LEO Affairs Gone Wild

Okay, so I am on an LEO Affairs rampage tonight. I just want to mention, if it has not been already, that I have been seeing way too many comments from the CCSO LEO Affairs website CUT AND PASTED into the newspapers. I really enjoy this site, but somehow it needs to be insulated. I recently brought the LEO Affairs idea to my association, yes I said UNION, and they shot it down stricktly because of the example i gave them...CCSO. I argue it is a great outlet, but lets be careful what we say. Although I personally have been accused of name dropping and targeting good cops in D-1, I will say I have respect for all you guys so keep on keeping on. "Stay low, stay alive." Yes, you know who I am New Jersey delivery boy...and I still love you!! Get ahold of me or RSVP AH :)

[Sysop]

Okay, so I am on an LEO Affairs rampage tonight. I just want to mention, if it has not been already, that I have been seeing way too many comments from the CCSO LEO Affairs website CUT AND PASTED into the newspapers. I really enjoy this site, but somehow it needs to be insulated. I recently brought the LEO Affairs idea to my association, yes I said UNION, and they shot it down stricktly because of the example i gave them...CCSO. I argue it is a great outlet, but lets be careful what we say. Although I personally have been accused of name dropping and targeting good cops in D-1, I will say I have respect for all you guys so keep on keeping on. "Stay low, stay alive." Yes, you know who I am New Jersey delivery boy...and I still love you!! Get ahold of me or RSVP AH :)

Hello West Coast Cop,

Thanks for using our site and for having the forethought to approach your union about using it. I gave up a long time ago trying to understand the rationale some departments and unions use when deciding NOT to use LEOAFFAIRS.COM as a valuable tool. I can tell you from my experience that more progressive agencies and unions openly embrace this website and are the better for using it. They may not like everything that's posted on it, but they take that information and use it to their advantage. We have Chiefs who openly have Command Staff post announcements to the troops via LEOAFFAIRS.COM and even assign employees to monitor it for them. That's a smart move on their part! Heck, we've even been approached by Sheriff Offices asking to be added on to our site. As for the others who choose not to use our site but to ignore it, I can't help but compare them to an ostrich who sticks his head in the ground. LEOAFFAIRS.COM is coming up on it's 7 year anniversary and has no plans of going anywhere else. We are adding agencies every week and continue to expand. We currently have over 400 agencies in 15 countries and generate over 20 Million Hits per month (yep, you read that right). People can pretend we don't exist and hope we go away, but they are in denial and only hurting themselves.

I do need to correct you on one thing however. Our FAQ section (http://www.leoaffairs.com/faqs/) explains why this site is NOT insulated and should not be. If you had private forums just for cops without access to the Media and the General Public, you would simply be facilitating a ***** session for cops where nothing would ever be accomplished. That's the beauty of this site and why it works so well. The Media and General Public follow our site and that instills a system of accountability. If people don't understand that or support this notion, I'm automatically suspicious of their motives...especially if they portray themselves as cop supporters. All too often people, agencies and unions have the opportunity to come on LEOAFFAIRS.COM to defend themselves and to state their positions...when they refuse to do this it's hard not to view their lack of action as a warning flag and consider that the post is right on the money. I'll give you an example. Recently a union representative started calling me to request the deletion of a string that was unflattering to his union. When I checked it out, union members were simply posting the lack of communication by their own union and they wanted it to change. Members were complaining about unanswered telephone calls and union officials leaving the office early among other things. Every post was written professionally and there were no violations of our Terms of Use. When I explained to the union rep that I couldn't delete the topic but that he could simply respond to it (which is what they were begging someone to do), he got upset and refused to honor his members requests. That's sad!

Oh, and I should close by reminding everyone that we are the only site that has this system of moderation with over 400 moderators. The Washington Post even wrote about us. People who don't appreciate that should be glad that we have rules and moderators that are strictly enforced. Imagine if we let every post stand!

Thanks for your support!

very well put, sysop