Best advice you ever got...

[Top Kick Ken]

1.  Try to always outnumber the perps; but always have superior firepower!
2.  Remember that you must without fail go home safe at the end of your shift. 
3.  When in a fight:  Fight as if your life depends on it, cuz it most likely does! 

Funniest advice I got from a perp was... Deny, Deny, Deny and when confronted with the truth; Lie. 
(He ended up in Ft. Leavenworth) 

[aryfrosty]

From a long time Officer on my first day on the job. "You'll never know what's going on in that house until you go see. You'll never learn anything standing out here"...GBI Agent Paul Griffin in 1971. And he walked into the house with me.

"It's better to be tried by 12 than to be carried by 6"...

"Don't believe anything you hear that you can't prove...and don't believe half of what you see"...

"As soon as those street gals realize you ain't trying to get into their britches they'll give you the best information on the streets that you can get"...

My favorite: "You might find yourself in a gunfight. In nearly every gunfight somebody runs out of ammo...Don't let that someone be you."

[Texas Lawdog]

Good words to live by, especially the first one. My Dad told me that one in 1970 as a rookie deputy.

[Shotgun Franklin]

'Always eat and go to the restroom any chance you get, you never know when you'll be stuck somewhere where you can't do either.'  -Sgt Frank Walker 1977, RIP Frank

[Wiley Desperado]

Don't second guess and certainly don't mouth off about how an officer handled a situation when you weren't even there and aren't in a position to gather the facts your own self.  If you decide to violate this rule just go ahead and insert your foot in your mouth and be done with it.