Well week one was in full swing. On the first day we started with P.O.S.T standards. This basically covers everything we need to know about how police officers become certified as law enforcement in the state of Georgia. And of course ways you can screw that up and loose said status.

After that we moved on the Ethics and Professionalism and Peace Officer Liability. This covers things such as taking bribes or ‘freebies’ all the way to how you present yourself and treat others around you. Basically more things you need to know to keep your job and keep from being sued. Definitely important now-a-days.

Next we tackled Laws of Arrest and Stop and Frisk. This covered when and where we can search and seize people/things. And the guidelines to legally stopping someone (not just in a car) and what justifies a frisk, and the differences between a frisk and a search. The next two days we spent studying the laws of Georgia. Yes you read that correctly, we only spent two days learning the laws of Georgia. We covered everything from taking livestock all the way to murder. All in two little days.

I also had my first weekly test. Every week on Friday we have a 50+ question test on the prior week’s lessons. If you fail the test, you are allowed to retake it. If you fail the retake, you are out of the academy. If you fail two tests (even if you pass the retakes) you are allowed no more failures, and will be kicked out if you fail anything else. So it is quite stressful. We have 16 tests total to take, and only two strikes. I passed this test though with an 84% and am quite pleased.

After the test we studied Universal Precautions and the Fundamentals of Investigation. Basically how to keep from catching some disease from the people you deal with, and the basic techniques of investigating a crime.

Still nothing too exciting. The Georgia law days were pretty neat. I learned a lot about law that I never realized.