Determine the Best Course of Action in a Police Scenario

Proper/Improper Questions

As a police officer, you will have to abide by many rules that often will require you to make ethical decisions regarding proper and improper responses to scenarios. For instance, when is it appropriate for an officer to accept a gift? Is it more appropriate to arrest a suspect, let him or her go with a warning, or issue a fine? Is it ever appropriate to enter someone’s house without explicit permission? The list goes on and on. Questions that assess proper and improper responses to different scenarios might be included on your police exam.

Let's look at a question. You might be given a sample scenario that looks like this:

Officer Wallace recently reviewed his department’s policy on the scenarios for which it is appropriate to initiate a vehicle pursuit. The policy reads, “Officers may only initiate a vehicle pursuit when the driver of the vehicle-to-be-pursued has committed a serious crime and/or failure to pursue the vehicle is likely to be of greater danger to the public than the actual pursuit itself.”

Given the above, you might be asked a question like this:

1. Based on this policy, is it proper or improper for Officer Wallace to initiate a vehicle pursuit of a driver who exceeds the speed limit in a school zone by 10 miles per hour?

   1. Proper, because driving over the speed limit is a serious crime that endangers all around you
   2. Proper, because performing a vehicle pursuit in a school zone does not put anyone at risk
   3. Improper, because driving only 10 miles over the speed limit is not a crime
   4. Improper, because a vehicle pursuit in this location could put children in harm’s way

Questions of this type require an equal amount of common sense and adherence to the stated policy. The question is if driving 10 miles per hour over the speed limit is a crime of sufficient seriousness worth tracking down that driver at all costs, including the potential lives of children in the school zone and other nearby drivers. The most common sense answer to this question is no. Yes, it is a crime, but not of sufficient seriousness as to warrant a vehicle pursuit. So, Choice (D) is the correct answer.

Logical Judgment questions

A litany of procedures have been designed to ensure the safety of the officers, witnesses, and victims involved in various types of altercations, as well as to ensure the efficiency and accuracy with which incidents are addressed. As such, officers must be familiar with all these procedures and be able to correctly interpret them, which often involves knowing the correct order in which to perform a task.

As with all questions on your exam, you will be given all the information you need in order to answer a question. The test wants to determine your instincts, not your knowledge of police procedure.

For example, you might be given the following information to review:

Police officers are to handle radio calls and observational activities adhering to the following rules:

1. Be certain the scene is safe.
2. If medical attention is required, request fire rescue.
3. Get a brief synopsis of the incident, including a description of the suspect(s), weapon(s), vehicles, etc.
4. Relay this information to dispatch so that other police units can be notified.
   
5. Obtain a detailed report from the victim(s).
   
6. Question all witnesses.
   
7. Gather physical evidence.
   
8. Provide the victim with a report number of the incident.
   
9. Attempt to conclude the investigation with appropriate action.
   

After you review these facts, you will have to answer a question like the folllowing:

1. Officer MacKenzie is the first officer to arrive on scene of an attempted carjacking in a concert parking lot. She spots the victim amidst broken glass from a shattered car window. The victim is hysterical, and his head is badly bruised. He is being comforted by two people. What is the first thing Officer MacKenzie should do?

   1. Ask the victim to explain what happened.
   2. Ask the two people comforting the victim to provide their accounts of what occurred.
   3. Call for an ambulance.
   4. Write notes about the scene.

To correctly determine the course of action, the officer must refer to the prescribed procedure. Use the information you are given—it is there for a reason. The exam is also testing your skills of comprehension in addition to your common sense.

The way to approach this problem is to determine which of the four choices occurs earliest in the list; this is the first course of action, of those listed, that the officer should take. In this case, Choice (C) is the earliest in the list. So, the correct answer is (C).

Time and Place questions

As an officer, you will likely be assigned to patrol different neighborhoods and city sectors throughout your career. Each neighborhood is prone to different types of crime at different times of the day, so you will need to familiarize yourself with the statistics of your particular zone to efficiently serve the public. Specifically, you want to use your time wisely and patrol certain areas at certain times to minimize the number of incidents of a particular crime.

Let's take another look at the situation you saw in the Test What You Know section.

Officer Drake is assigned to patrol the streets of a certain section of her town. Her patrol area consists of two main streets, Route 10 and Route 22, parallel to each other and half a mile apart. Five residential streets run between these two main streets, perpendicular to them: Bryan, Grange, Rockside, Indian Run, and Senn.

She reviews the area crime statistics for the past year prior to the start of duty. Reports indicate that yard vandalism was isolated to Grange Street and that petty theft (e.g., garden gnomes, bird feeders, etc.) was isolated to Rockside, on all days of the week. Both types of crime are believed to occur between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Illegal dragstrip racing has been reported along Route 10 in this area between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. on the weekends. Teens have been reported to gather in groups and drink on the corners of Indian Run and Senn all days of the week, between 9 p.m. and midnight.

1. To reduce the number of occurrences of yard vandalism, she should patrol

   1. Route 10 in this area between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.
   2. Grange Street between midnight and 5 a.m.
   3. the corners of Indian Run and Senn between 9 p.m. and midnight.
   4. Rockside Street between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

To use the statistics wisely, you need to identify the location where the yards are being vandalized and the time of day during which this occurs. This information is provided in the two adjacent sentences (key information in bold):

Reports indicate that yard vandalism was isolated to Grange Street and that petty theft (e.g., garden gnomes, bird feeders, etc.) was isolated to Rockside. Both types of crime are believed to occur between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Therefore, the correct answer is Choice (B)—its time range encompasses the times in the report. Note that Choice (D) also covers this time range, but at the wrong location for yard vandalism.