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My State of the Union address.
Hello!
I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted much so let me fill you guys in.
First and foremost, my District is shutting down and a City department is taking control over it as of December 15th 2007.
What this means is that I’ll be shipped to another district in the county.
I got on the list to be sent to the 2nd worst district as far as violent crime is concerned, which is actually a step down from where I am currently stationed. Good deal. smiley
All this week I have RID school training. Basically, its a lot of fighting, shooting and car chases to get certified to work RID (Robbery Intervention Detail). My partner, Muscle and I are attending the class and it will be very physically demanding. I’m sure to have some good stories out of it to say the least and from what I’ve heard, they’re going to basically beat us up for fun.
Since my district is in fact, shutting down, almost everyone has sort of been on ‘cruise control’. Officers aren’t doing normal police work like they should be doing as to avoid complaints and internal affairs investigations ‘before’ we ship out as if that would actually hurt their chances of getting into a district that they want. Paranoia runs rampant through large departments when things like this happen.
Good thing for me, I really don’t care how thick my jacket gets, as long as I’m doing real police work and catching real criminals, my jacket could and should look like the Law book that I’m out on the streets enforcing.
In the past two years that I’ve been assigned in my District I’ve gone through many changes as an Officer and as a person. Life experience is one of the things that they say you need when you get into this career and they say that working in my district is like doing police work in Dog years. I have done so many things that most Officers in my county may not have done over the course of 25 years and there is still so much more for me to do, as I’ve got a long way to go until I retire.
I’ve been in car and foot chases, more fights then I care to remember and even a shootout. I’m surprised the only scars I have are small and in odd spots.
The most important thing I’ve taken from the District that I’m in though has been experience. People already knew my name before I showed up for my first day there, establishing myself wasn’t a hard thing to do, but with the volume of drugs, guns and bad guys roaming the streets and committing violent crimes, I’ve learned how to do police work I’d have never understood had I stayed in the slow district I started off in.
When I get to my new district I seriously want to pursue some investigative roles or maybe even train new officers in the field. I’ve had enough of Jumpout squads but if I’m called again to be on one, I’ll do the job the way it needs to be done.
More and more I realize why Old timers, the guys that have been on the force for 20 something years, look at people of my tenure with a certain look in their eyes.
That look when I first got on seemed like it was of ‘disgust’ at new blood. I thought the sight of a rookie made them sick. Now, after having been on for a good while, I see that look isn’t of disgust but actually of ‘perspective’. They look at the rookies with the knowledge that they have forgotten more in their time on, then these new recruits will see in the next 10 years. It is starting to make sense to me.
If I don’t get a chance to blog before the week is out, expect a long post on Friday night about my week in RID school. From what I’ve been told it’ll be a treat, I’m hoping my expectations aren’t let down.
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