Week fourteen- One white sock, one black

This week was crazy busy.  We had Arrest Control written test, Arrest Control practical test, ASP and Baton test, and our regular test on Friday.  That is a lot of testing.  To make things more interesting our schedule on Wednesday and Thursday was 4pm-1am.  I am always open to trying different things.  Mixing things up every now and then is good for all of us.  It also gives all of us an idea of who functions better in the mornings or at nights.  To make the change even more of a change...these were the only two nights it snowed.  Why not?  Go big or go home.

We all tested and passed our Arrest Controls tests Wednesday and Thursday.  Every test passed is a huge relief.  Arrest Control testing was surprising because as much as we all stressed out about it, more of it was second nature than we thought.  As most of the things we learn in the academy, arrest control is a fundamental.  Practice is imperative.  For any of you who have played a sport, imagine playing a game after not having played for months.  You would be rusty, not confident, and look like a fool.  Firearms, arrest control, ground fighting, etc... is no different. 

While half of us were testing out on arrest control for the first half of the evening, the others were at a different site learning and practicing building searches.  I keep saying to myself, "Can it get any better?" and it does.  The best part of building searches was working with the K9.  I am absolutely fascinated with dogs.  Everyone thinks puppies are cute, but liking dogs more than people is a different ballgame.  Working as a team is the only way to search buildings whether there are two of you, four of you, or four of you and the K9.  Communication was apparent and strong in some groups, and lacking in others, but figuring out how to get on the same page was part of the exercise. 

We finished at 1am on Thursday which means the earliest any of us got home and in bed was 2am.  We had formation at 830am the next morning which means we were all up by 630am Friday morning.  That is not much sleep-but that is the nature of the business.  We were all exhausted and the day became "one of those days" where you might show up with one white sock on and one black.  Or where you put your nametag on upside down and no one notices because we are all zombies. 

Arrest control, as we learned was not over.  It had just begun.  Which is one of those "this is becoming real" moments.  Week 14 is over already?  Every week after the halfway point in week 10 has flown by.  We are out of the classroom a lot more and it is all coming together more and more every day.  The one thing I have noticed over the past 14 weeks is...people are awful drivers!

Either this has become quite the phenomena in Jefferson County, or the academy has changed me. 

Week 15 here we come.