My First Call
In law enforcement all the incidents we get sent to are known as calls. This is probably because a majority of these events are 911 calls that we respond to. The first department I worked at was a college police department. The college itself was very nice, but the area around it was surrounded by gangs. The month I started, the city was in the middle of a gang war. My very first call as a police officer was about a man running through a housing complex while brandishing an AK. I have no idea what led up to that, why he was running or what crime he committed, but another officer called for help and we responded. My very first call as a police officer seemed to be what you dream of as a kid: Jumping in the car, lights flashing and sirens wailing, heading out to go save the world.
When you first start out as a police officer, you go through what is referred to as “field training.” The beginning of this process is a shadowing phase. You sit in the passenger seat, you don’t talk to anyone, and you just stay quiet and learn. Then after a week or two they slowly let you start driving and interacting with citizens. By the time it’s over, you will have already practiced handling everything on your own under the supervision of your field training officer (FTO), who advises you on how to improve. With this being my very first call on my very first day as a police officer, I did not know a thing. The person in charge of training me had only been a police officer for about a year and a half… Oh, and all of his experience came from college police work. For those of you that don’t know what that means, college police work is a lot different then city or county police work. Things are typically a lot more laid back, but every once in a while intense situations arise or college officers end up assisting the city officers nearby. It’s not that these police officers aren’t good; It’s just that they don’t typically experience the same type of serious crimes as often as city and county cops do. In other words: things that are routine for city and county cops, a college cop may see once every few months.
So when this call came out, my FTO got hyped up. He started screaming, “Let’s go!” We then jumped into the car and took off. My FTO was in the driver seat talking, but I was just trying to get focused. My first day on the job and I was already nervous. Then my FTO turned to me and said: “If all of the officers get out on foot, I’m leaving you in the car while we go looking for him. You are too new for this.” I just looked at him and thought, “I’m a lot safer with all the cops than by myself in a car.” So I responded, “Uh, no. I’ll go with you.” He turned back to me and sternly said, “You are staying.” At that point I did not feel like arguing. “Sure,” I responded, with every intention of following the hypothetical group of police officers, then possibly getting into a shoot out with a man wielding an AK alone.
Within our police car above our heads was an AR-15. These long guns are kept in a special holder in the main cabin of the vehicle. My FTO grabbed the gun to pull it out of the holder. Nothing happened, and so he left his hand on the rifle. I looked at my FTO trying to study him and see if this was some kind of strategy I was unfamiliar with. I then looked at his face and noticed that he was slightly confused. My FTO pulled on the rifle again, and again nothing happened. He proceeded to yank at it and curse out of frustration. Slowly this process intensified, and before long my FTO was a bright shade of red, screaming at the top of his lungs and yanking on this rifle. At this point I began to panic because he was panicking. I had no idea what he was doing. I repeatedly asked if he was OK, but my FTO only responded with more screaming and cursing. All of a sudden, the rifle fell into his lap. He then slowly redirected his focus on the road ahead — because this whole time we were still driving –, and calmly said, “If you ever need to take the rifle down, there is a small button which unlocks it right here.” He then indicated where the button was. (I later learned that the long gun is locked into place to prevent it from falling while driving or while in an accident. It also can stop someone from stealing it if they can’t find the button.) At this point I realized two things: First, my FTO (who was also a Sargent) had no idea how to remove the rifle from its holder. Second, this guy had no idea what he was doing.
It was only a short 5 minute drive from the precinct to the housing complex that we were heading to. A bunch of officers searched the area, but much like a lot of the calls we respond to, the ending was sadly anticlimactic. We couldn’t find the man with the AK. None of the 20-30 people outside saw anything or wanted to even speak with the police. So after 10-ish minutes of driving around, we stopped searching and returned back to our area. I may not have gotten to satisfy the dream I had always envisioned of “saving the world” that time, but I wasn’t all that disappointed… My first call definitely would not be my last.
Originally posted on my
[blog] (https://ourstoriesfrombehindthebadge.wordpress.com/)
