Military Reservists while LEO

[gh0st]

I'm in the USCG as a Port Security Specialist and a reservist. I'm curious how reservists are treated by the administrators in your departments. Are they considered more valuable due to additional training, or a handicap because of potential deployments? Are they (though this is illegal) "discriminated" against in the hiring process because of potential inconvenience for the department? I'm looking at middle sized cities to larger ones and, though each is different, I'd really like to hear about your experiences.

edit: i'm 19 and a college student, so obviously I cant apply for any positions for at least a year and a half, but I'm just throwing this out there.

[pulicords]

I'm in the USCG as a Port Security Specialist and a reservist. I'm curious how reservists are treated by the administrators in your departments. Are they considered more valuable due to additional training, or a handicap because of potential deployments? Are they (though this is illegal) "discriminated" against in the hiring process because of potential inconvenience for the department? I'm looking at middle sized cities to larger ones and, though each is different, I'd really like to hear about your experiences.

edit: i'm 19 and a college student, so obviously I cant apply for any positions for at least a year and a half, but I'm just throwing this out there.

Our city is very supportive of our reservists. We have several: Navy, Army and Marines. When one was killed in action a couple of years ago in Iraq, his death was treated by the PD as if it was LOD. For good reason. The Marines borrowed him from time to time, but he was one of ours.

[PhilipCal]

Military Reservists while LEO

The Alabama Dept of Public Safety has traditionally supported it's Officers who serve in the Guard and Reserve. Certainly, scheduling and manpower issues arise from time to time, but the fact is, there is a war on. We consider our Troopers in the Guard and Reserve as valuable assets. That's how they are treated.

[xraodcop]

Reservist cops sue city over lost promotions

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/05/ap_reservepolice_070522/

CHICAGO — Two police officers have filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Chicago claiming they lost job benefits and were overlooked for promotions while serving overseas with the Army Reserve.

Chicago police officers Juan Sandoval and Sidney Pennix filed the suit Monday in federal court.

Sandoval served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. He says he passed the police department exam for field training officer before leaving for Iraq but didn’t get promoted when he returned.

In 2006, he went on assignment to El Salvador, where he took the 2006 sergeant’s exam. He was later denied a promotion, the suit stated.

Pennix spent more than a year in Iraq and returned in January. The suit stated that he traveled from Baghdad to Frankfurt, Germany, to take the 2006 sergeant’s exam and was not promoted when he returned.

The lawsuit cites federal law that says employees returning from military service should be treated as though they had continued working during that time. The officers allege they were punished for their military service because they lost opportunities for promotions, the suit said.

Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Tuesday morning.

[LeanG]

I'm in the USCG as a Port Security Specialist and a reservist. I'm curious how reservists are treated by the administrators in your departments. Are they considered more valuable due to additional training, or a handicap because of potential deployments? Are they (though this is illegal) "discriminated" against in the hiring process because of potential inconvenience for the department? I'm looking at middle sized cities to larger ones and, though each is different, I'd really like to hear about your experiences.

edit: i'm 19 and a college student, so obviously I cant apply for any positions for at least a year and a half, but I'm just throwing this out there.

I never felt "discriminated" against, being in the Nat'l Guard. Upper management never treated me differently. As a matter of fact, they allowed me to change my schedule if I didn''t want to burn my hours of military leave early in the year.

[Irishluck31]

I think there are more problems with smaller cities where the loss of one person hits a bit harder. I have been treated great by my PD even though I have been deployed for 4 years since 2001. There have been no promotions in that amount of time. Its hit them hard, but in some ways the deployments helped the PD out. They saved some money without me there.

[Bearcat357]

I think there are more problems with smaller cities where the loss of one person hits a bit harder.

I would agree with you. My last Agency had 26 Street Officers, 2 Detectives, 2 Traffic guys, and 1 K-9. It hurt like hell when we lost folks to Active Orders....but we kept hiring them as they (military) tend to have what it takes when it comes to being a LEO (for the most part).....

[Tim Dees]

These days, now that military service is fashionable again, most agencies support reserve and NG members well, even though it strains the agency in times like these when deployments are frequent and long. It hasn't always been that way.

My agency in the early 80s had a policy that NG members were entitled to two weeks leave with pay for the purpose of attending drills and training. This was mostly because there were a lot of ANG members there who formed a kind of "club." The policy did not address other military service, such as reserves.

One of my contemporaries was a USAFR officer. He went to his usual drills and training, but was refused the two weeks extra leave given to the NG personnel. He was required to take comp or vacation time until he had none left. The tipping point came when he was out of leave time and the department placed him on an unpaid leave of absence. This did more than just stop his paycheck. It stopped his health benefits, his payments into the retirement system, and advanced his seniority date one day for every day he on was unpaid LOA. Since seniority was determined by hire date and civil service test score, after one day he was junior to every other officer in his academy class. Since shift preference was determined by seniority, this was huge.

He filed a federal lawsuit under the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act to compel the department to stop penalizing him for his reserve service. He got a court order in his favor, then found it was ignored the next time he went to a drill (the captain who was the primary antagonist here did not like to be told what to do by no-count uniformed college edjimicated street grunts). The officer went back to federal court, and this time there was a dressing down in the courtroom, conducted by a judge who had been appointed by JFK, and could be removed from officer only by an act of Congress. This time, they got the idea, and started paying both NG and reserve members for an extended period, maintaining their benefits (including vacation and sick time accumulation) indefinitely while deployed, and not doing a thing with their seniority date, so that seniority accrued whether they were there or not. The rank and file, reservists and non-reservists, had no problem with this at all.

My colleague then started his version of "Stick It To The Man." He started volunteering for deployments. He did service in both Grenada and Panama, attended the command and staff college, and generally spent about as much time in his USAF uniform as he did in his cop suit.

My personal favorite episode in all this was when he returned from a nine-month deployment and the honchos were lying in wait. We were in the middle of a shift rotation, and they decided to assign him to what they regarded as the least desirable slot possible. He listened to this plan respectfully, then advised that he was well over the maximum allowed limit for accrued vacation time, and the contract required that the department could not deny a vacation use request unless a defined personnel shortage was in force. He then left for about six weeks.

I think your reserve experience will be better, but be careful about agencies de-selecting for hire you for being a reservist. They aren't supposed to do that, but if they're anticipating more deployments, they can decide that a non-reservist candidate is more attractive.

[gh0st]

Thanks for that story Tim, and situations like that are what I'd be most concerned about. I dont think I'd choose the whole "stick it to the man" idea which, though humorous, is not something my personality is prone to do. But he certainly had good reason.

My major concern though is not my treatment once I am in a department. Hell, even the grocery store I work at respected USERRA I definitely expect a Police department to do the same. I'm more worried about the hiring process, and if those worries are unfounded or are actually pretty reasonable.