15 Things ‘70s-Era Cops Can Teach Today’s LEOs

For the cops of my dad’s generation, today’s hostility, disrespect, and general lack of public support for law enforcement is like taking a trip back in time

The post-Ferguson surge of anti-cop fervor has led to brazen and unprovoked attacks on officers, at times with deadly consequences.

In New York, a gunman ambushed and murdered Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos back in December, and just last month a suspect planted explosives outside the Dallas Police department headquarters building before unleashing a barrage of gunfire he’d hoped would kill cops (thankfully he did not).

It’s all but impossible to know how many other assaults on officers have happened in recent months which were motivated by anti-police rhetoric. But one thing is for sure, the cops of my dad’s generation would say, “Welcome to the ‘60s and ‘70s, partner!”

Peace and Love? My dad came on the job in the latter 1960s, not long after returning home from Vietnam. At the time, America was fighting two wars: A guerilla war against communists in Vietnam, and a second guerilla war against communists, radicals, and criminals in the nation’s streets.

Your public school textbooks and pop culture have reinvented the hippie era of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s as a carefree time of peace and free love, but the cops of that age knew it as a chaotic and dangerous time. In fact, violent attacks on officers and officer deaths reached a peak in the 1970s that hasn’t been matched since.

Back then, groups like the SNCC, SDS, NBPP, WUO, RNA, and dozens more were trying to spark a revolution in the streets to advance their socialist, nationalist, racist, anti-war, “anti-imperialist,” and plain-old criminal agendas. They brought together criminals, political radicals, the urban poor, disaffected veterans, rebellious youth and “useful idiots” on college campuses (in both the dorms and faculty lounges) in an attempt to topple American society and government, and replace them with socialism. To achieve this, they stoked the latent anger in these groups and inspired destabilizing violence.

The police were the principal target of that violence. In the words of Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers (formerly an FBI-wanted domestic terrorist, now a personal friend of, and advisor to, the President of the United States), “the pigs are the capitalist state,” and “are our real enemy...our job is to defeat the pigs and the army and organize on that basis.”

This is War As a result, the urban cops of the ‘60s and ‘70s simultaneously fought crime and waged a low-level counterinsurgency. Cops of this era grew accustomed to:

• Bombings of police stations and vehicles, government buildings, and other public places • Coordinated, military-style, ambush attacks, often triggered by false calls for service that lured officers into the trap • Frequent riots and mass civil disturbances • Surveillance and attacks on off duty officers and their families, including while at home or en route to/from work • Frequent encounters with heavily armed gangs, often composed of, or trained by, disaffected military veterans with recent combat experience • Increased surveillance and monitoring, to include being shadowed on patrol by armed, “self-defense” teams that intervened and ambushed officers during enforcement actions • Openly-fortified and guarded buildings that served as stash houses, armories, command bunkers, safe houses and last ditch fighting positions • Suspect dwellings protected by booby traps, including explosives • Politically-inspired kidnappings and assassinations • Sniper attacks • Frequent hostility, disrespect, and a general lack of public support for law enforcement

Lessons From the Past A new generation of cops (many of whom entered service during the post-9/11 spasm of public support for law enforcement and the military) are now experiencing some of these things for the first time. It may feel new to them, but their retired cop fathers and grandfathers would recognize the conditions immediately.

Those warriors from the ‘60s and ‘70s would have some advice for their modern day brothers and sisters of the Thin Blue Line. Here are 15 thoughts they might share. Add your own — especially if you were on the job in the 60s and 70s — in the comments area below.

1. Wear your vest. We didn’t have them back then, and we lost some brothers as a result. 2. Look out for each other. Always important, but even more so when the family is under attack. 3. Be aware that small things can turn into big things, fast. Don’t forget that the ‘65 Watts Riots started with a simple DUI stop. 4. Go armed — heavily — always. You never know when the next SLA shootout will go down on your watch, or when you’ll run across the wrong crowd while off duty. Pack a War Bag with extra mags for the car, carry a backup gun (or two), and always carry a reasonable fighting gun off duty 5. Maintain operational security. Deny useful information to the enemy. 6. Avoid habit patterns. Habit patterns make you an easy target for ambush. Mix it up. 7. Harden your house. A police station must withstand attack. Glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows offer no protection from bricks, bullets, or bombs. Put auto barriers in place. Move desks away from windows, secure the perimeter, control access, and change landscaping/architecture so you can see who’s approaching the door. 8. Conduct vehicle searches — on your own cars. When you return to your vehicle (duty or private), do a visual check for sabotage (lug nuts? tires? brake lines?), tampering, or explosives before you touch it. 9. Don’t be afraid of a tactical retreat. Don’t push a bad situation. Fall back, regroup, and choose the battlefield. 10. Know your counter-ambush tactics. Learn them. Perfect them. Use them. 11. Train in officer hostage tactics. Work out a plan with your partners. Never surrender your gun. No more Onion Fields. 12. Radio discipline. Never make a stop without calling it in. Ever. 13. Hone your crowd control and riot tactics. You’ll need these skills when a First Amendment event becomes a riot. 14. Be self-reliant. When the system is stressed, there may be no backup available. Back in the day, there was no SWAT, no K9, and no helicopter — you did it yourself. Get all the help you can, whenever you can, but don’t forget how to get things done by yourself, if necessary. 15. Check your six. Remember, you’re not the only hunter out there.

Looking Ahead to the 60s and 70s If the past is any indication, we’re just getting warmed up, and it’s going to be a dangerous ride. All those radicals from the 60s and 70s are now at the helm of government, the media, public education, and other positions of influence.

They’ve been planting the seeds of revolution for decades, and now they think it’s time for the harvest ...or at least time for some payback on “the pig.”

Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Mike Wood is an NRA Law Enforcement Division-certified Firearms Instructor and the author of Newhall Shooting: A Tactical Analysis, available in paper and electronic formats through Amazon.com , BarnesandNoble.com, Apple ITunes and gundigeststore.com . Please visit the official website for this book at www.newhallshooting.com for more information.

The difference was there was no federal movement to destroy the police. I wasn’t too old back in the 70’s but I never remember Nixon, Ford, or Carter jumping in front of a camera to denounce every action police took. And we never had a president that openly advocated for racial strife. Obama wants everyone to hate everyone else. It’s the Community organizer way.

Most of us aren’t anti-cop. We’re anti-bad cop.

A distinction that seems to elude the “support the cops regardless of what they do” types as well as far too many cops themselves.

The biggest single problem the cops have is their understandable and very human but inappropriate tendency to rally behind other cops almost regardless of what those cops have done.

By definition a cop’s duty is to the law, and that duty should come well before loyalty to another cop who has broken that law. Any cop who can’t put this duty above friendship and loyalty to comrades should find another line of work.

There is a fundamental difference between anti-cop and anti bad cop.

I love good cops. I get to vote for the best damn sheriff in the country, David Clarke.

I despise and loathe bad cops, more than any other criminal thugs, because they not only abuse their power, they taint the public’s view of all cops, including the good ones.

There is a large number of these anti cop Communists posting here, posing as conservatives.

I am a conservative, and I'm the guy who occasionally posts a long list of stories about evil, out-of-control cops who harass, threaten and generally beat-up law abiding citizens.

I would post it again, but the list covers incidents that occur during a couple of months and is very long.

It is disgusting, and revealing of who you are, that you try to confuse concerned citizens with communists. From your post it appears you are a fascist cop.

Still have a copy, a well read and dog eared copy, of “No Second Place Winner” by Bill Jordon...... I remember courses in officer survival, briefings before each muster, guard mount, standup and in house training to include “verbal judo” to deescalate situations with words versus making matters worse with actions.....as a reserve deputy and full time deputy later on every opportunity to train in some form or fashion be it armed or unarmed conflict, domestic violence, wound management, offensive and defensive driving, sports nutrition, situational awareness etc ..I eagerly sought out such education.

Today as yesterday ..... Threats don’t change over time be it the 60’s or today. Officers meet and interact with people who nine times out of ten are at their worst be they the victim or the criminal.

If your not good at policing, interacting with the public, physically and mentally strong with the inner strength to know and accept your mistakes and learn from them before you or others get hurt.......then quit, walk away.

My opinion and experience.....on officer survival.

Really?

You wouldn't know a Communist if he/she came up to you and whomped you in your self righteous, dogmatic, narrow-minded and irrational schnoz.

Your failure to distinguish between the great cops who know their duty and practice it daily from those who are on an anti-civilian power trip betrays you.

I was old enough back then. I remember it well. I went to university at the Land Grant College of what is now an all red state, not at the other state university... it was full of rebellious children but not nearly like the schools on the coasts.

These same rebellious children are now the 60 something and 70 something old farts that are still working to destroy what was once a decent nation... they are succeeding.

Young smart alecs become old smart alecs. Young punks become old punks. Young radicals become old radicals. Young people that hate the military become old people that hate the military and establishment for the same irrational reasons. Young communists become old communists and so on.

I’ll be glad when the boomer hippies die off. The sooner the better. They are a bunch of spoiled punks. I hated them when I was young and I hate them now. The conservative kids (we didn’t know we were conservative then though) from the country had our side of the campus watering holes and the hippie punks had theirs. We never went over there but when they came to our side town we threw them out with prejudice. We never saw a cop and the same hippie punks never came back.

I don’t care what anybody thinks about what we did then. I feel no remorse and I’d do it all again if I were able. I wish we could have fixed the problem then so we would not have to deal with it now. I don’t want to be civil or try to reason. I just want them to leave me alone or be gone, just like we did 40 or more years ago.

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