Paul Davis
Paul Davis is a writer who covers crime for newspapers, magazines and Internet publications. He has written extensively about violent street crime, gangs, drugs, organized crime, cyber-crime, white collar scams, espionage and terrorism. Davis also writes crime fiction.
Davis has been a student of crime since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He went on to do security work as a young sailor in the U.S. Navy and later as a Defense Department civilian employee.
As a writer he has attended police academy training, gone out on patrol with police officers, accompanied detectives as they worked cases, observed criminal court proceedings and visited jails and prisons. He has covered street riots, mob wars, murder investigations, and major drug enforcement operations.
Davis has gone out on patrol with the Coast Guard's Maritime Security and Safety Team (MSST) on a Defender Class, 25-foot, high-speed response boat. He also went out on patrol on the Delaware River with the Philadelphia Police Marine Unit on their 31-foot Munson.
Davis has interviewed patrol officers, detectives, police commanders, police commissioners, federal agency directors, DEA, NCIS, ATF and FBI special agents and other law enforcement officers.
He has also interviewed prosecutors, public officals, senior military commanders, Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Delta Force operators, CIA officers, private security professionals and British and Israeli intelligence officers and commandos.
Davis is an online columnist and contributing editor to Counterterrorism, a quarterly magazine for law enforcement, government and military people worldwide (www.counterterroristmagazine.com/publications.php).
Davis is also a regular contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer (www.philly.com/inquirer). He has been a contributor to the newspaper since 1999.
Since 2002 Davis has written a column called Crime Beat for the Orchard Press online magazine. Crime Beat covers crime in fact and fiction. The column offers commentary, original reporting, interviews and reviews of crime fiction, thrillers and true crime.
You can read Davis' crime fiction and the Crime Beat column at www.orchardpress-shortfiction.com/crime_beat.html.
Davis also provides news and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white-collar crime, espionage and terrorism on his blog, Paul Davis On Crime.
Paul Davis On Crime - http://pauldavisoncrime.blogspot.com - also links to Davis' newspaper and magazine pieces, including his Q & A interviews with Joseph Wambaugh, Michael Connelly, Oliver North, Robert Leuci, John Timoney, General William Boykin, Ben Macintyre, Bernard Cornwell and others.
Davis' work appears in other publications as well.
Paul Davis' beginnings in both journalism and government, in a sense, occured during summers and after school in the mid-1960s at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Davis sold Philadelphia newspapers to the sailors, marines and shipyard workers at the Navy Yard during his pre-teen and early teen years.
Riding in the open back of the newspaper truck each day, he would pass the fleet of moored Navy ships in the Delaware River and dream of one day joining the Navy, seeing the world and becoming a writer.
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Davis enlisted in the Navy in 1970 when he was 17-years-old. He served aboard the USS Kitty Hawk (CVA 63) as the attack aircraft carrier performed combat operations on "Yankee Station" off the coast of Vietnam in 1970-1971.
The aircraft carrier visited such ports-of-call as San Diego, California, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Da Nang, South Vietnam, Sasebo, Japan, Subic Bay in the Philippine Islands and Hong Kong.
Davis also served on the USS Saugus (YTB 780), a Navy harbor tugboat attached to the U.S. nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland in 1974-1975. He traveled throughout the British Isles and Europe during those years.
After leaving the Navy Davis became a Defense Department civilian employee. For the last 21 of his more than 37 years of military-civilian service he was the administrative officer of a Defense Department command in Philadelphia. He oversaw security, safety, public affairs and other support programs for the command.
During his tenure he served as the chief of installation services and he also served as an investigating officer. He conducted investigations of security breachs, internal Hotline complaints and criminal incidents.
Davis also wrote and maintained the command's force protection and emergency preparedness plans and he conducted security and safety surveys and drills for the organization's military and civilian employees stationed on military bases and defense contractor facilities across five states. Davis performed safety & security awareness, crime prevention, travel security, counterintelligence and counterterrorism briefings and seminars for the command.
In his public affairs role, Davis wrote news and features for local and world-wide Defense Department magazines. Davis received numerous awards during his years of federal service, including the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board's 1990 Public Affairs Award for his magazine articles.
From its 1991 debut to the closing program in 2005, Davis served as a producer and on-air host of the Philadelphia Federal Executive Board's public affairs radio program Inside Government. The half-hour interview program dealt with crime, espionage, terrorism taxes, health, the military and other issues of concern to Philadelphia area residents. The radio program aired Sunday mornings on WPEN 950 AM and WMGK 102.5 FM. Davis and the other members of the production team received the Vice President's National Performance Review "Hammer" Award in 1995.
Davis began moonlighting as a freelance writer in 1993. Working nights and weekends, he covered crime, politics and general assignments for The South Philadelphia Review. He also wrote commentary for the weekly paper.
On assignment for The Review, Davis attended the pilot class of the Philadelphia Police Department's Civilian Police Academy and wrote an 11-part series on police training and operations.
In 1995 Davis moved over to The South Philadelphia American, where he wrote news, features and a regular column. The American folded in 1998 and Davis moved his column to The Golden Times, where it had a ten-year run in the monthly newspaper for Philadelphia and South Jersey area residents over 50-years-old.
Davis also wrote a weekly column called Crime Beat for The Philadelphia Center City Weekly in 1997 and 1998. Davis moved his Crime Beat column online to the Orchard Press online magazine in 2002.
Davis retired from the Defense Department in 2007 and became a full-time writer.
In 2009 Davis wrote about American crime and espionage history for http://greathistory.com. His crime and espionage pieces can be read at http://greathistory.com/members/pauldavisoncrime/blogs/recent-posts
From 2006 to 2010 Davis wrote a crime prevention & security awareness column called Paul Davis on Crime & Security for the small business online magazine, Businessknowhow.com. His columns can be read at www.businessknowhow.com/security.
In 2011 Davis wrote a crime prevention blog for www.allbusiness.com. You can read the blog posts at www.allbusiness.com/bio/paul-davis/15479841-1.html.
In addition to being a writer, Davis is also a public speaker. He speaks to corporate, government, church, student, civic, senior, historical and veterans groups about crime prevention, security awareness and crime and espionage history.
Davis attended journalism courses at Penn State University and Temple University. He also attended many Defense Department courses on security, safety, management, public affairs and military journalism throughout his years of federal service.
Paul Davis has been married to his beautiful wife for nearly 30 years and he has a grown daughter, a grown stepson and three step-grandchildren. Although he is a frequent traveler, Davis lives in the same South Philadelphia neighborhood where he was born and raised.
To read some of Paul Davis' magazine features and his newspaper columns and reviews go to http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/site/?/photos/
Paul Davis can be reached by e-mailing him at pauldavisoncrime@aol.com
