Day 15 - "Phases" - 7/6/09

Well, it looks like I'll be staying another week on Phase 1. It's not because I am doing poorly (in fact, I am doing quite well), but because my first FTO wasn't really an FTO, so my first week didn't count. Even though I was tremendously excited for Phase 2, I will be using this opportunity to hone my skills on radio protocol, paperwork, and using this time to make as many mistakes as I can. I don't say that in a bad way, though. I'm not going to intentionally make mistakes, but I might as well make them in this phase because they're a lot more lenient when you do, as opposed to making a mistake in Phase 3 where they pretty much say, "Why did you do that? I thought by this time you'd know ......."

Speaking of mistakes, my FTO and I made a fairly funny one. I hadn't written a parking ticket yet, and it was part of my curricula, so my FTO made me write a couple. Usually a parking ticket is issued when the person isn't there, but of course my first ticket was written right in front of someone, so not only was I nervous about completing the ticket properly, but also watching the guy and made sure the "ninjas didn't come swinging from the trees". I tactically positioned my body to the side of the patrol vehicle and began to write the ticket. Roughly 10 minutes later, I had generated my first parking citation. My FTO approved (after a minor correction or two), and then brought me to a remote area, where my FTO gave me a couple of pointers. My FTO said, "Your people skills are excellent, but your body language is 'too tactical'." My FTO pretty much told me my tone of voice was good and my tactics were fine, but my tactics were very apparent, which frighten people who aren't a threat. To me, a little bit of fright in people is OK, because that fright deters them from thinking about attacking me, but at the same time I don't want to scare the crap out of people. I love socializing, and I like putting people at ease and making people feel good, and with my voice I can do that; I just need to work on my body language a little.

So, a couple of parking citations later, we found an unusual situation, which turned out to be hilarious. We ran an out of state tag with no decal. My dispatcher came back and said the tag was registered to a vehicle which CLEARLY didn't look like the one in front of me. OK, no problem, I run the VIN. The VIN has never been registered. Uh oh. My FTO told me that vehicle had to be towed. No problem, I filled out a tow sheet (or two, or three due to misc errors), wrote a citation, seized the tag, and watched the vehicle leave on a flatbed truck destined for an impound yard in downtown Miami; a job well done in my humble opinion. Roughly two hours later, the owner surfaces, who made contact with one of our detectives. The detective comes back to me and said both to myself and my FTO, "Congratulations, you towed an undercover police vehicle." HOLD ON! Please apply brakes.... I did WHAT? I thought to myself, "There is no way on Earth that the vehicle (an SUV with baby diapers and such in the back) could have been a police car." Apparently it was DEEP undercover. We released the vehicle to the detective, I completed all of my paperwork, and went home.

Now, it's my weekend. Time to relax. Ahhhhhhhhhh yesss. :D