In my state of NY, it seems like State Troopers are trained better (I could be wrong here so please fact check me or take this with a HEAVY grain of salt) than local officers.
So would it be safer in theory for me to be a Trooper?
Is being a State Trooper safer than an Officer?
r/AskLE
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Backup could be 15-20+ minutes away so they just kinda have to be trained better and harder
Former federal LEO here.
My only anecdotal experience is my cousin who turned down NYSP. From what he told me, there are potentially more situations where you’re on your own with any additional assets far away. Depending where you’re located.
I wouldn’t say that at all. Just depends. Both can be dangerous but as a city cop, my back up is 30 seconds away. For a trooper it might be 45 minutes. They get all kinds of criminals passing through and people love to transport guns along state routes. Plus all your work is done around cars doing 65+. That’s scary as shit too
But by and large it really just depends on where you work.
I don’t think it’s any safer. One of the more dangerous things a police officer can do is walk up on a vehicle. Imagine that your main function is to repeatedly stop vehicles.
Also troopers, depending on the area, might be answering calls and/or backing up other agencies. I know in my area the sheriff deputies and troopers generally stay out of the cities and end up backing each other up often. It’s not like a trooper’s only function is to write a bunch of speeding tickets.
If you’re worried about how safe you would be as a city patrol officer, a trooper or a deputy sheriff riding in an unpopulated area of the county alone, maybe you had better think of another profession.
As far as training, I don’t know that either one is better than another but you can get as much training as you feel like.
Depends on what barracks you are stationed at. Some counties have an active sheriffs dept that has a road patrol plus city, town and village pds. Other counties are just the troopers. There is really no answer for this question. I get the “training” part during the academy but it’s just the basics, you have to do your due diligence to keep up on the training after the academy no matter what agency you are with. Plus anything can happened to anyone at anytime.
Like most things in LE, the answer to this is “it depends”. Motivation of the individual officer, time and resources they’re willing to invest outside of work to gain proficiency, and even the officer’s willingness and desire to be better. I went to boot camp with a NY trooper. Good dude. Definitely squared away. In the years since I’ve worked with multiple agencies from multiple states at multiple levels, and I’ve met some seriously high-speed folks and some who acted (and looked) like 400 lbs of chewed bubble gum, at agencies from small town clear thru feds. So, how competent you become depends more on the training you’re willing to put effort into assimilating than the amount of training you get. Now the amount of training might depend on your assignment. Motors and K9 train weekly around here. Swat trains when they’re not on call-out or working a beat (if they’re not dedicated swat). But your typical traffic or uniform patrol officer (or most detectives), their additional training depends on how far behind they are and how much of their precious (because rest IS a precious commodity in this field) off time they’re willing to sacrifice to seek out, sign up and get approved for, and —crucially— ATTEND. Cuz get approved for a $4000 FTO or homicide school out of state, and no-show part or all of it, and that might be the last one you get for a hot minute. Hope this helps.
The job is the job. I was a city cop with back up 30 seconds away. Had a lot of oh shit moments. Then I left went to county level and had plenty of fights where it took my back up 10-15 minutes to get to me. Then became a prosecutor and had a mini Harvey Dent moment where a guy tried to bring in a gun to the courthouse. He told the deputies he was going to kill me. The job can go sideways in any level and anytime.
No job in law enforcement is safe. You put on that uniform each day with a target on your back. Train like your life depends on it because it does
I know a bunch of state troopers- lots of dealing with MVA and writing tickets. Occasionally you get shot at or are the first to respond to gruesome domestic scenes.
Definitely worth considering that most of your traffic stops, traffic will be going 60 mph right beside ya.
I love the countryside, but it has its horrors.
That question has many answers. I would assume it depends on which city you’re referencing and what area of what state
I’m a trooper in a city and I’ll say this; Most of the time we only have 2-3 Troopers working at a time, but building good relationships with your local guys goes a long way. Cause if they get a call that State is in some shit, they won’t hesitate to come help. Trooper school is different than local academies, but the job is the same regardless. If I went to a county I’d be doing domestic calls, noise complaints etc with deputies. Instead I’m in city and we stick mostly to the interstate and don’t have to deal with much of that. But like I said, having a good relationship with the locals is very important because there’s more of them. Back them up on stops(which everyone should do), talk to them, and just get to know each other. It comes in handy later.
Here in WV, State trooper Corey Maynard responded to a shots fired call all by himself. He was ambushed and murdered. Back up took more than 15 minutes. It seems state police are like solitary wasps with not much support out in the boonies.
This job is dangerous any where
Most of these officers don’t even wear a hat. So they’re definitely not safer
Watch some of the videos on the “police activity” YouTube channel. They have tons of body cam videos showing just how quickly and unexpectedly things can get crazy. Some are major cities, some are small departments. Just to get an idea of how it can work. Still a small chance of getting killed anywhere but I wouldn’t put that as my main reason of joining a certain department. I’d put expected quality of life as a reason to pick or stay away from a department.
Here’s what I told, in regards to typical wait times for back up,
City- 30 seconds to 2 minutes
County- 2 minutes to 7 minutes
State- 15 minutes or more.
Obviously this depends on what state and region you are in, and if the local RED has acess to Statie frequencies, which not all REDs do.
Stop acting like a little kitty cat snd grow a set worrying about which one is safer lol
Even being an officer could be night and day, depending on where you’re at. I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area and a cop in Oakland vs a cop in Belvedere both wear a badge, but don’t have the same workday.
Town officer in NY here. Work with NYSP and Sheriffs office all the time. It’s all the same job, NYSP are full service not a highway patrol, so you’d be dealing with domestics and everything else just like the rest of us. Training is very similar, NYSP academy is slightly longer as they go more in depth on Commercial Vehicle enforcement and stuff along those lines. Their job is a bit more labor intensive as they do everything their own way to include full reports on every single call they deal with, even BS calls that never should have been calls, that we would do no report on. Backup can be 15-30 minutes away depending on where you’re working out of.
More cops are killed every single year in vehicle accidents than officer involved shootings. Using this data the answer would be no. But here is the caveat, it all depends on where you work too. Most city cops will have backup close by, county cops less so, and troopers usually somewhere in the middle unless you work a highway out in the middle of nowhere. My backup was usually 45 mins away as a Deputy Sheriff-often even longer. Really changes how you talk to people and approach situations knowing that it is all on you. Taught me to make my job safer by communicating and learning how to disarm people using words. So to answer your question by not answering your question: it really depends on a lot of factors. But as a general rule I found working the highways to be more dangerous but again, that was where I worked. Had a high rate of drug and alcohol abuse so naturally the roads got “fun” at night.
In my state, training is all the same for everyone. Same academy, same standards, same trainings, same pay. Lots of small towns with only 1 officer on at a time so it’s all the same for the most part when it comes to back-up locality/times as well.