Some of you may remember I was thinking about becoming a police officer. Well the quest has begun.

Cliff notes at bottom.

I've filled out the application and my next official thing to do is a physical and written test on January 8th. Now 5 years ago I was in excellent shape. But I've gone from working out 6 days a week 2-3 hours per day to eating swiss cake rolls on a regular basis. I've probably gained 25 lbs. That doesn't sound very bad but considering I've lost a LOT of muscle and replaced it with gobs of fat it is terrible. So I joined a gym and have gone 3 out of 4 days with 30+ minutes of the elliptical machine each day. I'm pretty excited about it but I know it's a long way to go.

Since I've applied I wanted to learn as much as possible so one thing I've done is gone to a few different precincts and applied to go on their "ride along" program. For those of you that don't know it's just what it sounds like. You show up at their roll call and ride for an entire shift.

The first ride along I did the northeast precinct. I don't want to say that was a mistake but it is probably the easiest/slowest one out there. Not that I want bad things to happen. I just don't want to be accepted, graduate from the academy and think my day to day life would be just like it is in the NE precinct.

Anyway after roll call I was with an officer that I've kind of known from my working out at the gym days. I was glad to see that he didn't make fun of me for being a fatty. We rolled around the million dollar homes and talked about the academy etc. He wrote out a ticket for someone parking in a no parking zone!!!! We were then called out of his ward to a grocery store where there was a drunk guy that was being somewhat disorderly. The people that called in were worried about him getting back in the car and hurting someone. Anyway the call came in as "drunk and disorderly bothering some people outside at 2155 Covington Pike at Superlo Foods". I was like ummm my son is there with his baseball team doing a team garage sale!! What are the odds? We get there and the guy is sure enough drunk and one of the other officers takes him to jail. As interesting fact about the drunk driving policies in Memphis anyway once they stop you the police have to wait 21 minutes befoer they have you blow. The reason is the powers that be said some mints etc can have a false positive if taken within 20 minutes of the test. So they wait 21 minutes.

After that we stop an old lady with expired tags and running a stop sign. The officer lets her go because she said her husband had to go to the bathroom. Then we had a few burglar alarm calls that turned out to be nothing.

Last but not least we're sent to Baptist East hospital where a lady was being discharged. But she wouldn't allow anyone to take out her IV etc. So we go there and after she moaned about it she finally decided to let them take it out as long as the nurse was black. She said she was worried about the white people being upset that Obama won?!?!

All in all it was a pretty boring night but I learned some of their day to day stuff.

On to the next ride along.

I decided to go into one of the danger zones. I filled out the paperwork and was accepted to do a ride along in the north precinct which is primarily in Frayser. If anyone is at all interested you would have to Google Frayser Tn. and you'll see it's one of the tougher areas of Memphis. (Memphis BTW is supposed to be the 2nd worse as far as crimes of violence in the country. I'm guessing 2nd to Detroit.)

I show up and get an officer that's been around for 3 year (I forgot to say the cop I had in my first RA had been a cop for 15 years). This guy was pretty awesome. He was very outgoing and seemed very concerned that I got what I wanted to get out of the night. I told him about my first RA and he told me because it was very cold out that night (like 30) that there wouldn't be as much action but there would be more than the NE precinct.

He asked me what I wanted to see and I told him I just wanted to know what I was getting myself into... I told him that if he got in a situation where he was 50/50 on taking someone to jail then do it because I wanted to see the whole process. He said if it ever got 50/50 then they should be going to jail anyway. I went on to say I didn't want to ruin anyones weekend if they didn't deserve it.

We went through the friggin hood. House after house of boarded up windows/doors. We went into some projects and he pointed to people that were more than likely up to no good but he didn't want to give them a hrad time in case they weren't doing anything wrong. He just said he didn't think it was right. About 10 seconds after that he rolls the window down and with authority tells a earl 20 y/o to get the he77 off the corner. He told him he had no reason to be there and he didn't want to see him there again.

Then we stop a car for having their tags displayed improperly. As soon as the door opens the guy says he doesn't have a license. He said it was suspended. He takes the guy out of the car and searches him. He finds nothing but notices the guy has a McDonalds shirt on. He says "man, I can't give you a ticket. You guys take too good care of us". Send him on his way. That was a little surprising to say the least. I thought at the very least the cop would have the guys gf drive the car away.

After that we went to a burglary, stolen car, and an assault. But we were one of the last cars to make it to all those calls so everything was under control by the time we got there.

The he said we were going to another ward where there might be more going on. We heard a call go out for a domestic assault and we took it because we were right down the street.

We arrive and there's 2 females yelling at eachother. They were a couple and had an argument that climaxed with them hitting eachother. The "man" of the relationship ended up in the back of the car. The other cops showed up and told the cop I was with that he didn't "have" to take the girl to jail. Then he said "well my RA wants to see someone go to jail". I felt pretty bad and reminded him what I said. The girl had been to jail for armed robbery before and had pulled a gun on her GF before.

That was about it for the night. I was a bit disappointed considering nothing really happened. I mean I don't want there to be anything to ever happen. But if it does I'd like to see it so I know what I'm getting myself into with this job.

I guess the one thing that surprised me was that these officers seem to let a lot of people go with stuff that I would have never would have thought they would.

Oh, one night between the 2 RA's I saw an officer sitting in a coffee area of a department store chilling out. I sat at a table next to him and told him my situation and we talked for a bit. He went on to tell me that most cops are very different from each other. I was thinking he was going to say some were aggressive, some were very chill, some gave a lot of tickets etc. No he said "some of us like to hang out at Target, some at Exxon, Best Buy, and on and on. He was dead serious!

My next ride along is in the worst area of Memphis. Orange Mound. I will be doing that this Saturday night from 5pm-1am. I expect to see a lot of action.

So after writing thiss all up I realize it's pretty boring but oh well.

Cliff notes - I went on 2 ride alongs. Both were fairly uneventful but I did learn quite a bit.

I've never said this, but, TLDR.

I want on a ride along and they got a call and told me to get
out, and off they went. I had to call someone to come get me.

Ya it is a fairly boring account but it is either that or make up some stuff. I don't have a good imagination though.

I asked the cop what I was supposed to do if he pulled someone over and they started to beat him up and he just said "oh, I'll be fine".

Here's a video of the average amount of respect for a MPO.

http://blogs.bet.com/news/newsyousho...attacks-a-cop/

Yeah all my ride alongs with police have been much more interesting than this lol. I have definately heard that Memphis has some hard areas though. Fair amounts of XTC was the word as of a few years ago.

I had always heard they wait sometimes on the BACs because the alchohal takes a bit to get into your system. Also any honest thoughts on the reliability of those machines. One night i drank some serious booze until about 3 or 4am. Slept till 10A. Got some Hardees then got pulled over bout 11a for speeding. Officer said i smelled like booze. I said no doubt cause i got wasted last night. She has me blow and its like .03 or something real low. I'm not 21 and theres zero tolorence law. Except you still gotta blow something higher than i did for that because of nyquil and stuff i guess. Officer halls me down to the station and i blow on machine there. It pops up like 0.1 or something that is high enough for a DWI now. They slap me with zero tolorance and tell me im lucky for that.

I've always found it odd that such damaging charges can be brought on somebody based on a system that seemed unreliable in my experience.

I couldn't help but think as you're yearning to go roll through 'hood' it was similar to a GI with a deskjob who wanted to see combat action.

the hood= war zone.

not really, but it is more exciting than rollin' through Mayberry

Good luck, just remember, few people make more money than crooked cops and politicians

wat? i dont get this. why?

lol policeaments

Yeah, they've also got a major Adam Ant problem. This is a dangerous place.

prolly dealing drugs on the corner

My guess is he thought/knew the guy wa up to no good and if his suspicions were correct the guy would leave without complaining. Then he wouldn't have to deal with the guy and probably/maybe didn't want to go through the hassle of taking him to jail for a small amount of crack.

I've heard a few cops talking about how they make teenagers do pushups for small infractions instead of taking them to juvie. I was surprised because if I was a cop I'd be worried that I'd be brought up on some charges. But I guess those kids are just glad they didn't get in big trouble.

Or they understand that they'd be an underage drug user going to court against a cop/police dept. Not the best gamble to take.

You gonna be a cop you gotta start thinking about the proper way to abuse your power.

I don't think 50/50 means what he thinks it means.

The McDonalds part is hilarious

meaning if he has to think about it, the answer is yes? seems ok to say by me.

If he has to think about it and the answer is always yes when he thinks about it, whenever he thinks about it, it is not 50/50 but 100/0.

My aunt is a police and I went on ride along with her. She has a drug dog, so we went around to a middle school and got some kid out of school that had a crack pipe on him. It was LOL. After that, they just happened to be doing a drug bust. We went to some janky apartment in the middle of the local hood. Some guy busted down the door with a big black iron battering ram thing and they stormed the place to find a guy and his wife in bed asleep. They brought in my aunts dog and he ended up finding 5 "cookies" under the guys dresser. I dont know much about drugs, but they were happy about it. They walked behind back in the lawn area behind it and found a bunch of cups they apparently cooked the stuff up with recently. Besides that, she basically rode around town and did whatever she wanted. It seems like a great job til you get shot at.

I don't know what you mean but let me clarify.

After we had the McDonalds dood let go I asked him in a tactful way. "Ok, so with this situation you seemed to have 3 options. One was letting the guy go. The 2nd was giving him a ticket and the third was taking him downtown."

After having that conversation with him I mentioned that if it was ever a borderline situation for giving someone a ticket or taking that person downtown lets take them downtown.

When the police officer said if it was 50/50 that person should be going downtown I took it as "if it's that close to call it they should be going downtown.

I could easily be wrong though. 50/50 could be some term for a prostitute

mayor of simpleton ftw

I think the officer was exercising sound judgment in his determination of the spirit of the law and not letter. I personally see no reason to give guys who actually work and aren't violent a hard time, especially when the costs of such would ruin him. I think that you'll find most as an officer is that by the books is cool, but from the stories I hear of most people most cops develop their own little moral axis by which to determine the law.

So if on the fence between letting a guy go, or forcibly detaining that person for who knows how long and subjecting them to criminal charges, you'd prefer the latter simply for your own education.

Neat.

I think you're wanting to see something into this that isn't true at all.

I told him if he was 50/50 on if someone should be ticketed vs going to jail then lets take them downtown. I think in one of my posts in this thread I told you all that I went on to say to the officer that I also didn't want to ruin anyones weekend. Then he assured me if he was 50/50 on if someone should go to jail then they should definetly go to jail.

I do see what you're saying though and I really felt bad about what I had said. That's why several times later that evening I told him I didn't want someone to go to jail just so I could learn. He reassured me by saying he understood.

When the other officers told the cop I was with that the girl didn't have to go to jail and my cop said "well my ride along wanted to see someone go to jail" I felt like crap. I was also thinking "what is going on I told the cop several times not to do it unless he was going to do it anyway". Well after the other cops were there for a little bit they agreed with my cop that based on what they learned about that particular incident the girl did need to go to jail.

The only thing I can guess is my cop was messing with me when he said "my ride along wants to see someone go to jail". The girl was the primary aggressor and I think those domestic violence laws are pretty cut and dry.

In hindsight I wish I wouldn't have said it. Because I truly didn't want anyone to go to jail just so I could learn and if he was going to take someone to jail then he would. If he didn't then oh well.

So bottom line is you're right I am neat.

Well played sir.

Damn that was one long OP, but I'm proud to say i did get through it

I was a friend of a police officer who told me that officers will often let small things slide for employees of restaurants/fast food places that the officers frequent. I do not know if this is done everywhere, but it makes sense.

The way Desoto county is growing, don't they need police? Why work in Memphis, when the middle class (ie, white) suburbs are right next door?