Citizen's Academy-Jail

You guessed it we got to see the jail on this class. First the jail supervisor talked to us for awhile before we had the tour. I found this part very interesting but makes since. Story County has 104 bed unit but they necessarily don't use it all because inmates need to be put together in a category or you could have a lawsuit on your hands. They can't take a murder and put them in with a drunk driver because they might not get along in the cell and then you might have a lawsuit. He told us you have to be able to balance the inmates so there are no problems. He told us some statistics about our veisha celebration. Since FRI, SAT and SUN are the major partying he told us that out of those three days this year they put 107 people in jail. Since January 1st 2010 they have processed 7000 people at this jail. I thought that was high since we are not a big city. We do hold federal people in this jail too. Then he told us some stories of two men that was his worst problems that he ever came across. We can ask him questions, then go on the tour. When we toured got to see the laundry area and they showed us that they wear orange clogs instead of tennis shoes. I thought that was funny. Another interesting part on the tour was this area that holds all the cameras of the whole facility. There is someone watching all doorways and inmates and taking phone calls. This person lets people through doors. The big screen had about 40 different cameras going at once. It was alot to watch. No sunlight in this room either. In fact the whole facility doesn't have sunlight. When we toured the inmates they have 3 sections. The women are divided out from the men. Then the men there were two holding areas. One was called a hub where you see on TV they are all together sitting around tables. That looked like 50 people in this area. The next section is secured off because it more for the dangerous inmates. These are sex offenders, murders, suicidal or have health issues.Definitely more security there. Actually the whole jail is really nice. It only is 9 years old and looked like new. They do have the working inmates cook, clean floors and other jobs. There are TVs in the rooms and if bad behavior happens then the tv is off. IF they have good behavior they can read a book at the library. So that is the last class I will have. Tonight I go to my graduation ceremony. Wish me luck!

Citizen's Academy-Emergeny Vehicle Operations,Crash/Collision Analysis

We started this class by learning about our obstacle courses we were going to drive. We had 3 course to drive between cones that were set up and if you ran over a cone that was a persons life. We did get to drive the sheriff's car. My first course I drove was to pull out and weave through two cones and then parallel park. After parking to come out and weave around 2 more sets of cones and then go into this box of cones and do a full circle come out of that and then weave back and then back into a box of cones. From there to pull out of that and make a sharp turn and pull into a diagonal set of cones. Back out of that and go back to start. I did this twice. Was not good at the parallel parking, but I did not knock any cones over. The next course to me was the most fun. We started off weaving between cones drive straight forward and stop in a box of cones. Then back up doing a sharp right into a set of cones and coming out of that weaving back to start. You can go as fast as you want. I also did this twice and much braver the 2nd time I took out a cone and was flying as they tell me. The 3rd course was to back up straight about 100 feet and stay between the cones. You can go as fast as you want. The first time was to look over your shoulder and back up. The 2nd time was to only use your mirrors to back up. The 3rd time was to open the car door slightly and look out the door but keep your head down and back up. That was fun. It was because if someone was shooting at you this would be safe way to get out of a situation. I did not knock any cones over this course either. I will write about visiting the jail on Thursday.

Citizen's Academy-Firearms-Hostage Negotation

This past week was exciting for me. First we had our meeting on Thurs last week and then we went to the range to shoot a 9 mm Smith and Wesson. I will talk about the meeting first. When they call in the ERT stands for Emergency Response Team that is new term instead of Swat. These are the items the ERT takes with them but are already geared up in their armor. Radios, Kevlor, gas mask, gas (of various kinds), breaching tools, M-4, SIG 229, MP5, autolog shotgun, gps, and distraction devices. This is what our team caries it will vary in different areas. They passed around the M-4 and the MP5 guns. Then we had a lesson on how to hold our guns in class. No ammunition was used during this time. We had to practice stance, how to hold the gun and where to look through when aiming. How to put the safety off and on. Then Saturday we went to the range and put on our belts and holsters. Then we practice some more on drawing, firing and how to load a new magazine. This was my first time doing any of this. I was having a hard time drawing. My gun would not come out of the holster. I was not quick draw McGraw. Infact I was the last person to be able to get my gun out. We had to have safety glasses on and earplugs. Then we went over to the range to shoot. The first half of the class shot then the 2nd half. I was in the second half. First we had to load 2 magazines. Then shot 10 rounds we were at the 15 yard range. Then we moved back to 20 yards range. Shot 10 more. Then loaded another magazine and shot 10 more at the 25 yard range. Well for my first time out of 30 rounds 4 of them were not even on my target paper. Braised one along the shoulder and one in the gonads. (Look out for that guys!) The rest were in the body cavity and head because we were to practice shooting there. It sure was fun and here is a picture of me shooting. They guy behind me was a deputy to help assist and watch. We all had one. My husband actually had the Head Sheriff watch him. First pic of me then of my husband.

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.

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

You are probably asking what is this? Our county has offered what is called "Citizen's Academy" in which the Sheriff's Office offers for 10 weeks free a training about the office. Our county hires quite a few citizen's to help run the Sheriff's Office. I thought this sounded exciting so I asked my husband to see if he wanted to go and he did. We also get free food from the jail if we want to. The topics they will be talking about are
1.Administration
2.Communications(dispatching)
3. Support Services
4 DRE/Traffic Safety
5.Field Services
6. Media Relations/Internal Affairs /County Attorney
7. Firearms Special Unit (we get to shoot guns)
8. Investigations Drug Task Force
9. Jail
10 We Graduate

One of these classes we get to ride with the Sheriff car. I can't wait for that. Another class we get to drive the car. So stay tuned every week I will put something new up at what we learned in class.
This week we talked about Administration and how the Sheriff's office runs, what includes the budget, the history of the office, how many employees. Our Office has 82 employess and they hire 18 citizen's to help keep the budget down.
The menu for food was Chicken and rice casserole, bananas, orange slices, assorted cooked vegetables, cookies and brownies. We did eat there and I must say it was good.