DPD and it's legacy

[Leonardo]

DILLIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT, and it's legacy through Argonath
a foot-note by an ex-SAPD Lieutenant, DPD Commander, member and a true lover of that department.

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I've never seen in this server anyone say "oh man, i miss so badly the LSPD, SFPD, LVPD days!" as people usually mention when they speak about the DPD. I shall write a little about this department and my history on it, and i invite everyone who have memories of it to also do it in this topic!

I firstly joined the DPD on a transfer request rightly after i've been promoted to Officer (that was like by the end of 2009). I had GiacJr to tutor me, so i've been really tilt to join the PD he led. I've did it, and it proved to be the best decision i could make! I spent nearly 2 years in the DPD, seen people come and go and it didn't even went through my mind the possibility of leaving. While in the DPD, i've seen 3 officers command it: GiacJr, Jcstodds and Swig. Each one of them with their own personal characteristics, but they all had that thing in common: they sucessfully kept the DPD spirit far away from the "professionalism" the other PDs were forced upon. In the DPD, officers had full freedom to assume whatever character they want, either be it a hillybilly, whiskey-addict patrolling in a Ranger or either a fancy-clothed officer who knew how to properly speak english on the radio (EW.)

Can't say it was easy though, as there were people who hated the DPD just for that factor, they thought our department "was not professional enough". Man, the answer was easy, "join LSPD if you want professionalism, we use the duty weaponry to kill birds here! *hick*". Anyway, i can sure affirm this PD was a character-shaper and taught the officers who were part of it indispensable values.

Below now, i'll list a few officers who were honorary DPD members, as i remember:

MrTrane - DPD Officer (now SAPD Deputy Chief)
Hidduh - DPD Officer (ex-FBI Director)
[Rstar]Jcstodds - DPD Captain
Swig - DPD Captain
GiacJr - DPD Captain
[Rstar]Paul - DPD Sergeant (ex-SAPD Chief)
Bert Karlsson - DPD Sergeant
StatuZ - DPD Lieutenant
[WS]Janar - DPD Lieutenant
Frank Serin - DPD Officer
Julio Collin - DPD Officer
Reece - DPD Officer
KhornateMonkey - DPD Sergeant
Gibson - DPD Sergeant
Ben - DPD Officer
Nexxt - DPD Sergeant
Smey - DPD Sergeant
Drix - DPD Officer (now SAPD Chief)
Paco Velez - DPD Officer

I myself acted as a DPD Lieutenant, also. There are a LOT more that i've likely forgot.

[Julio.]

DPD is still very much remembered and honoured by a select few who still actively roleplay as Sheriffs!

A few more names to add to this list:
Reece
Gibson
Ben

I still remember getting so irritable when DPD was closed in 2011 I think it was (the time I resigned from the SAPD), nobody else quite did, or indeed does now, county RP like DPD did in it's prime...

Simply, in regards to DPD I'd just like to say: Thanks for all the memories, I'd join again in a heartbeat. 

[Leonardo]

Just found out this masterpiece, also:

! No longer available

[Julio.]

I seem to recall DPD holding the record for being the first official recorded video of a patrol vehicle jumping over a river... can't seem to find the videos/screenshots though...

[Ben]

The SAPD is missing this now, I believe. I see so many SAPD Recruits ripping into people over the radio for not being professional - Feels like they're trying too hard and losing the fun that comes with it.
It must have been early 2010 when I joined DPD, under Cap'n GiacJr. They were very good times.

We tried to do the same when the Argonath County Sheriffs came into play (Frank, StatuZ, Gibbo, Monkey & myself as Sheriffs of APPD, DPD, FCPD or EQPD), but with the recent introduction of LVPD, we never really recruited enough people. When the Sheriff Departments were disbanded in favour of the PD's it was disappointing, but to offset this Command merged SD's with PD's (meaning for a time, I was temporarily Sheriff in LVPD).

I love that we have one big department now, but we are definitely missing the Sheriff's, who 100% made sure people did not take themselves too seriously.

We've had very good staff members who grew from the Sheriff Departments. Some of those are mentioned below, but from our current Command Staff we have Captain Lionel Valdes, of the Argonath County Sheriffs!

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Jcstodd's immigration patrols must be the stuff of legend by now, though Recruits would probably faint if they heard the stuff we got up to (I'm still butthurt now). 

Thanks for the memories DPD, still a fond friend.

I seem to recall DPD holding the record for being the first official recorded video of a patrol vehicle jumping over a river... can't seem to find the videos/screenshots though...

I'll dig this out, it's in the Argonath World Records topic somewhere.

[Ben]

http://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=60671.0

The record is here.
Can't remember quite when they did it though - AWR had two topics.

[Lionel Valdes]

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We've had very good staff members who grew from the Sheriff Departments. Some of those are mentioned below, but from our current Command Staff we have Captain Lionel Valdes, of the Argonath County Sheriffs!

Thanks for the mention, Ben. I still have some screenshots from FCPD, if only I can find them...

[Dusty]

I have not yet joined Argonath when this ''DPD'' had existed.

But by looking at the info,history, I can see that it was really free. There was no proffesionalism forced in the department.

But, since I am a person who likes proffesional and serious organizations, if I was in Argonath back in the day, I would probably moan about DPD's unproffesionalism.

[Leonardo]

I have not yet joined Argonath when this ''DPD'' had existed.

But by looking at the info,history, I can see that it was really free. There was no proffesionalism forced in the department.

But, since I am a person who likes proffesional and serious organizations, if I was in Argonath back in the day, I would probably moan about DPD's unproffesionalism.

DPD had no specific guidelines about the officers' conducts on duty, differently from the city departments, who usually required a certain organization (usage of TeamSpeak, padronized callsigns, etc). You were free to perform as you wanted, as long as it was cop job - that does not means we didn't get the bad guys, i can remember well DPD was for once the most crowded PD, we even had to close the transfer requests as there were too much officers in it.

[Rusty.]

The first department I joined when accepted into SAPD years ago, I had transferred out after a short time period to San Fierro.

[Julio.]

I have not yet joined Argonath when this ''DPD'' had existed.

But by looking at the info,history, I can see that it was really free. There was no proffesionalism forced in the department.

But, since I am a person who likes proffesional and serious organizations, if I was in Argonath back in the day, I would probably moan about DPD's unproffesionalism.

When I first got DPD I don't recall being particularly pleased. My first stint on duty with them changed my mind. Immense group of guys and fantastic roleplayers. We're not talking about traffic stops here. We're talking large scale immigration patrols, torture in Tierra Robada, throwing people off dams. Hell, civilians would actually go TO people RPing sheriffs because they wanted to be arrested, because the RP was fun.

Had some mega names there too. It's not all about being serious, the SAPD are really serious now, DPD was like the polar opposite. The "city boys" did their thing and the sheriffs did theirs.

[MrTrane]

The first department I joined when accepted into SAPD years ago, I had transferred out after a short time period to San Fierro.

Same here, good times.

[[R*]Drix]

I was DPD to you know.. 

[Julio.]

Command staff are all ex-DPD... sounds like a reopening could be in the works? <3

[Ben]

I was DPD to you know.. 

I thought so! You do have that more relaxed attitude 

[Jcstodds]

I was DPD to you know.. 

We always needed someone to clean the mess in the shower room 

I love to reminisce about DPD, it was full of some of the most enjoyable, crazy and entertaining players, all come together to be cops of all types working together. There were big events and strange training sessions, but also the little things that some may not be aware of.
Ya see, the countryside was not a very active place for players. Patrolling it could be very boring, so part of being DPD was finding ways to entertain ourselves, and the best way to do that was to interact with the few people we actually saw. Organizing a patrol, with callsigns, objectives, air support - could take 20 min just to set up, and it would only take 3 minutes to cover the entire Red County (code 5) to find there was no one around. Same with all the other counties. So when we eventually came across another player, it was refreshing.
I enjoyed the illegal weed farmers. Because to the Sheriff, they are the workers and farmers of his towns - the main citizens! So we would roll up, they might be terrified that their weed will appear in front of the cops, but actually we would just check up to see if they had any problems. We would actively try to help our citizens. Sometimes we would have to chase off bandits who raided these farms and stole from our local farmers.
I would actually get 911 calls for people who needed help for roleplay reasons, or for genuine reasons of being attacked. Or from criminals taking advantage of the Sheriff's simple nature to fight for their own gain. It was brilliant!

The big events were great in their own way - for everyone to come together as a team, for a purely RP objective, or do some training which was not quite part of the SAPD guidelines. Some of the more active  things I remember: The DPD riot police aka "Hippie Bashing squad", Immigration Patrol, border checkpoints, paintball style training, SWAT style training with DPD twist, the Sheriffs whiskey tax (aka money truck or drug truck). 

Also DPD was very good at investigating criminals - because orange did not always = guilty. If we investigated and they gave a convincing story, or there were witnesses or reasons for the crime, DPD were some of the few officers who would not just jail because they are orange. Or if they were guilty, jailing was usually the quick choice for the criminal since we were quite creative in how to deal with the miscreants and bandits....

Anyway it's great to see that DPD hasn't completely faded into obscurity, and I hope the free style of RP where there is no winners or losers carries on in Argonath today still.


EDIT:
I found an old patrol report containing DPD stuff.
http://arpd.argonathrpg.com/forum/index.php?topic=27086.0

[Huntsman]

It's probably gonna be strange coming from me, who actively roleplays as a Sheriff and leads a little Sheriff group of his own, and I want you to keep in mind I don't want to offend anyone or such, but I as an outsider, really disliked DPD. In my opinion, from what I observed outside the DPD, it was just a waste of SAPD's resources. Let's be honest here, DPD did produce some very good quality roleplay, but when it came to actually enforcing the law, well, DPD was never there. You'd rather find them roleplay a minority harassment in Los Santos rather than actually patrol the counties, and whenever there was a suspect in the counties, DPD was nowhere to be seen. It was a department for those who wanted to be SAPD, but did not want to actually work. Roleplay was fun and all, but I hardly saw DPD doing anything useful to the rest of the LEO's, well ,apart from those border operations, those were pretty neat. I really do not understand why people seem to be so nostalgic about DPD. Maybe it was fun for those who were in the department, but atleast during my stay in Argonath, I really witnessed nothing spectacular about DPD at all. I remember when we opened BCSD, DPD people complained that we're kind of intruding their jurisdriction, yet they were never to be found in it and SAPD just relied on us for backup. We, in the SASD, do in fact try to keep up a limited portion of the so called DPD legacy, we do roleplay being drunk, we do roleplay unofficial means of dealing with suspects and such, we do roleplay smartass rednecks for most part, but we do it alongside our SAPD responsibilities. We patrol, we respond to calls, and I always encourage the fellow Deputies to stay in the counties as much as possible, so if a situation arises, we're the first to respond. Espeically now, when after RS5.2 we've got quite an influx of visitors to the county. DPD did good on roleplay, but the latter part of my statement - not so much.

Once again, please keep in mind this is my opinion from an outsiders point of view. I serve no purpose of offending anyone with this.

[Ben]

I'd agree that there was a difference between what we and the other PD's called infractions...
But we did some really good work, involving new Freecops (actual freecops, not ARPD Officers) in the roleplay, as well as civilians. Case in point is the current SAPD, who may be very efficient but struggle to negate the bad feeling between them and general populace (as well as the criminals).

DPD was, and still is, the much-needed balance which allowed the SAPD to role-play in different ways and engage with other members of the community. Punishments were given, and those who broke the law were still punished. Things were just done a little differently.

You'd be surprised with the criminals we brought in, but as you would expect we did not bring many people in for traffic violations - Less people, less infractions.

[Julio.]

Well look at the officers it has produced. You've seen for yourself that virtually the whole upper command staff were in DPD 
Perhaps you didn't get involved with DPD to the extent others did.

DPD never had a huge scale department like some other departments anyway, but we ALWAYS responded to calls just the same as anyone else. Perhaps you weren't ingame enough to see it?

The point of DPD was to do the job and have fun, and to provide fun for people other than themselves too. Some would argue that the SAPD lacked this RP ever since the closure of DPD.

[Jaka]

I always wanted to be a part of DPD but I was always way too f**king stupid to follow the rules, so I got community banned and when I came back DPD was gone, I absolutely loved seeing the videos and screenshots, I have read over the old DPD topic, if I go on duty I use the DPD vehicles. So yeah DPD is best PD.