[ARCHIVED THREAD] - arfcom LEOs: a simple question (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 6/29/2011 6:12:26 AM EDT
|
What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow.
Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? |
|
Quoted: Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Yep. Since I work for a Sheriff's Office, we have court paperwork to serve to people in the down time as well. Except for I work third shift, so we don't wake people up to serve court paperwork.... during those times, it's arfcom.
 |
|
Quoted: Quoted: Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Are the patrols a set route, or is it just up to you? Set Route patrols = predictable. Random routes in the high activity areas are typically the best way to catch anything going on. That, and luck.
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Are the patrols a set route, or is it just up to you? Set Route patrols = predictable. Random routes in the high activity areas are typically the best way to catch anything going on. That, and luck. At night, my buddy will hit the parks that are closed. The few times I've gone with him, we found nothing. But he usually finds dope smoking kids/dirtbags having sexual intercourse. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Yep. Since I work for a Sheriff's Office, we have court paperwork to serve to people in the down time as well. Except for I work third shift, so we don't wake people up to serve court paperwork.... during those times, it's arfcom. My office is down the street from the courthouse. Until we moved here I had no idea how often cops are running back and forth to court. It's rare for me to step outside for 5 minutes to smoke and not see a cop car go by. |
|
Have over 22 years on...in between calls when it's slow, I like to patrol around local neighborhoods..deterring some crime perhaps, but letting the residents see you in their neighborhood when they don't often see the police is important. I'm not big into raping people with tickets like countless rookie officers often do.
As for question #2...it's called a bathroom break...office workers get one, so do I...no matter how busy it is. |
|
Quoted:
I ride occasionally with a friend who is a county deputy. We mostly ride around and around, park for a few minutes and look for seatbelt violations/traffic, then ride around and around, stop at QT for beverages/bathroom, etc. I've done a couple dozen ride alongs in my city and this seems to be the norm, especially at night |
|
Quoted: What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? Serve papers, write reports, get my shit caught up. Funny story about the bathroom. A while back one of my guys had to take a shit. he swung by a Shell station, and started his deed. When he was finished he realized there was no toilet paper, and he also had a call come across for a physical domestic in progress. he heard the bathroom door open, and yelled out "Police emergency, I need toilet paper." Well the guy walking in turned around and yelled throughout the Shell station verbatim what my guy said. It almost turned into an international situation. I guess you had to be there when he told it, because it was funny as fuck.
 |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Are the patrols a set route, or is it just up to you? Set Route patrols = predictable. Random routes in the high activity areas are typically the best way to catch anything going on. That, and luck. At night, my buddy will hit the parks that are closed. The few times I've gone with him, we found nothing. But he usually finds dope smoking kids/dirtbags having sexual intercourse. I LOL'd at this comment. As a young stupid kid, my wife and I found out that parks were closed after dusk the hard way...We were caught fooling around in the back of my car when a county cop pulled up on us fast with his lights blazing... He asked my wife if she was "there against her will"....LOL
|
|
Back when I was on the open road the time between calls would usually be burned up serving papers, finishing up reports, and sometimes even following up on calls. Some times I had the luxury of just driving around looking for something to do but that was rare. On nights where I had to stay in one location for whatever reason I would read my Ohio Revised Code. Bathroom breaks were like anyone else. You'd drop in at a stop 'n rob, a buddy's house, the fire station, basically anywhere you could. It wasn't really a big deal. I never took my lunch hour. I would sometimes go stationary and eat a bite in the cruiser. People would think I was running traffic. A lot of times people will notice a cruiser always going stationary in the same location. That's usually because it's central to that officer's area of responsibility or closer to where calls are likely to originate. The hardest part of it for me was having my logs and reports ready to file at the end of the shift so I didn't waste a bunch of my time getting out of there. It's all about paperwork. |
|
Quoted:
A lot of times people will notice a cruiser always going stationary in the same location. That's usually because it's central to that officer's area of responsibility or closer to where calls are likely to originate. I wondered about that. I don't see it around here, the town I work in and the one I live in are both so small that all officers cover their whole town. |
|
When I left law enforcement 3 years ago there was little downtime. Seemed like everyday you came in there was something in your mailbox you needed to work on. Follow up on a misdemeanor case from the day before (mailbox being damaged, 4 wheelers trespassing etc). May or may not have residential security checks. Need to work traffic in a specific area. Early 90's there were the rise in COPS projects. Be told to go check out an intersection and see what can be done to make it safer stuff like that. Right after Sept 11, 2001 we had to identifiy and check specific places in our beats (eletrical substations, etc). Depending on the shift you will have known places you feel you should check (on midnight shift you may want to check a city pool to see if people are trespassing and swiming or if you know some dude has papers on him sit up from his apartment keep an eye out for him). Someone already mention serving papers, we used to pass off a clipboard between shifts with papers on them (maybe a bunch or just a couple) but no matter the call load you were expected to check on everyone.
All the numbers you hear them call out when it is slow, may be the officers checking off on things their boss told them to get done. Usually at the end of the month your boss gets a print out and shows all the work you did. You answered 100 calls for service, wrote 50 reports, conducted 15 investigative follow ups, wrote 42 citations, etc. After about day one of field training you will identifiy places to take care of your personal needs. Depending on what you got to do and what shift it is might be a tree behind a building or it might be staff/employee restroom at the hospital. |
|
Quoted:
What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? Patrol neighborhoods, visit various businesses, write reports. He have areas assigned on our beats that have to checked during the shift, code numbers are called out to log that activity. Restroom breaks: various businesses, the PD, in the woods, etc.... #2 I go home. |
|
Here they sometimes hang out in the fire stations to catch up on paperwork. One call can take up 80% of a shift. The dead guy I dealt with on Monday took 2 cops for 5 hours just keeping custody of the scene while the investigators and medical examiner did their thing. ME took 4 hours to get there due to case load. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? Patrol neighborhoods, visit various businesses, write reports. He have areas assigned on our beats that have to checked during the shift, code numbers are called out to log that activity. Restroom breaks: various businesses, the PD, in the woods, etc.... #2 I go home. Public urination?
|
| I've retired, but in my old department you basically go from call to call as a district officer. Very little down time. And to answer your second question, after finishing a call and before going back into service for the next call, you stop at a convenience store and take a leak and pick up a pop or coffee. |
|
On my ride-alongs I've noted that the officers all have pre-planned bathroom locations. They also have places they can wash up, change uniforms or hose out the backseat.
They also tend to know where they can watch their food being prepared.
BTW: It's pretty amazing to note, they have NO free time to wander around. They come on shift with calls waiting, they go off shift with calls waiting. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? Patrol neighborhoods, visit various businesses, write reports. He have areas assigned on our beats that have to checked during the shift, code numbers are called out to log that activity. Restroom breaks: various businesses, the PD, in the woods, etc.... #2 I go home. Public urination? The woods? |
|
Quoted:
One call can take up 80% of a shift. The dead guy I dealt with on Monday took 2 cops for 5 hours just keeping custody of the scene while the investigators and medical examiner did their thing. ME took 4 hours to get there due to case load. The other night there was a rollover accident close to here and I heard them working it for hours. Pretty fucked up, there were 5 children that were ejected from the car, all seriously injured. Another reason why I could never do that job. Shit like that would get to me. |
|
Quoted:
I LOL'd at this comment. As a young stupid kid, my wife and I found out that parks were closed after dusk the hard way...We were caught fooling around in the back of my car when a county cop pulled up on us fast with his lights blazing... He asked my wife if she was "there against her will"....LOL Making sure she wasn't being raped. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? Patrol neighborhoods, visit various businesses, write reports. He have areas assigned on our beats that have to checked during the shift, code numbers are called out to log that activity. Restroom breaks: various businesses, the PD, in the woods, etc.... #2 I go home. Public urination? The woods? 2 legs good 3 legs????
|
|
Downtime spent doing traffic, business / house checks, checking parks (at night), etc, and occasionaly pirating internet from the county libraries. Not much downtime.
As far as places to take care of bidness...Before I went to work for the SO, I worked as a state officer in the same city. As a state officer, I was responsible for security of the state buildings in town, and had a universal access code for all of them to get into at night. Those state building bathrooms were like heaven compared to a nasty gas station. One of the buildings had a bathroom that was it's own seperate building, complete with shower, changing room, toilet and, most importantly, a door with a big deadbolt. It was like George Castanza's handicap bathroom
|
|
Quoted:
What do you do between calls? Usually surf the internet or watch a portable dvd player. I'm all about Netflix streaming now though. Quoted:
I'm not big into raping people with tickets like countless rookie officers often do. As for question #2...it's called a bathroom break...office workers get one, so do I...no matter how busy it is. Same here. |
|
Quoted: What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? To the first question, it's pretty much up to us. We can patrol, basically looking for trouble, or we can sit stationary running radar, etc. There's a lot of paper work to do also. The other question, well, basically we just have to hold it, or find a creative way to take care of it. -K |
|
In between calls I patrol the city, write reports etc etc. I'm not a big ticket writer. Instead I like to hunt for drug activity or gang activity. Both are bad in my city. Also working at night prowlers and burglars are out and about.
Some nights there is no down time, even for lunch or breaks. I work in the city so using the restroom is never a problem unless I'm on a call or on a perimeter. Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Are the patrols a set route, or is it just up to you? Set Route patrols = predictable. Random routes in the high activity areas are typically the best way to catch anything going on. That, and luck. At night, my buddy will hit the parks that are closed. The few times I've gone with him, we found nothing. But he usually finds dope smoking kids/dirtbags having sexual intercourse. I LOL'd at this comment. As a young stupid kid, my wife and I found out that parks were closed after dusk the hard way...We were caught fooling around in the back of my car when a county cop pulled up on us fast with his lights blazing... He asked my wife if she was "there against her will"....LOL When ever I happen upon two people having "relations" in a vehicle I always have the female step out of the vehicle. More often than not it pisses the guy off to no end until a little explanation is given. In one of the neighboring cities an officer happened upon a car. Officer didn't know it but the female was being raped. She told him nothing was wrong because the guy had a gun pointed at her the officer did not see. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
In between calls I patrol the city, write reports etc etc. I'm not a big ticket writer. Instead I like to hunt for drug activity or gang activity. Both are bad in my city. Also working at night prowlers and burglars are out and about. Some nights there is no down time, even for lunch or breaks. I work in the city so using the restroom is never a problem unless I'm on a call or on a perimeter. Quoted:
Quoted:
Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Are the patrols a set route, or is it just up to you? Set Route patrols = predictable. Random routes in the high activity areas are typically the best way to catch anything going on. That, and luck. At night, my buddy will hit the parks that are closed. The few times I've gone with him, we found nothing. But he usually finds dope smoking kids/dirtbags having sexual intercourse. I LOL'd at this comment. As a young stupid kid, my wife and I found out that parks were closed after dusk the hard way...We were caught fooling around in the back of my car when a county cop pulled up on us fast with his lights blazing... He asked my wife if she was "there against her will"....LOL When ever I happen upon two people having "relations" in a vehicle I always have the female step out of the vehicle. More often than not it pisses the guy off to no end until a little explanation is given. In one of the neighboring cities an officer happened upon a car. Officer didn't know it but the female was being raped. She told him nothing was wrong because the guy had a gun pointed at her the officer did not see. As far as officer intrusions go, this is one that makes sense to me. Don't park in closed parks, and this problem goes away. TXL |
|
Quoted: Around here. They sit in parking lots, back of stores, the firehouse, etc. Watch TV shows on Hulu on their lap tops. Talk on the cell phone. they suspended a bunch of guys here last year for hanging at the substations and watching hulu on personal laptops |
| Former LEO, in between calls I would catch up on reports so at the end of the shift I wouldn't have to stay over an hour or so for free doing paperwork, sometimes we would meet up somewhere and chat with others. It got really boring at times, Sundays were always interesting, after church there would always be a ton of domestic calls. As far as restroom breaks go there have been periods of six or seven hours with no break. |
|
Quoted:
Why do you want to know? You a cop? Nope, just curious. I'm sort of a ham radio nerd and I almost always have a radio on at home scanning vhf ham frequencies. Since police and fire are on vhf here too, I scan them too. Hearing them work makes me wonder what it's like. If you're a fireman I have questions about that too.
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Why do you want to know? You a cop? Nope, just curious. I'm sort of a ham radio nerd and I almost always have a radio on at home scanning vhf ham frequencies. Since police and fire are on vhf here too, I scan them too. Hearing them work makes me wonder what it's like. If you're a fireman I have questions about that too. When there are no emergencies for them to go to, firemen lift weights and groom their mustaches. |
|
Quoted:
What do you do between calls? I think around here the officers run set patrols, I hear them call out numbers on the radio when it's slow. Bonus question: What do you do when it's really busy and you have to go to the bathroom? I was a copper for 10 years.... Inbetween calls we would patrol our zone, run traffic or make business checks. When its busy & you have to use the john, adrenaline is an amazing thing....It makes you forget about alot of that. I'm a firefighter now & we just went on an assist the medic call... I had to go before the call came in, but while we were there we caught a general in another town....I didn't have to go anymore...... Till we were on our way back !! Then it hurt. |
|
A few years ago I was playing online poker (Party Poker at the time) with another user who claimed to be a LEO. He told me he was running radar while playing me heads-up, no limit Texas hold 'em from his squad car laptop. I confirmed his LEO status by asking him to run a firearm serial that I knew was in NCIC; he replied with my full name and address, heh. We played for a couple hours; must've been a slow night for him. I asked what he would do if someone came through doing over 100mph while he was holding a straight flush...he said he'd finish the hand for sure. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Did i make it before the bashers? Mostly, patrol areas and do traffic. If you gotta go, just stop and use the bathroom Yep. Since I work for a Sheriff's Office, we have court paperwork to serve to people in the down time as well. Except for I work third shift, so we don't wake people up to serve court paperwork.... during those times, it's arfcom. That doesn't stop the cops around here. I had one show up at my house around midnight to hand me a ticket from a motorcycle accident. His excuse "I saw your lights on and this is my shift." 
|