So on Wed., "Littleville" called me  I had just returned from my interview at "Windytown", which went well.  They called and said they liked how things went on my panel, and would like to take things further.  He said they’d like to get me in for a polygraph, physical, and psychological test.  He then told me that if all goes well, then it’s just a matter of getting my uniform and equipment and I’d be good to go.  Basically that means "If you don’t screw something up, we’re thinking about hiring you".  He said someone would call me today or tomorrow to set up the time and date to have these tests done.  He doesn’t know this, but I literally jumped out of my seat, my eyes welled up, and it took every ounce of my strength to contain myself until we hung up.  Then I screamed a lot of positive profanities, pumping my arm in that "hell yes" motion.  And Immediately called my wife and mother to tell them the news.  My dream department had been the first to call me in for the next phase. 

    Within an hour, "Hellotown" called me.  They too wanted me to come in for their next phase, a psychological and physical.  They scheduled me for Monday.  I hoped, in the back of my mind, that Littleville would hurry up.  I wanted to work there so much more than these other departments.  And I didn’t want to lead anyone on or screw them over.  But still, it’s not time to start turning departments down yet.  And within yet another 30 minutes or so, Littleville called me again.  They wanted me to come in the next day (today) for my poly, drug screen, and physical!  I was floored with another wave of excitement.  Before I even had time to calm down, "Windytown" called and wanted to schedule a panel for me on Wed the 16th.  I know this all sounds far fetched, but it literally all happened within a few hours time.  I was overwhelmed. (more…)

Had a good weekend.  The interview with "Hellotown" went well as far as I know (no, that is not me in the picture).  It was a little nerve racking.  Since they are such a small town, the panel was made of of a Lt, the Chief, and the Mayor.  It was awkward.  But their department is so small, they only have one officer on shift.  They pay less than Littleville’s dispatchers get paid, and there isn’t even health insurance.  But I’m still not turning anything down.  They said they’d be in touch with me.

I also had the interview with "Littleville".  I really got a good feeling from it.  I was nervous as hell but actually relaxed during the panel.  The guys on the panel were actually very friendly and easy to talk to.  They did the usual canned questions, but we did get some talk time and I really liked conversing with them.  I just really felt they were interested in what I had to say, not just srutinizing me.  They said they had some more interviews to do, and that I should know something by the end of next week.  Not what I wanted to hear, but I still had a good feeling from it.

"Windytown" also called me today and asked me to come in the next morning for solo interview (and another day for a panel).  Even though I had a ridealong until 1am I still agreed to go.  Don’t want to turn anything down yet.

So I went on another ride-along with Littleville.  Had a good time as always.  It was a week night, and kind of slow.   Saw some interesting things, learned a lot as always.  But the most fun was the K-9 bite.  The K-9 officer needed to get his dog warmed up (something they do periodicaly).  So the guy I ride with volunteered to be the bad guy and get bit.  He put on the suit and below is what happened…

    So finally I get a phone call.  I’m using fake town names here by the way, as the internet does not need to know every detail of my life.  And that picture to the left if obviously not me, just fits the subject of this post.

    So a Sgt from "Hellotown" calls me and tells me to come in for an interview.  I knew this was coming, as I went and turned in my application the day before, and they said they’d be calling me since I had already completed the academy.  Hellowtown is a very small town though, not the ‘top of my list’ of departments.  But I can’t be picky right now.

    I also turn in an application at "Windytown" which is pretty high on my target list  I’d say about 3rd place.  I also turned in an application at my 2nd place department, "Bristletown".  And finally, the cream of the crop, the department I am destined to work for, "Littleville". 

    Now Littleville is really important to me.  First of all, I’ve been doing ride-alongs with them since the early days of the academy.  The officer I ride with is a hoot, and is now someone I’d consider as a friend outside of law enforcement.  I’d hang with him anytime.  He’s a lot younger than me, which is probably why he is so fun to ride with.  But at the same time he really teaches me a lot, even being a rookie himself.  Great guy.  And the other officers I’ve met at the department during these rides have been just as fun.  They all openly accept me, the normally hated ride-along, and treat me with respect.  They include me in their conversations, and even ask "So when you gonna’ come work for us?". (more…)

    So it’s now the week after the academy.  The crickets are chirping and I am getting discouraged.  I know the normal hiring process takes up to a month, sometimes multiple months, and in some cases even over six months.  It’s a bit my fault for not getting on the ball with my applications before I graduated.  It was just so hard to find time during business hours, as I spent every day at the academy.

    For those that don’t understand:  I am pre-service.  I put myself through the academy.  Most people work in a jail or know someone, and get hired on first.  I don’t have either.  I applied for the academy many years ago.  I had to go through testing and interviews in order to be allowed to attend.  Once I was accepted it took about two more years of waiting to start.  Then three months later, here I am.  But now I have to find a department to work for.

    I spent the entire day today collecting applications.  I’m spending the entire night filling them out.  Police applications aren’t your normal job application.  Some want your entire life history, some want me to hand write a biography about myself.  They all want very detailed information about every aspect of your life, and will be scrutinized for mistakes or contradictions.

    I had a few applications I picked up last week.  I turned those in today.  I’ll get the rest of these filled out tonight and turn them all in tomorrow.  I just hope I get a call.  Some of my pre-service buddies from the academy have turned in many applications already, and not got a call back.

I have uploaded all the pictures I have from the academy.  They are organized into the following sub-albums:

So I somehow volunteered to do a slideshow for our class.  Well actually my friend volunteered, but seeing as I do this stuff professionally I volunteered to help him.  And while he did come over and sit with me during the 30 hours I spent on this thing, I made the entire slideshow.  He pretty much watched TV.

The problem with this thing is that our class never got us content.  All session long we asked our classmates to take pictures.  We asked them to record videos.  And they rarely did.  We even brought in cameras and camcorders and offered them up for anyone to use at anytime.  They rarely did.

So you’ll notice some of the early parts of the video are cut short (the video sections are in order by what we did when).  This is due to lack of content.  And also, I asked for weeks for everyone to give me the content they did have.  And three days before the captain said we had to have this thing completed, they finally got me the pictures.  Luckily the captain gave us one more day (which fell on a weekend, so we had until Monday).  So at 8:30pm on a Wed night, I received the photos.  By Monday I had to rip all the videos to a format I could use.  I had to sift through all the videos and try to find something that we needed.  Then clip out that part and recompress it.  I had to sift through all the photos.  To make a long story short, this thing took me 30 hours of labor.  Not nearly as much as one of my professional slideshows.  So please, bear with me.  I know it is sub par.  But it’s all I had to work with.

The good news is, ultimately, everyone loved it.  There were lots of smiles, lots of clapping, and tons of laughter as it played. 

So please click the image above to view our slideshow.

    This week started off with Interviews and Interrogations.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to interrogate Sharon Stone.  Either way, we picked up some good tips and tricks to getting information out of people, without the use of torture! 

    The next day we started with Motor Vehicle Theft Investigations.  And we ended the day with Courtroom Testimony.  It was interesting to say the least.  Some past instructor mis-communication made for a very angry captain.  But we sorted it all out in the end and had to go home and write a very lengthy incident report.

    The next two days, the last two of the academy, were great.  We started with Controlled Substances, and then Bombs, Explosives, and Arson.  We had a lot of fun joking about drugs.  And our instructor for bombs even booby trapped a students desk during our break with a trip line and a bomb (it beeped instead of exploding).  He never saw the trip line and set off the bomb.  It was great.

    And for the final day of the academy we began with Robbery and Burglary.  But we ended with sex offenses.  Yes, the last class for our academy was sex offenses.  And the instructors were nice enough to get by the rape and child molestation lessons first (not fun stuff) so we could then be all childish and goofy and spend the rest of the day acting like 2nd graders as we studied the lesser parts of sex crimes, the more humorous parts (bestiality, sodomy, etc.)  It was definitely a fun note to end our classroom lessons of the police academy on.

    Finally, on the last day of the academy, we took a test, and that was it.  I scored a 96% on this test.  We then signed some paperwork, went over what would happen that night at graduation, and then left.  Two hour final day was a great reward.  We headed home to get our suits pressed and get arrangments made, for tonight we would graduate!

    OC Spray, OC Spray, OC Spray….

    That’s all I seem to remember from this week.  OK, so the week started out with Accident Reporting and Vehicle Occupant Protection (yes, as in wearing seatbelts and car seats).  Boring right?

    The next day was Terrorism, and then OC Spray.  We got to line up and get sprayed in the face with police strength full power OC Spray.  Now this shit is no joke.  Peppers that you put on mexican food that burn your tongue off are like 80 skovile units of heat.  This pepper spray was 5 million units of heat.  We’re talking enough to make your skin actually blister up.  And we got it right in the face.  And now matter how much you shut your holes, it gets in.  You can’t breath, which makes you hyper-ventilate which makes you suck in more spray which makes it worse.  Your eyes are on fire.  Hell your entire face is on fire.  You have to retain your weapon and then stop at a cone and say the alphabet.  Then you go to the fountain.  It does no good.  Then you smother your face in shampoo (the spray is oil based so it sticks).  You smoosh shampoo into your eyes and then pry your eyes open in the streams of water. (more…)

    Pardon my sensitive image on the left here, but this week pretty much centered around that event, so it is relevant. 

    This week we started with impaired driving.  We learned some basic field sobriety tests.  The second day we dealt with interpersonal communications (I know, the excitement is overwhelming).  But on day 3 we hit the big daddy.

    Day 3 was NIMS.  It stands for National Incident Management System.  Basically it is what we do the next time the shit hits the fan like the picture above.  But it covers all levels of incidents.  Everything from a bad tornado, all the way up to an attack on America.  It is a system that helps all emergency agencies be on the same playing field as far as procedures, communications, and overall management.  I have to admit it that though the class was boring as hell, it was very necessary and is a good system.  I am very proud to have been able to learn the basics of it.  We had two written exams on NIMS that day (NIMS100 and NIMS700) that we must pass.  I scored a 100% on both, obviously a pass.

    The next day we had surveillance and vehicle pullovers.  The latter was pretty fun.  We got outside and practiced pullovers and writing tickets.  I’m sure most of you are not happy to hear that there will be more ticket writers in the world

    On the fourth day we had "Rules of Evidence" which is pretty important if you plan on winning your cases.  We also had our JPS written exam, which I scored a 90% on (also a pass).  And on the Friday written test, I scored a 94%.  We then learned how to take fingerprints, and how to lift fingerprints (crime scene).  I nailed my taking prints on the first try.  And on lifting prints, I did so good that our Lieutenant sent a friend into another room with a random item to covertly place a print on it to see if he could challenge me to find it and lift it.  I nailed it!

Got some of the video footage from EVOC in.  These are the main videos I have hosted.  There are tons of pictures and you can find them in the photo gallery I’ll post at the end of my academy blogging.

Skid Pad (none of these are me):

Braking (63 is me):

Cone Course (26 is me):