Citizen's Academy-Support Services

This past week we talk about support services. What happens in this area of the office is serving papers. The sheriff's office goes out to serve papers such as warrants, eviction notices and also garnish wages. I found this very interesting on how they come across different places of how people live. She said she carries a bag with different items in it to help her. One is treats for dogs. You'll never guess the one thing they bring is flea tick collars. They put them on themselves because if they have to go to a place they have come across getting fleas on themselves. They did show some slides of what they come across in the apartments. Some people never let there dogs out and what a mess that was. Imagine being the landlord to have that cleaned up. When notices are being served to leave the house or apartments they have a window amount of time to get out of the place and if they are not out when the officer comes back then everything is moved out onto the curbs because it was court ordered.
The other topics they talked about was reserve officers. These are all volunteers and go through training and then help out when called by the sheriff's office. They may help out with football events or directing traffic. There is also a dive team that volunteers. Right now they have 10 volunteers. Just recently were pulled to go to Lake Laverne to search for the person that was missing on campus. They showed how they go about searching at night and what gear they wear. It was all very interesting.
This week's food menu was, roast beef casserole, buns, vegetables, apples/oranges, cookies and a banana cream pie dessert.
Next week I will be having my shooting lesson, so stay tuned!

Citizen's Academy-Field Services

This past week we had field services talk to us about traffic stops. Sgt. Dodds and two of his men were the presenters. They told us what they look for before they stop people because you need a good reason. Then they went through some scenarios of how to stop people. When they have a felony the deputies stop the car differently then a regular traffic stop. I found that to be interesting so the deputies don't put their life at risk. After they talk to us we then went outside and perform some of the scenarios. My husband volunteered for one and he did get to talk on the sheriff's PA for this scenario. Then we could sign up to ride with the officers. So I picked this last Saturday when Ames had VEISHA. I thought it was going to be wild but it turned out not to be. We rode around campus and saw quite a few college kids drinking. Since this is the biggest weekend for the celebrations. Then we went out of town and picked up someone for speeding. I got to watch the officer in action. I even saw the incident on camera. Wow I was in the Sheriffs car by myself. That felt cool. We rode around some more and then he went to his favorite spot to find speeders but only stop a person with a headlight out. So not to much action when I rode. I did tell him I would like to ride with him if it was a high speed chase, but he said they don't let citizen's do this because it is dangerous. Darn! That was the action I wanted. One thing I did notice is while he is driving he can call in a plate to see if the person has any violations and then pull them over. I do have respect for what these officers go through. I did get to ask quite a bit of questions and he told me stories of things he had done. Tonight is my class again so next week I'll report as to what went on.

Diaper Cake

I'm going to share about a diaper cake I made for my niece's shower. I will write on Thursday about my Citizen's academy. I decided to research on the internet on how to make the diaper cakes and there are plenty of ways to make them. All the decorations I used was on my niece's shower list. Even the brand of diapers she wanted. So no guessing games for me. Below are my stages of making the cake.


1ST Layer


2ND Layer

3RD layerPutting on the ribbon
Final stage decorations-then I used shrink wrap to cover this and used one of her blankets as a presentation for the wrap

Citizen's Academy-Media and County Attorney

This week the first subject was Media. The sheriff's office appoints one person to handle the media because when the officers go out to the accident scene they need to do their job. The media is their asking questions and if they can get close to the scene as possible the media will do that. So the department has one person who handles all the media response. He tries to answer questions the media asks but can't always say everything in detail because the story is still be investigated and unfolding. When the accident tends to be serious and involves quite a bit of the community that is when they release a press conference so everyone can be informed.

Our second speaker was the county attorney. He did a few scenarios just by adding different facts into them. Suppose you were walking down the street and you see someone grab someone's purse would you run after them as a citizen to catch them? Do you have rights to do that? If so how would you stop them? Suppose the scenario is now you just hear about the incident and didn't see the person snatching the purse and this person yells "Stop him he just took my purse". Would you still have rights as a citizen to stop the person who is running and try to arrest them? How would you do this? Suppose now that the same thing happens you hear about the purse being snatch, but this time you know the person has a gun, what would you do? The last scenario is you know the person has a gun and you see a cop ahead what would you do then? Your rights as a citizen is the 4th amendment and if it's violated then you can take that person to court. In the first scenario if you saw the person who snatch the purse and tried to stop them in some way in which you injured the person who was running. Then the victim can press charges on you for injuring them. That's when the lawsuit becomes civil and the county attorney steps in. I found this all interesting because if just one fact changes the whole scene of the crime changes. Makes you think what rights as a citizen you do have.
This weeks food menu was our Chicken and rice casserole, mixed canned fruit, lettuce salad, buns and cookie.

Citizen's Academy-DRE/Traffic Safety

This past week has been very interesting as well as exciting on the academy. On Thursday the topic was traffic safety and talking with a DRE. Do you know the top 3 traffic fatalities? The number one death is no seat belt. The second one is speed and the third is OWI'S. I would of never guess that. Then we had Sgt. Belz talk to us about his job as a DRE. Do you know what that stands for?
Drug Recognition Expert. He is like an investigator. He gathers all information when someone is picked up for OWI and then he is the one to question them to see if they are on other drugs besides alcohol. It was very informative. I had to do one of the Field Sobriety Tests in front of the class. Oh, boy! I ended up doing the Walk and Turn test for when someone is stopped for alcohol. I have never been picked up for drinking so I had to walk the 9 steps with one foot touching the other foot on a straight line and count my steps out loud and turn around and go back again counting out loud. Do you think I passed this test? I didn't and I never had a drink. Before I did this I explained to him my situation of my health and they do take that into consideration. So if you have a handicap of some kind then the DRE can figure that into the situation and that is why the breathe test is given to see if alcohol is present. This DRE has been doing his job for quite sometime He has done 140 drug evaluations and out of that he is 95% accurate. That means he knows what drugs a person could be on before the urine sample. The urine sample is the last step in doing a drug evaluation.The DRE told us he has a story for every question someone would ask. Man, was I surprised at the stories he had.
This week's food was, pasta casserole, green beans, bun, banana, oranges or apples to pick from and cupcakes.