It seems that recently, FSP always seems to have its set of issues. Ever since Water resigned, things have progressively gotten worse in the department. Even though, there have been some good leaders since then such as fobago and dragon. But why is FSP having all these issues and why are the new leaders doing a horrible job at combating them. Personally, I think there are a few main reasons for FSP’s ultimate failure, but I do encourage you to correct me or add-on in the comments.
Problems in the Command Staff
Most times, department leaders like to think their command staff is flawless and fail to see the staff members how lower ranking members or citizens may see them. I can name many people in FSP’s command staff who constantly step out of line, act immature, are incompetent, and have complaints against them constantly. I encourage the command staff to look at their command staff with the idea in mind that they are not perfect, and that their staff may not be the best fit for the position they are attempting to fill.
Incompetency
The people which the command staff is hiring are poorly trained and unfit for their positions. I have seen many Troopers not being able to complete simple tasks that were taught early on in POST such as proper radio usage. More Troopers are also getting reckless, thinking they can do whatever they want as an LEO. The hiring system needs to be fixed, and making a 75 question application with an interview is not the way to do it.
Policies and Punishments
The FSP high command seems to have the idea that writing an insane amount of policies on common sense ideas is going to somehow fix the department. I have seen about 10 policies written recently that were already common sense. There shouldn’t need to be all these policies for a department. If Troopers can’t be smart and remember what they were taught in POST/BTT, then they shouldn’t be a LEO. Writing a document about not being able to buy guns at Path’s should be common sense for an officer. Along with this, if competent Troopers are hired, the command would not need to write these useless documents.
While I know the command staff will have a response somewhere along the lines of “Our staff is working to combat these issues” that is not true. I have heard that from many different administrations on many different occasions and I see nothing different from this administration. Not to mention the fact that re-structuring the department’s command is not going to do much in terms of Trooper competency. FSP needs severe change and in my opinion, it starts with firing the incompetent individuals and being careful about who you let into the command staff because I know a few stupid Sergeants. I wrote this to provide an outside view of the department to its members. I would like to see the communities response to this. Please, if anyone wishes to add-on or correct something, go for it.
FSP has the potential to be a great department however the issues that prevent is from being one are quite overlooked.
First off, in my opinion, FSP has way too many command members. Some of these excess command members came from reinstatement or over-promotion. This obviously leads to structural issues and the unbalance of certain ranks.
The next issue is the leadership, it is not strong. Some command members are hesitate on making decisions and rely on others to execute them. This can cause bias decisions and sort of makes the higher ups like “puppets” to the lower ranks. Overall, strong leadership is needed for a functional department. Being reprimanded on doing something wrong has to come back to FSP, punishments seem too lenient and unreasonable.
Finally, the competency of command staff. Some command staff are competent, however some are simply too inactive or incompetent to continue their duties. Most of the senior leadership in this department have grown incompetent, which is NATURAL however if we want FSP to return back to it’s golden days we must make changes that affect those individuals and their performance.
Pretty much, we may be approaching another reform but who knows. I’ve been in FSP for a year and I think my earlier days were better than the state it is now.
Another thing I’d like to add, the command staff are too self cautious of themselves. If I were to elaborate, they persist on these “How do you think I’m doing?” polls. As a Lieutenant, I avoid doing these polls as I don’t care what others think about me and that these polls don’t mean anything to me.
I agree. How you department members see you as a person doesn’t matter. As a good leader, it is your job to make the best decision for the department regardless of what other people think or what the repercussions may be.
I remember how Water, and dragon were stricter, and made sure that their command weren’t full of idiots. I think it’s sad that the current Colonel can’t filter out the incompetent individuals within his own command, I’m sure as hell we all know who these people are. While I still believe that FSP is going down again, I also believe that David has lots of potential if he uses his power right. As of now, there are many issues that needs to be corrected.
I don’t even care I’m going to be full out honest in this comment.
First off, @CodedWealth you’re 100% correct. There so way too many command members and this whole new ‘command structure’ that was implemented today didn’t help it at all. Three Lieutenant Colonels? For what? Who thought this was a good idea. One of the promotions involved wasn’t even fair but that’s a whole new story that I choose not to discuss.
Then we going on to command members themselves. Some of them have no idea what they’re doing whether they’re inactive or have no assigned role in the department. There is also some members who overuse their power or attempt to seek power which is obviously going to happen because you know… Firestone.
To continue, some divisions in the FSP are being run horribly. For example, ASU at least last check had almost 40% of the entirety of FSP in it. At last check, DPW/DOT had more or very close to the amount of members FSP does. The DHS FPS division has more officers then troopers in FSP. There’s obvious reasoning for this because it’s never been this bad. FSP has always ruled over most LEO departments in terms of member count. Now SCSO and DHS both have more members. Why? Because they’re clearly better than FSP is. To continue even further, there shouldn’t be ALMOST half the department in one division. ASU last check had 26 members while the department at the time at that check had around 68 which included the co-founders, 20 command members, and likely a few very inactive troopers. Isn’t that just amazing.
We had a meeting about a week ago in FSP that was deemed ‘Mandatory’ after a good 10 minute notice of it. I joined and all it was about was the newly implemented command structure. We were threatened termination or other consequences if we said a word about this incredible command structure which makes so much sense. Sure it’s very similar to Water/Mine/Fob days but it doesn’t work in the current state of the department. Who threatened all this stuff? Mr. F2 Lieutenant Colonel Kyle who I thought was actually an important part of the command. And no, I may be the only one saying this out loud, but a whole bunch of troopers, a few command members, and some previous command/hicom all have similar thoughts. It’s not just me.
There are so many problems with FSP between command members and overall management of divisions and the department alone. Only a few select individuals of the command are actually competent and they should know who they are.
I love what you said and I agree with all of it. Even though the command is aware of a lot of these issues, they are not able to fix it due to their skill level or are taking the wrong approach in order to fix these issues.
As much as I got along with most of the current command staff during my time as a Lieutenant, I have to agree with this. There are people in the current command that I strongly disagree with. Some in which I find incompetent, unprofessional, and unable to perform their duties as we would expect them to. With that being said, they really need to just take a step back and consider some of these suggestions instead of pushing them to the side. I understand that some of them may think that everything is perfect, but in reality, if you just step back and view the whole puzzle instead of the corner piece, you’ll come to find that a majority of these methods just don’t fit together at all. They are unethical and ineffective. There’s always room for improvement, always.
There’s too much command, the hiring system is literally shit, and is too easy. The quality of all the new troopers is at an all time low. The administration won’t do shit about it, and won’t remove the incompetent command, and troopers in the department.
Finally somebody brought this up. Also the past 2 Colonels/Supers thought the issue was 100% the troopers, and both have tried pushing troopers very hard with one even forcing absolutely insane PT for some lego troopers. seriously who the hell thought that re-training was a good idea. The past 2 FSP heads barely took any action in weeding out the command staff. Hopefully the Colonel Davitiy will read this thread and take some important things out of it and apply it to his department.
No offense to david, but I do not think he is capable. Considering it looks as if mark and kyle have been doing the most works since david got Colonel. And again, no offense, but mark and kyle aren’t doing the best either. But, everyone can exceed expectations and I would love to see him step up to the challenge.
