Silent Night

I went on my third ride-a-long with my local police department this past Saturday night hoping for some action.  I was with a different officer this time, we’ll call him Officer Tom.  My previous rides have been with a sargeant who can pretty much go all over town, but Tom is assigned to a specific area, an area which is one of the more active spots in town as far as criminal activity goes.  So the odds were good that something exciting would be going down.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  The best we could muster was a homeless guy sleeping alongside a freeway entrance, a guy with a cane who turned out to have an outstanding warrant, and a bicycle rider who didn’t have a light.  Not the kind of stuff that usually made it onto T.J. Hooker.  Then to top the evening off we ran over a screw and ended up with a flat tire.   It was in the thirties that night, so we figured all the knuckleheads decided to stay indoors and avoid the cold.

The night wasn’t a total loss though.  I wanted to ride with Tom, partly because I wanted to see what it was like to patrol the same beat all night, and also because he worked as a correctional officer for a few years.  We had some good conversation and he gave me a lot of really good insights into what its like to work in the jail.  He talked to me about working in that sort of environment, what the inmates are like to deal with–kind of like junior highers–and he even offered to put me in touch with some guys he knows that still work there.

This Thursday I’m taking the second step in the application process, a written exam.  If you’re the praying sort and you happen to be thinking of it at 8AM on Thursday, I’d appreciate any supplication you would offer on my behalf.  (If you’re not the praying sort, I’d encourage you to become so.)  I need to score at least a 70% to move on to the next phase.  Wish me luck!