The Unexpected Cop

One of the first Indigenous police officers in Canada shares his insights.

When he began his career with the Saskatoon Police in 1987, Ernie Louttit was only the city’s third native police officer. “Indian Ernie”, as he came to be known on the streets, details an era of challenge, prejudice, and also tremendous change in urban policing which included the Stonechild Inquiry. Drawing from his childhood, army career, and service as a veteran patrol officer, Louttit shares stories of criminals and victims, the night shift, avoiding politics, but most of all, the realities of the marginalized and disenfranchised. Though Louttit’s story is characterized by conflict, danger, and violence, he argues that empathy and love for the community you serve are the greatest tools in any officer’s hands, especially when policing society’s less fortunate.

“That was it. That was the moment I knew I wanted to be a cop.” When Rob Rothwell is a naïve, directionless eighteen-year-old, he gets invited on a ride-along with a young cop...and the wild night that ensues sends him hurtling into a thirty-three-year career in policing. And in this unabashedly unfiltered account of his years in Vancouver PD, Rob takes readers on their own thrilling ride-along. With tough-guy wit and unexpected well-springs of deep compassion, Memoir of a Cop shows the best and worst of humanity from the perspective of a cop daily putting his life on the line in the streets of a great city. From the wild action of a car chase; to dogged evidence-gathering; to the dangers and intricacies of an undercover drug operation, to confrontations with sudden, unspeakable horror, Rob’s wry, humanist perspective brings us inside the life of a cop. His story will appeal to the legions of police procedural fans out there as well as those considering a life in law enforcement. And for those who simply love memoir as a way of vicariously living fascinating lives—it will not disappoint.

This groundbreaking history of how American police forces have been militarized is now revised and updated. Newly added material brings the story through 2020, including analysis of the Ferguson protests, the Obama and Trump administrations, and the George Floyd protests. The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But over the last two centuries, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as enemies. In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative that spans from America’s earliest days through today shows how a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

When Ernie Louttit joined the Saskatoon Police Service, he was only the third Native officer in a city with a significant Aboriginal population. In his much-lauded first book, Indian Ernie, Louttit shared stories of his years as a beat cop on the streets of Saskatoon. More Indian Ernie brings readers back to the street, where Louttit discusses post-traumatic stress, missing and murdered Aboriginal women, and the difficulties he has faced both as a Native man and a police officer. Demonstrating passion and support for his community as well as society’s less fortunate, he candidly offers insight into topics of substance abuse, prostitution, murder, Indigenous peoples, and police leadership with empathy and intellect.

Cop Doc delivers a unique map of police psychology. Retired NYPD sergeant Daniel Rudofossi delivers compelling inside scoops: the first-grade detective who nailed the Times Square bomber, intelligence enigmas unraveled by the DEA intelligence chief, wisdom culled from a best-selling novelist, a NYPD detective captain’s narrative of the Palm Sunday Massacre, and much more. The book also includes an interview with a captain of hostage negotiations and a preface by the founder of the NYPD department of psychological services. Both students and seasoned professionals can find insights into policing and forensic psychology in these pages.

Sworn to protect and serve, police officers who stray into deviant behavior may become a citizen‘s worst nightmare. A thoughtful examination of the formal and informal process of becoming blue, Cop Culture: Why Good Cops Go Bad is a unique combination of academic research based on Chief Scott Silverii‘s doctoral dissertation and more than two decad

The Doukhobors, a persecuted and impoverished Russian sect, came to Canada in 1899 as one of the largest cohesive groups in the government's campaign to draw experienced farmers to unoccupied western land. This book provides a detailed examination of the Doukhobors' unique cultural landscapes, with the geographical focus on the three blocks of land set aside for them by the government in Saskatchewan. It considers the factors influencing the location of the original village sites and describes the form and pattern of the villages and fields. It also traces inter-village, inter-reserve, and interprovincial movement, and village consolidation as it became clear that direct conflict with government was unavoidable. The book identifies and analyzes the values which prevented Doukhobor/government compromise and ends with the final dispersal of the government-held village lands in the original reserves in 1918.