undertow999
03-13-2006, 12:37 PM
So I went on my first ride along two Saturdays ago, and it was awesome. I went on a B Shift ride along out of the Santa Ana office. The officer I went with had just graduated from the academy in November of 2005. We started the day off in the briefing room, where the Sergeant went over testing info for the Sergeant Tests and general stuff like that. Then he had my introduce myself, and a few of the officers asked me questions about the process, and where I was in it, where I went to school, general info like that. They where all really cool guys and joked around with me a lot.
To my surprise, the officer I was with walked out of the locker room with a bullet proof vest and told me to put it on. From what I had heard from other people on this forum, they had not worn vests. But I actually liked the idea of wearing a vest incase anything happened. After briefing the officer went over the functions of the cruiser with me. As we were getting ready to go out on the road, he gave me a card with the Aural Brevity Codes so I could understand what the dispatcher was saying over the radio. Then it was time for us to start out beat, which was Interstate 5 from around Orange to Tustin Ranch.
First we swept the beat to see if there were any disabled vehicles. Without getting into too much detail about our activities through out the shift, we wrote about 6 or 7 tickets I believe, most of them for either speeding or registration issues. The officer I was with was not certified to use the radar so we paced a lot of people which was fun, and was actually easier to do because we were in a slick top cruiser (no light bar). Also, once the situation was deemed safe by the officer, I was allowed to get out of the car.
Aside from the general excitement of being in the car with the officer, I actually learned a ton of stuff about the job. One thing that stood out in my experience was the amount of multi-tasking an officer must do. I was impressed that the officer was able to keep a conversation going with me, listen to the radio, pace people, check reg. tags and check for seat belts all at the same time. I had a hard enough time understanding the radio, let alone checking tags. Also, I was very impressed by the driving skills of the officer I was with. He asked me if I was getting nervous, but I wasn?t. I actually felt more comfortable than ever while I was in that car.
This ride along gave me an even greater appreciation for this job, and makes me want to pursue this career even more. I greatly encourage anyone who is in the hiring process to schedule a ride along. Not only will you have a really great time, but you will learn more than you can remember. A lot of my questions during my ride along had to do with the academy since the officer I was with had just gotten out. He gave me a lot of pointers to survive the academy, and he told me what helped him get through it. What really surprised me was at the end of the evening, the officer gave me his personal phone number and said to call him and let him know if I made it to the academy. He also said if I had any questions from this point forward to not to hesitate and call him. Anyways, sorry for the long post, if you have any specific questions, I will answer those too.
EDITED for policy-related content by dw
To my surprise, the officer I was with walked out of the locker room with a bullet proof vest and told me to put it on. From what I had heard from other people on this forum, they had not worn vests. But I actually liked the idea of wearing a vest incase anything happened. After briefing the officer went over the functions of the cruiser with me. As we were getting ready to go out on the road, he gave me a card with the Aural Brevity Codes so I could understand what the dispatcher was saying over the radio. Then it was time for us to start out beat, which was Interstate 5 from around Orange to Tustin Ranch.
First we swept the beat to see if there were any disabled vehicles. Without getting into too much detail about our activities through out the shift, we wrote about 6 or 7 tickets I believe, most of them for either speeding or registration issues. The officer I was with was not certified to use the radar so we paced a lot of people which was fun, and was actually easier to do because we were in a slick top cruiser (no light bar). Also, once the situation was deemed safe by the officer, I was allowed to get out of the car.
Aside from the general excitement of being in the car with the officer, I actually learned a ton of stuff about the job. One thing that stood out in my experience was the amount of multi-tasking an officer must do. I was impressed that the officer was able to keep a conversation going with me, listen to the radio, pace people, check reg. tags and check for seat belts all at the same time. I had a hard enough time understanding the radio, let alone checking tags. Also, I was very impressed by the driving skills of the officer I was with. He asked me if I was getting nervous, but I wasn?t. I actually felt more comfortable than ever while I was in that car.
This ride along gave me an even greater appreciation for this job, and makes me want to pursue this career even more. I greatly encourage anyone who is in the hiring process to schedule a ride along. Not only will you have a really great time, but you will learn more than you can remember. A lot of my questions during my ride along had to do with the academy since the officer I was with had just gotten out. He gave me a lot of pointers to survive the academy, and he told me what helped him get through it. What really surprised me was at the end of the evening, the officer gave me his personal phone number and said to call him and let him know if I made it to the academy. He also said if I had any questions from this point forward to not to hesitate and call him. Anyways, sorry for the long post, if you have any specific questions, I will answer those too.
EDITED for policy-related content by dw