Qualified.

I've been unsuccessfully trying to post an update for most of this week, and now I have a chance to do so.

With good news!

I had pretty much decided to put off anymore attempts to qualify for a couple of weeks, thinking it was operator error or perhaps the gun I was shooting and I told the Chief exactly this.

Well, as things would have it, one of the officers I work with loaned me a different gun and the dispatcher I just finished training talked me into trying one more time.
I'm not sure exactly what the problem was whether it was myself or the gun, but I managed to squeak out an 84 yesterday morning after I got off work.

Qualifying score is a 72 :) I managed to refrain from jumping up and down and screaming, but I did tell the instructor that I could have hugged him. Believe me, after failing multiple times I definitely had a monkey on my back ... or so I was told by just about everyone at the dept. :) Gotta love their brand of encouragement!

Well, it's been a great week, went for a couple of ridealongs (I have to say I'm addicted now) and the calls were fairly steady and not terribly complicated.

Right now they're slamming me with traffic stops...a comment was made earlier that one of the officers prefers to take calls versus running traffic, I'm cool either way, I like them running traffic because it keeps me on my toes and gives me practice (wierd I know) so now, one goes out, the other follows.

I'm not sure when I'll be commissioned, the Chief had to make an emergency trip out of town and didn't get back until last night. I'll try to post an update whenever that happens.

Yay for me, it's a week with 30 hours of OT on my time sheet :)
I've been breaking in a new dispatcher this week, worked both of my days off, and failed to qualify in firearms training not once, not twice, but three times. I will eventually get this.

All I can say is hooray for the 4th of July...or not. Our towns celebration will be held later today, including a parade with all of the headaches. So far though, I think it's going to be a little soggy.

So, since I've failed to qualify, I'm still waiting to go 10-8 officially. I will, however, still be working in an "unofficial" position (I think).

Anyway, on to the fun stuff of the week. It's been a very productive week, depending on who you ask, we've logged seven arrests since Monday, including a whopping hat trick last night. That call was a complete cluster and not my best moment :)

Tonight, thankfully, people have refrained from beating the living crap out of each other, and have simply been imagining people hanging outside their houses.

Best one so far: dispatch to a possible prowler with a hero RP.
He informs me on the phone that he has a gun at his residence in another state and he will be retrieving them at some point. He also informed me of the different laws that this state and others have, pertaining to lethal force by a homeowner in the event of a home invasion. I simply told him, stay in the house, don't open the doors, and don't start pulling weapons out unless you are absolutely positive you have to use them, preferably not at all because units are enroute. ("enroute" by the way, isn't an actual word, either apparently)

Units go on scene, less than five minutes later they clear and go 10-8. One officer tells the other, "should we tell her to log what he said about registering?" to which he replies, "definitely".

So, I wait for the phone call to fill me in on what I missed. Apparently, in the state from which the RP recently moved from made him register his teeth and his fists as lethal weapons.

??

So, this gentleman is either The Hulk or a member of the Cullen clan.

It was entirely too ridiculous to fathom :)

Well, here I am riding again :) I could definitely get addicted to this. I'm riding tonight with a different officer and he's more then happy to get out and play to make the night go faster. He's been FTOing me tonight asking questions and giving advice, he's definitely looking out for me here. We just got a call from a neighboring county looking to serve a warrant here. It's handy being a dispatcher, because we remember names, places, and dates the way guys remember sports stats. So, Im now sitting outside the pd in the car waiting while he go finds a picture.

Wheee....

Oh geez... it was an interesting day today.

I live in a rural area just south of town and as most people who live out in the country, I shoot on my property.

As you know, I've been working on my techinique and just practicing for qualifications next week. (which are Wednesday, btw). I shoot a .40 handgun, no rifles, no shotguns, just handguns. We've shot out at this place since I've lived there and never had a problem with riccochets or had the neighbors to the east complain.
Let me explain the setup. It's roughly 5 acres and our fence butts up against another lot with an empty barn. On across the road and back south there is a house, in this house lives a state trooper who I've known for a couple of years now.

All in all from the point where I'm shooting to his house is close to 1500 meters. We don't have a berm set up because the field slopes up at a steady incline from where we are to the end of the fence and there's an empty barn directly in the line of sight.

Well, this morning I get off work, go to the house, and get my range gear out. I've shot roughly 35 rounds before he shows up at my house. Apparently, somehow, some of our shots have been riccocheting all the way down to his house.

I felt pretty stupid, but I would never have known that a .40 handgun with a 3.5 inch barrel could travel that far...apparently it can. So, I rode over with him to a deputy's house to check out his shooting area. It's really no safer, its just a creek bed... So, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do, I guess once Wednesday gets here and it's over, we'll see how I did.

In other news, the dispatcher who I was filling in for is now home from the hospital. However, they believe he had a stroke...so no one is really sure if he'll even be back. This is going to suck, because I'm the only other fulltime dispatcher we have. I'll definitely be getting the overtime at this point, hopefully they'll get someone hired pretty quickly...

I have to say I love working the 3-11 shift. I had been complaining that I hadn't gotten any overtime lately because our scheduler had been giving it all to one dispatcher. Well, we sent him home again this evening with some medical issues, and then the fun began.

First call involved a weapon, the next involved a toddler wandering down the road wearing nothing but a diaper, and finally a medical call that was really strange. A 911 call with no one on the other side...all I could hear was a television in the background and some faint noises that sounded like either a moan or whimper.

Get 1st responders enroute and they call for PD because they can't get in the house and someone is calling for help inside.

It all ended well...although that was all within 2.5 hours. :)

Now to my actual shift...what do you call a verbal domestic when the parties involved are deaf?

That's been the running call of the night, we're back over there now for the second time in an hour. Throw in a civil custody dispute and it's a good night :)

Of course, if my guys knew I was enjoying this, I'd be outta luck!

And so it begins :)

It appears I've started a new journey :)

I guess the one of the best things about being young is that I can still change my mind. I've spent the last two and a half years preparing myself to go to law school, mostly because of my random sense of justice, ignoring the fact that emergency services is my actual passion.

I spent four years working disaster relief with the Red Cross before moving to my current hometown. Survived house fires, canteens, ice storms, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and loved every minute of it.

So, consequently, I'm starting reserve CLEET and transferring at the first of the year and changing my major to Emergency Management.

It's been an interesting evening so far, came on shift in the middle of an assault call, and just a few minutes ago a EOD request/domestic issue decided to come visit the PD.

I'm kinda tired so being busy is good :)

You're a good dispatcher when you can empathize with whoever is on the other side of the radio or phone line. However, when you hang up the phone and feel like taking a moment, you're too close and emotions are clouding judgement.

Not saying this is a bad thing, especially if you don't have the opportunity to decompress afterwards.

So far in the last week, received an attended death notification of a lady who I've known nearly the entire time I've lived here. Talk about surreal :)

On to happier decompressing topics, I've been combing through numerous websites attempting to gather my duty gear. This whole decision to go to cleet has incited major family issues.

Let's just say that there are some religious issues which have previously prevented me from doing a lot of the things I've wanted to do, as far as dress goes. I've made some decisions over the last several months to move away from a lot of these ideas. And, as I've tried to explain to my parents, I'm not doing away with God...just some of the rules that I was raised with.

We'll see, perhaps I'll be living under a bridge eventually :))