Silent Night

I went on my third ride-a-long with my local police department this past Saturday night hoping for some action.  I was with a different officer this time, we’ll call him Officer Tom.  My previous rides have been with a sargeant who can pretty much go all over town, but Tom is assigned to a specific area, an area which is one of the more active spots in town as far as criminal activity goes.  So the odds were good that something exciting would be going down.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  The best we could muster was a homeless guy sleeping alongside a freeway entrance, a guy with a cane who turned out to have an outstanding warrant, and a bicycle rider who didn’t have a light.  Not the kind of stuff that usually made it onto T.J. Hooker.  Then to top the evening off we ran over a screw and ended up with a flat tire.   It was in the thirties that night, so we figured all the knuckleheads decided to stay indoors and avoid the cold.

The night wasn’t a total loss though.  I wanted to ride with Tom, partly because I wanted to see what it was like to patrol the same beat all night, and also because he worked as a correctional officer for a few years.  We had some good conversation and he gave me a lot of really good insights into what its like to work in the jail.  He talked to me about working in that sort of environment, what the inmates are like to deal with–kind of like junior highers–and he even offered to put me in touch with some guys he knows that still work there.

This Thursday I’m taking the second step in the application process, a written exam.  If you’re the praying sort and you happen to be thinking of it at 8AM on Thursday, I’d appreciate any supplication you would offer on my behalf.  (If you’re not the praying sort, I’d encourage you to become so.)  I need to score at least a 70% to move on to the next phase.  Wish me luck!

Can You Handle It?

Every Monday and Tuesday morning I take buckets of child support case files from my office to county superior courtroom eleven.  The court complex is right next to the county jail and I drive my van around the back of the jail to get to the parking area.  After loading the files onto my cart I make my way through the plaza between the jailhouse and the courthouse to the entrance.  In recent weeks I’ve found myself eyeing the jail facility a little more intensively than I have before and in fact as I waited for court to finish the other day I found myself just staring out of the second story picture window in the hallway outside courtroom eleven at the massive red brick jail just across the plaza.  I spaced out for a minute or two trying to imagine what might be going on inside and if I could ever handle whatever it was.

I have applied for a position as a correctional officer.  If hired I will be working in the ominous looking red brick building pictured above.  Not coincidentily, the ominousness of the red brick building has increased in recent days.  From one day to the next when I think about a career in law enforcement I have wild swings in my confidence level.  One day I’ll think, “Yeah, I can totally do this.”  The next day I’ll think, “What am I thinking?  Can I really do this?”  Its so unlike anything I’ve ever done before that its really a complete unknown.  A lot of guys go into law enforcement after they’ve served in the military or maybe they’ve grown up in tough neighborhoods or they come from a family of lawmen.  Any of those scenarios, I would think, would give a person an added measure of confidence.  They’ve either experienced or at least witnessed situations similar to those they’re likely to see on the street.  I have none of that.  I’ve never served in the military (unless a few paintball sorties count), I grew up in suburbia, and I come from a family of pastors.  Nothing wrong with any of that, but none of it really translates to police brownie points.  I’ve been in one fistfight my entire 31 years, and though I think I comported myself pretty well I don’t think putting The Lyons Affair on a resume is really going to help me either.

There’s no rule that says any of those things I mentioned (military experience, hard knocks neighborhood, lineage of lawmen) are a prerequisite to working in law enforcement and no doubt many have come from backgrounds similar to mine.  But for me, since I don’t have any of that in my history, my composure in the kinds of stressful situations that are common in police or corrections work is an unknown.  I think I can handle it, but how can I really know until I’m facing it?  Time will tell.

Wednesday Review: Rookies

Well, I’ve just now awoken from my turkey induced coma to find that I haven’t written a Wednesday Review since September.  I must be getting lazy…er.  Time to resolve this problem…

A few weeks ago I was enjoying some of the excellent programming on the A&E network, when I saw an ad for a new show called Rookies.  Its one of those reality-type shows that are all the rage these days that follows rookie police officers on their field training.  Think Cops with The Real World type editing.  It takes place in two locales, Tampa, Florida and Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans.  Given my current pursuit of all things law enforcement this show has obviously become my new obsession.  Besides the entertainment value, which is high (its hard to beat drunken knuckleheads getting arrested for pure entertainment), its actually pretty educational, especially for a wannabe law enforcement officer.  You see how nervous the rookies are, trying to impress their FTOs (Field Training Officers) and the mistakes they make, but also the progress they make.  Not all of them eventually get it as there have been a couple that have quit, but for the most part they soldier on, improve, and get “cut loose” in their own car.

Being that wannabe that I am and not having any experience of my own to speak of, I’d be curious what a real life officer’s impression of the show would be.  It all seems pretty authentic to me.  I’m sure like every reality show it has its contrived moments, but for the most part I think its legit.  Jen’s been watching it with me and told me the other day that she likes the show but knows that watching it only makes me want to be a police officer all the more.  She’s not sure how much she likes that.

Unfortunately there weren’t any clips of the show on YouTube and WordPress doesn’t allow embedding videos from most websites, so I don’t have any clips to show you.  But you can check it out on the show website.  There’s a bunch of clips you can watch and a few full episodes.  Its definitely worth it.

Innocent Man Behind Bars

It would be nice if in pursuit of life goals we could go straight from Point A to Point B without any detours, rabbit trails, or diversions.  Unfortunately this is rarely the case.  In between Points A and B its not uncommon to first encounter Points A1, A2, A3, and sometimes even A4.  It makes reaching our ultimate goal a lot more difficult and time consuming than we hoped it would be.

In a recent post I made mention of the fact that the law enforcement agencies in my area have put a freeze on new recruit hiring, which in turn put a freeze on my pursuit of a law enforcement career.  Ron, the officer who I went on my two ride alongs with, saw me at church a month or so ago and told me the only two agencies in Northern California that were hiring new recruits were Emeryville and BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit).  Two not very attractive options from my vantage point.  According to City-data.com, Santa Rosa has a crime rate right around the national average while Emeryville is three times the national average.  Plus its not exactly a quick commute.

This past Sunday my buddy Pops, who also has visions of nightsticks dancing in his head, told me that the county had opened up three correctional officer positions.  In layman’s terms, guy who works in the jail.  The idea of being a patrol officer, zipping around town in my police cruiser, being outside, carrying a gun, talking to folks on the street, these things are appealing to me.  Sitting behind a desk in a room full of convicts, sometimes for 12 hours or more, is less so.  Theorhetically, working in the jail should be safer than being on the streets.  Its a more controlled environment, support is nearly instantaneous, and the liklihood of staring down the barrell of a gun is greatly reduced.  But there’s something about being cooped up inside that kinda bothers me.  Its almost as if you’re incarcerated yourself.  Not really, but sorta.  Know what I mean?

So the dilema is that I know this would make for excellent experience and a good introduction to the law enforcement culture.  When (hopefully not if) the city police department or the sheriff’s department start hiring again, I’d have a leg up on a lot of the competition.  But the problem is I just don’t know if its something I want to do.  But is it something I should do?  The deadline for submitting an application is December 2nd, so I have less than two weeks to decide what I need to do.  At this point I really have no idea of what course to take, partly because I haven’t had a chance to really talk it over with Jen yet and partly because I just don’t know.  Hopefully I’ll have clarity of mind these next few days and God will point me unquestionably in the right direction.