Deputized!

FYI: this is not my class

Wow, where to begin?  To say the last four months or so have been eventful would be an understatement to say the least.  The last time I had enough breath to post something I was about a week from graduation from the Academy.  Since graduation I’ve gone to Disneyland, completed three weeks of department orientation, almost caused a career ending crash with another patrol car, taken a sword wielding drunk to jail, written enough reports to choke a sergeant, had two people committed for 5150, got into a vehicle pursuit, worked every possible shift, and passed three phases of FTO.

Somewhere in there I managed to sleep and spend time with my family.  Busy times.

But let’s jump back to graduation.

It was awesome.  Out of 29 graduates there were only four of us in a uniform other than the academy blues.  Two that already work for the state mental hospital but needed their POST certification for new positions, one who is working as a reserve officer for a local police department and me.  So there I was, the only paid member of an agency (who started without a job) out of the 29 graduates, and the 54 possible graduates who began–or joined–this year long journey.  Gotta say, it felt pretty good.  There were times during the ceremony when I’d look down, see my tan and greens, and suddenly remember that I wasn’t dressed the same as most everybody else.  Like I said, it was a good feeling.

For the record, this is by no means meant as a slight to any of my classmates.  There are a lot of good future cops in my class.  It’s just a reflection of the times.  As it is I may be hanging on to my job by the skin of my teeth, depending on how the budgetary winds blow over the next couple months.  But that’s a story for another post.

At any rate, graduation was a great experience, what with the bagpipes, the awards, and hearing my RTOs say they’d see me out on the street.  My class was a close one.  Unusually close, it seems.  In that sense, it was a bittersweet ending.  The chances of all 29 of us, plus our fallen comrades who came to the ceremony, would all be together at once again are pretty slim.  Who knows, maybe a few of us will end up working side-by-side for the same agency, but probably not more than a couple of us, if even that.  So it was a good last chance to be together as a group one last time.

At 5 AM the morning after, I loaded up my family and headed off to the Happiest Place on Earth.  We spent two and a half day with Mickey and friends, then jetted back so I could be ready for my first day as a deputy sheriff trainee.

And that’s when the real fun began.

PROGRAMMING NOTE:  Now that I’ve kinda found a groove with this new gig, I’m going to do my level best to post on a regular basis.  You see a lot of stuff on this job that’s worth writing about and I want to do just that.  For my own sake, and so people get some kind of an idea of police work is like.  I’m obviously still figuring that part out myself, but you can all learn as I learn.  That’s my hope anyway.  Stay tuned.

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