Now that I've got the ball rolling, I have to get in gear to get several things accomplished prior to the course starting. I have to get a background check completed from every state that I have ever lived in, I have to complete all the necessary paperwork for the college. The college will waive your tuition if you can get sponsored by a law enforcement agency prior to the course, so I filled out the appropriate paperwork for that as well. I was able to get sponsored by my local police department so that helped my wallet. The cadets these days have got it easy. When I went through rookie school we had to buy all of our equipment. Now most colleges and agencies provide cadets with their gear, even a gun. I had to buy my uniforms and books which was around a thousand dollars. Counting my gun and gear, everything was around two thousand dollars to get started.
I still have the Glock 17 9mm that I used in rookie school and I will probably never get rid of it. It's had well over 50,000 rounds put through it with zero malfunctions. I also won the firearms award with this gun in rookie school. The top shooters came down between me and two other guys. The other two guys were shooting Beretta .40's but just couldn't quite hang with the Bandito ;)
The handcuffs that I bought for rookie school I also still have and used throughout my career. I used a pair of Peerless for my main set and a pair of Smith and Wesson's for my back up set.
If you will notice, just about every uniformed officer will have two Cross writing pens on his uniform shirt. I was so excited and sure that I would get hired somewhere that I went ahead and bought a couple. I used these throughout my career as well, they just weren't for decoration. I also worked for different agencies and one particular agency used gold accents and buttons on the uniforms so I had to get some gold Cross pens to match. Anal a bit? Yes.
The last thing that I can think of that was a pricey purchase was the nylon duty belt and gear. I could have went cheaper on some of this stuff but I go by the motto of you get what you pay for and everything that I bought back then has lasted me, so...
I honestly don't think cheap gear would have lasted. You can see how much wear this stuff has gotten over the years. I not only used this gear during rookie school but in other training and special operations as well.
With all of my paperwork and gear ready, there's nothing stopping me now and I can't wait for the first day. I considered myself to be an above average marksman but I still practiced every single day. Ammo was a lot cheaper back then too so it wasn't that big of deal to shoot several hundreds of rounds everyday. I have a huge fear of failing. It doesn't matter what it is, I don't want to fail or disappoint anyone. The pressure that I'm feeling is almost overwhelming and I haven't even started the training yet.
There's two program schedules, a daytime and an evening course. I had to take the evening course because I was going to continue to work my 3rd shift job in the textile mill until I could graduate and hopefully get hired on somewhere. This was going to be a major concern for me because although the classes during the week were only 5 hours long, the class on Saturday was 8 HOURS LONG! This means that if I worked all night Friday night, I would have to go straight to class right after work and sit in class ALL DAY LONG WITH NO SLEEP! Now this wouldn't be too bad if we were doing the firearms block of instruction, pursuit driving, subject control or something like that but you try sitting through 8 hours of juvenile law or constitutional law after working all night with no sleep. It sucked ass, just take my word for it. I can't remember exactly how long I done this for but it was either 6 or 8 months. I kind of jumped ahead a little bit so lets go back to the first day.
ORIENTATION
I show up to class really early so I can scope out the classroom and pick out my seat before it fills up. Apparently I wasn't the only one that had that idea because the back row was almost full. There was a couple of empty seats on the very back so that's where I planted myself. There was a guy right beside of me that I instantly made friends with and got along with really well, so that helped my nerves settle some. It didn't seem like no time and the classroom was full with about 20 cadets. There was one particular female that threw me off and fired my nerves back up again. She actually came in at the last minute and was wearing a deputy sheriff uniform. I was confused as to why she was in this class if she was already working somewhere. To sum it up for you, she was working in the county jail in a non-sworn capacity and she needed to go through this course to become a sworn officer in hopes of getting out of the jail and working on patrol. You can work in a jail without being sworn or going through this type of course. There is a detention officer course that detention officers are required to go through but it's nothing like this. (Yes, I've been through that course as well.)
As soon as orientation starts, the instructor and director take a moment and just scan the room as if they are sizing up everyone. I was called out immediately due to my facial hair. The director told me that I needed to shave my goat-tee. I made the comment that I knew that I would have to shave it eventually if I was to get hired somewhere but I didn't think I had to shave it just for this course. The director looked at me in the eye and said "It will be in your best interest to shave that off." I replied back with "I will take care of it." and the next day I had a smooth chinny chin chin. Great way to start this off and make a first impression, eh? I was pretty embarrassed over that but as you will find out later on, that's nothing compared to what happened to other cadets.
Each person had the opportunity to take a few minutes to talk about themselves and why they were taking this course. It was just an opportunity to get to know our classmates so to speak. We also had to vote on a class president to represent us. It was kind of obvious that everyone was going to vote for the lady in the deputy uniform because it appeared she already had a leg up on everyone. After the director gave his speech and let us know what his expectations were, the instructor began the Ethics block of instruction. We were advised that there would be a test after the two hour block and if anyone failed it, they would be automatically eliminated from the program. Okay, my nerves are really jacked up now and I feel like I'm about to shit on myself. I felt like the questions on the test were trick questions and I didn't know how to answer them! They would ask you questions like, would you treat a little old lady the same way that you would a young man when it comes to a specific petty crime. Or would you help a family member out in a certain situation. Now let me first tell you this... It was first pounded in to our heads that the absolute worst thing that you can do in law enforcement is tell a lie and if you ever do tell a lie, your reputation is ruined for your entire career. So you better not ever tell a lie! So to be completely honest, I don't know how to answer these questions and I'm about to freak out lol! Because in all honesty, I would treat a little old lady differently and I would help a family member out if it was something small but that's not the right answers lol. But I didn't know that at the time and I didn't know if they were trying to see if I would lie about it or to see if my ethics were out of wack!
I will be the first to admit that I read way too much in to things sometimes and that was the case with these test questions. I passed the test but I missed quite a few answers I'm afraid lol.
Towards the end of the first day we were asked to cast our vote for class president and as I suspected, the lady detention officer was elected. I think just about everyone voted for her, including myself. This is a perfect case of how you should NEVER judge a book by it's cover and assume things about someone but we'll get to that later on.
It's official! We've got a full class with about 5 women and 15 men and a female class president. Our first day is in the books and no one was kicked out. To be continued...
This post is part of a series of posts that will cover a large portion of my life beginning just before starting my law enforcement career. The content and pictures posted in said articles belong to @bluelightbandit. If you haven't read the prior posts, I highly recommend that you check those out to catch up to speed, thanks!
First post: @bluelightbandit/my-life-in-law-enforcement-a-true-life-story-1
Second post: @bluelightbandit/my-life-in-law-enforcement-a-true-life-story-2
Third post: @bluelightbandit/my-life-in-law-enforcement-a-true-life-story-3
