I got assigned to train a brand new Rookie right out of the academy. I'll be starting my 25th year soon and this is the first female my department has had. She's 23 and clueless as to how the world works after 2 months on. So far a few highlights - I'm arresting a guy that's resisting and when I told her to cuff him she said "no, you show me how to do it" as she stood and watched like a spectator. Car vs deer call. Deer is still alive. I tell her to shoot it and she told me no and walked away. Every vehicle stop I tell her to call in and she tells me she don't feel comfortable on the radio and tells me to do it because she don't know the street names, 10 codes or direction we are headed. Sitting in a store parking lot a big burly biker type gets out of a car beside us and she said "ohh he looks scary". I asked what she's going to do if he had a warrant and she said "nothing". She never wants to drive saying she would probably hit curbs. The times I've made her drive when we stop somewhere or finish a traffic stop she hops back in the passenger seat. I'm issued a Ford 150 Police Responder. She hates the truck saying only rednecks drive trucks. I humored her and took out a Dodge Charger one shift and she wouldn't drive that either. On a call issuing a Protection from Abuse order I had to raise my voice because the guy was getting loud and aggressive. I got a short lecture on how I was rude to the guy.  The list goes on and on. If it was a man we would have had the come to Jesus meeting but the Chief told me I have to be nice. She is on the schedule alone in 2 weeks. She is not ready and I doubt she ever will be. My recommendation is let her go and if the Chief don't agree I requested opposite shifts and included my reasons why.

Anybody else have a winner they got to train?

Any department I know of, or that I worked at, would have fired her for not cuffing the guy or refusing to follow FTO's instructions.

Your department FTO program sucks.

I hope you do a good job, and fail her.  I don't mean that in a negative manner...FTO is the first line of defense for the rest of the guys on the road.  Relying on her as backup (or having to be her backup) may get someone killed.  That trumps hurt feelings.  It sounds like you have plenty to document to cover you from the "but he hates womenz" complaint that is likely to come.

I was an FTO trained on the San Jose Model. I would document Everything on her DOR's and recommend remedial training. I worked at a large department that had its own academy. I don't know what a small department could do. But don't let her pass any phase or she becomes a liability. Document Document Document!

Failure to respond to training, insubordination, and cowardice.

Seems documenting all 3 of those things should lead to an early termination of her employment.

Even for a female.

I’d get fired for that shit so why not her?

Not a copper but dealing with this same sort of person at work, write down everything and make sure she knows it.

So you have a process where she signs off on the FTO reports on her performance so she can't claim she wasn't told?

Do you have a union rep you can consult to make sure you don't end up behind the 8 ball for documenting her lack of performance?

Good luck, especially if the Chief isn't on your side..

<FTO

Why does she think she has an option in any of this? Why are you doing this stuff instead of evaluating and being back up?

Scenario number one should have been a full stop, documented meeting with supervisor.   I can’t think of a scenario where the rook has a choice in any of those scenarios, but the deer. That may be its own kind of issue, not necessarily that of a bad cop.

How bad is y’all’s academy? Handcuffing someone is pretty basic stuff.

If you’re not documenting all of that and sending eval copies to multiple levels of your chain of command, I’d start.

Then again she may be a favor/connect hire and be pushed through regardless.

Being a female is no excuse, I work with some that put most guys to shame.

I run my department’s field training program. We would have terminated her long ago based on what you have seen and dealt with. Male/female/minority.....wouldn’t matter to us. She’d be gone. That said, in many departments a minority or female (especially in departments that don’t have many/any minorities or females) will often get a free pass.

Best advise I can give is document, document, document. DORs if you use them....memos if not. Be excruciating detailed. Finally conclude to the chief (in a memo) she is incapable of doing the job and she is a danger to herself, the public, and fellow officers (use some variation of those words). If he keeps her, it’s on him. Keep copies for yourself (outside the department) just in case she is allowed to stay, screws up royally, and tries to blame you for training her.

Bear in mind, not all females are bad. I have worked with some very good females in my career. They do exist.

She is still on probation so it should be easy to have her fired for failure to follow procedure, training, disregarding direct orders. Like others said, document every little thing including direct quotes from her each day.  That way it’s not picking on her because of her sex.

This! I've been in law enforcement 14 years now and I agree with this and everyone else in the thread saying to document each of these events. She will either get herself or someone else killed and you do not want that on your conscience.

Send her our way.  Sounds like she would fit in well.  The more the FTO says "no" the more admin says "yes".......

You better have documented everything in you daily observation reports. based upon your post she has no business being an officer anywhere. It sounds like your agency is bound and determined to keep her being the first female and there maybe a lot of behind the scene stuff between your chief and local political big wigs. Remember this,  if they do keep her even if she is a disaster, you are on the hook for any future mess ups as her fto. Any civil suits you will be sucked into. This will happen, it happened at my agency. The only thing that kept the fto’s out of litigation was their very detailed observation reports that the admins ignored. They were all released from the civil action after their depositions when they presented the dor’s to show they all consistently documented the officers deficiencies. You are to far in to you career to have your admin set you up as a sacrifice because they want to keep the train wreck. Good luck.

As others have said: specific, detailed, factual DORs (daily observation reports). Meet with the trainee at the beginning of each shift or end of last shift and go over the DOR. Be specific and unemotional. Start with something good or acceptable the trainee did and then cover the specific examples of failures and what the appropriate response should have been. Submit these to your supervisor and the training supervisor after the trainee and you both sign. Keep copies. When the FTO period is over for you (we had phases) wrote an honest and comprehensive summary of the training period and submit it up the chain. Make a recommendation of release from training or more training.

I did not let trainees dictate to me what they wanted. If I told them to drive, they drove. Situational awareness, knowing the streets and where you are at all times, so that when/if you are disabled the trainee could call for help, that was the first lesson. Set clear expectations and do not compromise on them. It is the worst job at the agency being an FTO. Not everyone is cut out for it.

-good luck. Protect yourself and your agency from a future lawsuit. The steps you take now will pay off later. Trust us.

This is on the dept,
My old agency would’ve bounced her after the first or second issue.

Hopefully the chief will see your side and she won’t get killed or get another cop killed

Female? First female ever?

She will never fail. Do your best, document everything, and try not to work with her when she invariably passes FTO. Don’t worry, she will get a special assignment soon and not work the road.

I find it odd you are giving her the options to not drive or not shoot the deer, etc

I had a buddy that was in the exact same spot.

She clicked two boxes on the diversity chart, so no way were they letting her go.

I offered to dress up and convince her she was in the wrong line of work, but got waved off.

She lasted less than a year on night shift with a rural city that got less than ten calls a shift, now she's a community college police officer "with road experience".

(Shrugs)

This is the new normal. Don't lose your job over it.

FPNI

BINGO.  Needs to go.  Immediately.

I had one like that, I was the third and last FTO she had before she was shitcanned.

What's your documentation like on all of this?  There's no way she should pass FTO.  What remedial training have you given her?  How have you documented her remedial training?  If I had a trainee refuse an FTO's order, I would bring them back to the station, take their police ID, weapons and equipment and place them on Admin Leave, pending termination.  We just fired one not half as bad a few months ago.  One of my Sergeant's Ride Evaluations roasted her.  I rode with her for 4 hours and wrote 4 pages of single-spaced type memo about her performance.  I then went over it with her and had her sign that she acknowledged the contents of the memo and where she needed to improve.

You need to document her performance so your Chief realizes he has a negative retention case if he allows her to complete FTO.

@pa_ridgerunner

Don’t leave us hanging! What’s happened with her?

She's in line to be the CoP at Seattle.........

LOL...probably

PTO and Master Police Officer here.

Document, document, document.  If I’m struggling with someone and my recruit won’t help we are headed back to the station and they are done for at least the night.

I made a recruit ride in the back seat after a call once.  Told him that police ride in the front, he can let me know when he is ready to be a police again and he could come back up front.

Unfortunately since she is the first ever female she is most likely the Hindu Cow and will take the Sgt and captain exam the moment she has the seniority.

Make copies of everything after signed by her and at least one supervisor. Keep them secured for as long as they work there plus the period your state allows for lawsuits. You should for everyone you train. I trained many over thirty years including new sergeants. I ran the training squad/FTO squad for about fours years.

Turn your future vicarious liability into their negligent retention problem.

I'm still documenting everything. Still giving the Sgt progress reports. The Chief likes her so my gut tells me she will be out on her own soon. I saved a copy of every report and all my notes.

Boom.  ^this 100%.

I’ve worked at an upper middle class suburb and now in a major metro agency.  In both places, refusals to follow an FTO directive were serious incidents.  Both agencies would severely punish or fire recruits who refused to do what they were told.  At my current agency, this would be handled as follows:

1. Recruit is immediately isolated, be it in a squad car or in an office.  
2. FTO immediately notifies supervisor, be it a Sgt or Lt.  
3. FTO, Supervisor and recruit sit down, with an additional witness if necessary depending on circumstances, and the Supervisor questions the recruit as to what happened. Recruit is read policy and recruit training documents that outline what policies and SOPs the recruit just violated.  
4. Recruit is sent home for the day, without further pay.
5. FTO completes a Recruit Incident Report, which is then routed to the head Field Training Sergeant.
5a. FTO also completes daily ROPE form (Recruit Officer Performance Evaluation) and documents incident as “NRT” (Not Responding to Training)
6. Shift FTO Sgt contacts head FTO Sgt and advises them of incident
7. Head FTO Sgt reviews recruit incident report and contacts FTO to discuss incident. Witness officers are also contacted.
8. Recruit is called in to head FTO Sgt and Training Unit Lieutenant office at the Special Operations Center for a review of their performance.
9. Recruit is admonished, given discipline and assigned remedial training.  They can also be reassigned to another FTO if the current FTO refuses to take the recruit.  Or, recruit is terminated.
10. Any violation that constitutes an immediate threat to any officer’s safety, or constitutes a gross dereliction of duty, is subject to termination.

I’ve been a cop for 21 years and FTO’d for about 14 years of that off and on.  I’ve never had a recruit refuse to do something outright, but I’ve had them “forget” or “neglect” to do things and I come down on them like a hammer.  I document the hell out of everything and I make sure that any incident is recorded and reported.  I’ve FTO’d a lot of females, and what I’ve learned is that you absolutely cannot treat them any different.  You have to yank their chain when they step out of line, yell at them when the situation calls for it, and document when they screw up.  I have been lucky that most of my female recruits have been pretty decent.  Some have been outright outstanding.  A couple were lackluster, and one was an outright gong show that cried at least once a shift.  It got so bad with the crying that other female officers cornered her in the locker room and told her she was an embarrassment, and to suck it up or pack her shit and quit.  We have learned that regardless of minority status, all recruits must be held to the same training and evaluation standard, regardless of the agency’s administrative intentions.  Don’t ever cut slack on documentation.

Also, from here on out, any time you do any significant admonishment about performance, have a witness present.  If other officers are present during her refusals to do her job, have them also complete incident reports, or else include their names on incident reports or write-up forms (if you have them).  If you don’t have recruit incident reports, make them.  Or create your own documentation and have other officers either named in them, sign them as witnesses, or complete their own as witnessing officers.

Your obligation is to yourself and your fellow officers, not your chief.  DO NOT pass her.  

Also, if I ever had a recruit try to admonish me, I’d yell at them until I was hoarse, have everyone on the shift take turns ripping them a new asshole, then send them home without pay while I completed an incident report on them.  20 years ago we had shitty recruits get locker room counseling when they got attitude or wouldn’t stop fucking up, but we can’t do that anymore.

Jesus, I count at a minimum 7 failures to follow instruction or admissions that she is incapable of doing things required to do her job.  How much dingdong does she have to ride or white-knighting has to occur to keep her job after being that much of a fuckup?  

I hope you are documenting the hell out of what is going on and having others document/witness what is happening as well.  She is a massive liability to the city and a potential risk to her peers.

I would put all her failings on her daily FTO paperwork.  You sign it, she signs it.   If she cannot see she has a big problem in clear writing then she is a fool.
You are derelict if you do not document her performance.  


<———-  Never an FTO.  I did of course take newbs for patrols to expand beyond their FTOs.  I wasn’t shy with them and told them the good and bad.  Only one I had doubts on that suddenly blossomed and came into his own.  The first few weeks working his sector he would tend to drop back and let the senior officers be the contact officer.  I had to point out seniority has some value to watch but 1. this is your beat, this is your complaint, I am here to guide you a bit.  Step up and dig into your work.  He ended up getting a transfer to another zone and I had my doubts about him making it,  The zone he transferred to his home area.  Having local knowledge of the people and places had him suddenly confident and productive.  I was pleasantly surprised.

It sounds similar, the holding back but I don’t expect her to turn a new leaf.  Sounds like many women in the military,.....let the men do the heavy lifting and dirty work.   Don’t mean no mysogeny just what I have seen.   When males do that we call them shammers.

That brings back memories of a sector mate I had.   We had took take turns dispatching.   I took a call in my own sector and knew the caller and dispatched her to the car hit deer needing a bullet just off the road.  Probably about 8am and dispatched her to the call and never thought about it again,  On my way home (take home cars) I get a call from the same guy on his way home from work and the deer is still there alive right where it was.  I swing in and shoot it.  That deer lay there at least 8-9 hours with smashed legs.  

She said she couldn’t find it but it was just one of several car hit deer she couldn’t shoot.  Definitely a pattern. Made me wonder about her as backup too.  She ended up getting a bunch of personnel complaints on her driving due to her anxiety stress meds.   She was a zombie, I would wave to her on the road, two marked cars passing on the highway,....5 feet apart across a double yellow line.  She didn’t see me or know I ran into her when I mentioned it.  She ended up off the road on desk duty for a host of reasons before disappearing on a bad back retirement,  75% disability. Meanwhile I woeked 23 years longer and get half pay for retirement.

Damn dude. Stay safe.

Been there and understand totally, this is why I retired after 31 years. Just stand strong and document everything. I know politics plays a big part. HOW DID SHE PASS THE ACADEMY???? We have terminated cadets just for lying to an instructor. I feel your pain brother.

I'm still trying to fathom the FTO driving the car part.

If the OIT is even considering the possibility of making the FTO drive there is a serious cultural problem in that agency.  We've had some guys that failed Field Training, but I've never even heard of a trainee outright refusing an order. They shouldn't survive the day.

No need to even argue.  Drive 'em back to the substation and drop them off, start making command notifications, that trainee is done.

Your agency allowed someone to keep their gun and badge while on anxiety meds??? Wow... in the Fed world, that's pretty much an instant "pull gun and creds", and sit behind a desk until a psychiatrist signs off you don't need meds and you pass a couple piss tests to follow up...


As to the OP,
You need to document everything she does and says every shift, to include refusing to follow orders. Then make your written recommendation as clear as possible "Terminate Employment Immediately", don't sugar coat it. Keep copies of everything. If you have department email, use that to send a copy up the chain, and BCC a copy to your own private email to retain a timestamped copy. Department email has a way of deleting much needed item at the worst possible time...

I had to testify at a civil trial about another agents training after they "neglected to follow procedures" (we'll just leave it at that)...
The fact it was documented by myself and several other members of the training staff, the person being sued had been properly trained, and also remediated later on procedures, was what kept several of us from being lumped in with him in the lawsuit. He lost, was terminated after 8 years on the job, and the agency had to pay a low 6 figure sum.

If someone in LE screws the pooch royally, a good lawyer will name everyone from the chief of police, all the way down to the person who did their background check before they got hired, and EVERYONE in between. Its then up to record keeping and documentation to get as many (if not all) of those people kicked off the roster before trial.

This has reached the CYA level

She will fail and it will be spectacular

Unfortunately your dept and possibly you will get sued

As everyone has said
Write up everything
Including termination of the employee
MAKE COPIES
Then turn the paperwork in

I work for a big agency as an FTO. It seems that we are only hiring from the bottom of the barrel now. Most of my trainees have no life experience and can’t take being told they messed up in some way. I get complaints because I am not officer friendly and try to stay old school, while a lot of FTO’s want to be buddy buddy with the new guys and never address they made mistakes.

25+ with a large agency....

Currently (11+) supervise a small team (9 guys total) working plain clothes tracking down guys for Homicide, Robbery, Agg Assault, etc...

I tip my hat to guys that do uniform training.

For several years I was a firearms instructor and combatives instructor.

The snowflakes were unbelievable.

We still get some excellent applicants but it’s the occasional one with millennial attitude that stands out.

Failure to fire is a reoccurring problem...

Recruits that stand out as a bad fit, become bad trainees, bad officers and end up either getting fired and embarrassing us all OR get promoted into cushy jobs that have nothing to do with using their gun/cuffs. When I first got hired I’d look at some of the mid to high ranking people and think to myself... I bet he or she has put down some major cases to be a lieutenant, captain, chief.... it didn’t take long to realize how far from the truth that notion was.

Your trainee will make a fine Social Worker...

This is the EXACT same thing at my place.  I have no idea where they find these new people.  At least half of them have no business in LE.  They don't know what "no" means, but luckily they already know everything so you cant tell them squat!  By the end of week one, they are friends with half the department on social media and going out to the bars with them.

Not a cop, but have done a lot of training and I think the first day you should have explained to her that she was (supposedly) trained in the academy. Now she has to show you she knows what she is doing, you are there to back her up as she demonstrates her skills and you are grading her, and giving her the tips she needs to do things efficiently, not teaching her the basics.

That’s not how it works. A FTO is teaching the trainee how to apply the basics that were taught in the academy. LE is too complex to cover every possible thing you might ever experience in LE while in the academy....even a 6+ month long academy.

As a humorous example, in my first department while I was in field training just out of the academy, a crazy barefoot female with her boyfriend in tow, came to the department and asked me out on a date.  I didn’t know what to say. The other officers on duty had a good laugh at my expense. Turns out she was a crazy regular they dealt with all the time and she had been telling them she wanted to date a cop. One of the officers thought it would be funny to tell her I was single and then sit back and enjoy the show. The academy can’t cover that. I have more stories but that one always sticks out in my mind.....and makes me laugh to think of it.

This.

I occasionally work with a couple of female deputies and they are nothing like as described.

so.....


get married? lol

Ummmm....no. I have many stories about her. All of them are crazy. Both she and her boyfriend were legit crazy. Harmless but crazy. She used to talk about the time she and her brother had sex...I don’t think she thought it was abnormal......her boyfriend wore headphones to drown out the voices.....



Then there was the time I had to talk to the guy who the neighbors had seen having sex with his dog. Didn’t cover that in the academy either........

All reasons they’d probably get fired here.

At the very least, when I told her to do something I would drive her back to the office and drop her off for the rest of the shift. Why didn’t you do that?

That fact that it sounds like you’ve spoken directly to the chief makes me believe you’re probably at a small department. The money they’ve already invested in her it wouldn’t make sense for them to fire her. Sucks but that’s the way it is at small places

Document and address the things with her in writing.  Speak to your sergeant about her (if you haven't already) and sit down with him and her in a room and let her know that you plan to fail her if things do not take a 180.  

If you pass her as she is, she is a danger to herself, a liability to any officer she accompanies, and a leech on the tax payer.

This...you are on the hook for vicarious liability as an FTO.

She been promoted to sergeant, detective or chief's assistant yet?  Not really kidding.

I would say she's going to get herself killed, but she probably won't ever interact with anybody so she'll just waste resources instead.  But hey, the Chief can tout his diversity stats

That can be interpreted a few different ways.