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Commander Doug Drummond joined the Long Beach Police
Department in 1959 and retired after 39 years in 1988. He has a BA and MPA in Public administration, as
well a doctorate in criminology from August Vollmer University. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy; a two term city
council member; part-time faculty at California State University, Long Beach; and, the President of the Historical Society
of Long Beach.
Commander Doug Drummond is the author of two novels,
Cyclone Racer, What Goes Around Comes Around; and, one professional book
- Police Culture.
According to the book description of
What Goes Around Comes Around, “Police officers, in the course of their duties, try to work
though and solve crimes that they encounter. They meet a tremendous cross-section of people, encounter situations that are
awful, and have real lives as they work. They literally stand next to the victims after homicides, rapes, robberies, burglaries,
child molestations, and hours later find themselves in ordinary involvement with those around them. They understand the agony
of victims and do not comprehend those who apologize for the perpetrators with "excuse-o-babble." These experiences
are powerful and drive officers to search for understanding in the midst of senseless grief. In this era most police officers
were military veterans, they were not as educated as those working today, yet in many ways they were closer to the public
they served. In Long Beach at this time officers lived in every neighborhood - indeed they where denied the right to live
outside the city. They shared concepts about justice and most cops believed in the axiom, "What goes around comes around."
They still went through a difficult struggle - a hardening - as it sometimes became more and more difficult to "shrug
off" memories of human suffering when there were no obvious solutions. They had to struggle, and today still have to
struggle, to keep a balanced perspective of life and humanity. Many on the outside do not understand cops. There are some
that never will understand. All cops, in every place on earth, understand. We understand each other.”
One reader of Cyclone Racer
said, “Sixteen recruits had survived the six-week session of the Long Beach Police Academy. The stress and anxiety of
intense training had finally come to an end. Sixteen of twenty original candidates would graduate. Announcement of the concluding
ceremonies had been delivered. November 20, 1959 - a day all sixteen would remember.”
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About the Long Beach
Police Department The Long Beach Police Department is a large full-service law enforcement agency with over 1,500 personnel and a $200
million dollar budget. The department has a fairly typical organization structure with the uniformed and
investigative functions separated. According to the Long Beach Police Department, “The Patrol Bureau
is the department's largest bureau encompassing over 40% of the organization's budget and more than 50% of its personnel.
The bureau's focus is to support the department's vision through community policing accomplished by police officers
and civilians in all five patrol divisions. The City of Long Beach is organized into quadrants. The Patrol Bureau includes
one specialized and four geographical divisions: North, South, East, West and Field Support. Officer deployment occurs annually.
Supporting the "beat integrity" concept to develop trust and ownership, officers are assigned to a beat for a minimum
of one year.
The Investigations Bureau is comprised
of four divisions: Detective Division, Gang and Violent Crimes Division, Youth Services Division and Forensic Science Services
Division. The detectives and civilian staff working in the many specialized details within these divisions are dedicated to
investigating crimes, analyzing evidence, apprehending suspects, preventing abuse and promoting positive relations between
officers and youth.
The Bureau includes six 24-hour on-call
teams: The Sexual Assault Response Team, Homicide Investigations Team, Domestic Abuse Response Team, Crime Lab Response Team,
the Child Abuse Response Team, and the Gang Investigation Team for gang related crimes.
The Long Beach Police Department has
a number of specialized units, such as an Air Support Unit, Marine Patrol Unit and Negotiations Team. According
to the Long Beach Police Department, “The SWAT Negotiation Team is a cadre of 9 negotiators including a sergeant. The
negotiation team responds on all SWAT callouts and is responsible to the SWAT Commander. They negotiate with barricaded suspects
and gather intelligence related to the incident. The team is made up of officers and detectives working in various areas in
the Department. The Negotiation Team trains one or two times per month and frequently attends seminars
on negotiation techniques, criminal trends and psychological profiling. The Negotiation Team has
recently acquired 2 new negotiator response vehicles (NRV's), a state of the art telecommunication suite and computer
system.”
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