers working at other agencies that surround St. Pete.
They know well what it's like here and why they did not come. Since 1990, this place has sunk in status by leaps and bounds.

Good luck. Law enforcement is a noble profession, but you won't find it here.

Take a look at this video post by Picasso...and see the people who have resigned after 1 yr or less. "Guest" might be right about it being hard to leave but take a look at the video...although we don't know the specifics of each resignation, people are leaving with a year or less. After the Academy you owe 2 yrs, or if you leave early the cost of tuition AND what they've been paying you during it, but they really only care about the tuition.

http://s51.photobucket.com/albums/f3...t=90994631.flv

There are a LOT of officers who refuse to even come on this site. Many officers you will come across have their qualms about St. Pete, but it's not like every hour of every day people are dragging their feet and complaining.

You CAN make a lot of money here. Absurd oppurtunities for overtime and off-duty work that some surrounding agencies aren't so liberal with.

If you got in trouble, or felt you were treated unfairly and were pissed off about it, where would you go to vent? Here. Think about that when analyzing the online population.

And hey, they have every right to.

[Picasso]

Darius & the others speak the truth.
SPPD MANAGEMENT professes to be above allocted manpower.
Let's be nice & give them a maximum of 530 troops according to their BOOKS.

AS of today......89 of those accounted figures have left for better pastures.
Let me repeat
89

Here's a math problem for you.
If you take away 89 out of 530
what percentage was taken away?


Now try to figure out how long this amount of attrition it will take, before you have a completely unexperienced workforce.

OK ~ 89 out of 530 could be an unexpected high number for that particular year. Find your orginal percentage and delete 10 %.

Using the department's own statistics:
This turnover started years ago.......
SPPD has faced a complete turnover within the department the last 5 years, by, their own account.

For those of you on the street.....
5-7 years ago ~ what happened ?

Chief GO Davis

The downfall started with Stephens, everyone else after him just made us go faster. There seemed to be a ray of light with Mack II, but that was slammed shut real fast. Where do we go from here?

Issac Newton said it best - ...a body in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

So hang on cause this rocket ship is plummeting in a downward spiral

While Stephens was a plague on this dept, he was merely incompetent. That could have been rectified by bringing in a competent chief. Unfortunatly Stephens' incompetence left the department vulnerable to corruption, which is where Go Davis came in. He used the race issue to gain unprecedented power and abused it any way he chose. Rewriting the General Orders so he could go on crewing and firing people however he chose. Many sued and won, but few chose to return to work here because they knew what they were dealing with. A corrupt black racist chief with near absolute power inside the city. He was and is a corrupt politician similar to Boss Tweed in NY was or Hughey Long was in Louisiana.

The difference between incompetence and corruption is an important distinction to make, because one was unintentional and the other was clearly planned and executed, which is why its proven so hard to reverse. Especially since Go is still calling the shots and doing everything he can to prevent the damage he intentionally did from being reversed.