Meet Sgt. Dale L. Sollars (Retired MPD District of Columbia)

Dale Sollars has been active as a police officer and law enforcement consultant for the past 42 years. He is a retired sergeant with 21 years of experience as a patrol officer, detective sergeant, and criminal investigator with the Metropolitan Police Department, Washington DC when it was nationally known as “Death City.”

Much of his career was spent investigating allegations of criminal behavior inside the District of Columbia government. He worked for 11 years as a patrol officer and supervisory sergeant before being selected as an investigator with the Department’s elite Office of Public Integrity (PIB). He received much of his professional training from experienced Federal experts in the disciplines of psychology, surveillance and interrogation. Dale is a nationally recognized Subject-Matter expert in the discipline of identifying deceptive behavior and interrogation.

(The letters   “IDB”    and the phrase    “Identifying Deceptive Behavior”   are Federal Trademark and Word Mark Registrations.

Many of his confidential investigations were co-joined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Working with the top-investigators in his field Dale honed his skills investigating corrupt city officials and became a lead interrogator in his unit. The disposition of many investigations were never reported to the news media for fear of embarrassment to District government officials and police bureau managers. Several high-profile managers, including the City Mayor, were forced to resign, or were criminally prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s office.

Dale served as the Department’s Ethics Officer at PIB for two years. Many of the issues he looked into included recommendations for disciplinary action and were forwarded directly to high-level Bureau Commanders. Those recommendations often necessitated far-reaching improvements to existing policies and changes to Department General Orders.

For the last 16 months of his career, Dale served as a Program Development Specialist at the Department’s Institute of Police Science. During that time he developed a much-needed course on professional interviewing which ultimately led to his “IDB” TM approach for interviewing. Before retirement, Dale’s class on “IDB”  TM and “Identifying Deceptive Behavior”  TM was already becoming a popular training course for investigators both within his department and surrounding law enforcement agencies.

During the past 20 years Dale has lectured nationally in 44 states as a highly accredited police consultant and CALEA certified instructor for the Northeast Counter Drug Training Center (NCTC). He also taught off-site classes for the Penn State University and St. Petersburg University in Florida. His courses on “Professional Decision Making in Narcotics Investigations” and “Identifying Deceptive Behavior” TM receive college credit in many states.

Since retirement, Dale has presented over 470 classes and personally trained over 22,000 police officers, corrections officers, military personnel and prosecuting attorneys in the art of “Identifying Deceptive Behavior” TM. A class size of 200 students is usual at large city departments and county police academies. He’s also presented classes at prison facilities throughout the United States to corrections officers and supervisory officials.

Dale is a highly sought-after consultant and motivational speaker for many corporate entities and civic groups. A graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice he is presently carrying out a graduate program in psychology. His goal is to receive a doctorate in Kinesics.

On a personal level, Dale holds a FAA Corporate Pilot Certificate with Single and Multi-Engine ratings and Instrument Flight Instructor. Since beginning his flying career in 1967 Dale has logged over 4600 flight hours as a Chief Flight Instructor and seasoned commercial pilot, much of it flying for Beacon Airways in Clinton, Maryland.

He is most remembered for piloting the early morning and afternoon traffic reporters around the Washington DC Beltway as they made their live traffic report broadcasts to Beltway commuters over local radio stations.

The letters “IDB” and the words “Identifying Deceptive Behavior” have Federal Trademark and Word Mark registrations.