Update

I've been slowly becoming a nocturnal creature. After 17 weeks at the academy waking up at 4:30 a.m., this is now becoming the time I go to sleep.

Almost every night is spent completing paperwork. Every detail of every arrest has to be documented to the nth degree. Then we have to call an operator and dictate the reports over the phone but the hold times to reach an operater is usually 1-2 hours. Hopefully, if the city bond election passes, there will be some money to hire more support staff.

I'm starting to feel more comfortable with the job now. My trainer lets me take control of most of the situations we encounter and I'm really starting to fit into my new role. It's still difficult trying to multi-task the driving, radio, computer, and watching the environment for any trouble.

Here's a recap of the week ending 02/24:
I made my first drug bust after pulling over a guy for driving with expired registration. He had no driver license but I was able to locate him in the system. He had 4 outstanding warrants so I quickly arrested him. While searching him, I pulled out a sandwich bag of marijuana from his pants pocket. As soon as he saw it he cried out, "oh man, I forgot that was in there." He was real cooperative so I let him off the driving charges (he had enough to deal with for the warrants and the drugs).

I took a couple of burglary reports from some very expensive homes in north central part of town. One guy had a 2 million dollar home but has never kept his doors locked. He's lucky he only lost about $5000 worth of stuff.

I seized several license plates from drivers with suspended registration and issued some tickets to drivers at fault for accidents. Handling minor traffic accidents is boring but I'm good at sketching them out on graph paper.

I responded to a few 'hot' calls including an armed robbery of the Lace and Leather Lingerie Superstore, a fight between a brother and sister, and a fight at a bar. All of the suspects were gone by the time we arrived so I haven't arrested any violent offenders yet.