Letter From the Editor – January/February 2024

Welcome to the first issue of OFFICER Magazine for 2024. As I think most of us do at the beginning of any new year, I spent part of the past few weeks looking back at the previous year(s). It still shocks me to realize how long we’ve been around (this publication). It started out over 50 years ago as Law Enforcement Technology and was later joined by its sister publication Law Enforcement Product News. In January of 2021, those two magazines were combined into this publication: OFFICER Magazine. It’s hard to believe OFFICER has been around for three years now. To all of you who give us a regular read, we appreciate it. If you know someone in the profession who doesn’t regularly give us a read, hand this copy off to them. Get them to subscribe.

So, welcome to 2024. It will be interesting to see what the year will offer. The future changes so quickly that it’s near impossible to predict what the biggest challenge will be or what new technology will be released. Keeping that in mind, remember that the best we can do is exactly that: The best we can do. If it’s not good enough, it’s still the best we can do. We should always strive to improve, and I believe that law enforcement, as a profession, always does. We don’t have a choice. Too many people are too eager to find the smallest fault, so we have to always bring our A game.

The OFFICER team makes it our mission to support you in doing yours. As a veteran officer with 40 years behind the badge and now with 35 years as an instructor, I am proud to lead our law enforcement editorial team. You’ve probably seen our names, read articles we’ve written and, perhaps, listened to podcasts we’ve posted. Mr. Paul Peluso leads the charge on this magazine. Mr. Joe Vince handles the large bulk of our news online and our social media feeds. If you haven’t checked our podcasts (officer-rollcall.podbean.com), I’d encourage you to do so. Roll Call is magazine content focused and released every other Wednesday, while The Lineup is news commentary (and a lot of fun) and comes out each Friday morning. On our podcast page, we also have a six-part series on Active Shooter events and response thereto. That’s gotten a lot of listens so there must be something there worth hearing.

We also have the OFFICER Virtual Academy (virtualacademy.officer.com), where classes are added on a fairly regular basis and the number of courses certified for in-service training credit is growing. It’s no cost to the end user, so check it out as well.

As always, stay safe. Make 2024 the best year of your career.