James Dickey — Instructor Profile

About James Dickey

James Dickey, B.S is a Certified Force Science Analyst and instructor with Human Performance Training and Consulting. Jim has over 22 years of law enforcement experience previously working for a large police department in Los Angeles County and currently working for a sheriff’s department in Southern California. He has been assigned to all three major levels of training and instruction of peace officers to include an assignment as a member of the Training and Coordination Team (TACT Staff) at a large regional academy in Southern California where he acclimated private citizens into their role as a peace officer recruits, a Field Training Officer (FTO) training freshly graduated recruits on patrol functions, and as an Instructor in Advanced Officer Training (AOT) training tenured peace officers in the areas of FTO School, death investigations, use of force investigations, officer involved shootings, laws of arrest, and court testimony. James holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from San Diego State University, has been a California POST certified instructor since 2009, and is currently employed as an adjunct instructor at Riverside Community College in Riverside CA. He is a POST certified firearms instructor, physical training instructor, and an academy scenario manager.

James has been a criminal investigator for the past 14 years investigating crimes such as child abuse, sexual assault, bank robbery, kidnapping, homicide, and use of force investigations. He has been the primary investigator assigned to over 50+ cases involving homicide, officer/deputy involved shootings, use of force with great bodily injury, assault under the color of authority, peace officer suicides, in-custody deaths, and the murder and attempted murder of on-duty peace officers. He has assisted on over 200+ investigations involving the same crimes. James has been assigned to his department’s active homicide team, cold case homicide team, and was a founding member of his departments Force Investigation Detail in 2019; a taskforce model team which was a first in the State of California to exist and include members of a state agency. He presented this force investigations taskforce model at a major force investigations conference in the State of Florida in 2022. James has also lectured at conferences for the California Deputy District Attorneys Association, the California Gang Investigators Association, and the Riverside County Gang Investigators Association.

James is a member of the California Homicide Investigators Association, the International Homicide Investigators Association, his department’s promotional board, and is the Secretary/Trustee for his sheriff’s association legal defense trust representing over 3,000 members. He has also been designated as a member of his sheriff’s association’s contract negotiation team securing labor contracts.

James started his department’s undercover operations program related to homicides and is recognized as a leading expert in this area training other agencies in the state. He is also recognized for his expertise in recent California legislation (AB 392 and AB 1506) which has substantially changed how force encounters are investigated and evaluated by district attorneys in the State of California.