Personal Narrative: Taneytown Police Training

On Monday, April 11, I went on a Ride-A-Long with Officer Jim Brooks who is a sergeant at the Taneytown police department. Initially, I was supposed to do the ride-a-long on Friday, April 8, However, Officer Brooks contacted me a few days before, explain to me that they had changed his shift and asked to reschedule the ride- along (which we did, till Monday April 11). This shows how flexible the police staff is, with changes occurring constantly and how they do not have consistent schedules. There are 5 shifts at the station, which each officer works. Taneytown, Maryland is about 2.5 square miles. The police station was built in November of 2002 and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. For each community within and
He introduced me to some of his fellow officers. There are 14 officers, including the chief, all of whom are male (though they are hoping for more female recruits, they never seem to get any). He showed me around the station, showing me the kitchen area (fully stocked), the filing room, their office area, and the two jail cells. At 8:16 we departed from he station to begin patrol around Taneytown. Traveling through the town, we received several friendly waves, though the occasional car would flash their headlights at us. The overall reaction of the citizens to the police was positive, especially from where the businesses were. The area that the station receives the most calls from is Carnival Road, where there are small, single family houses. Many of these houses are unfortunately not well maintained, though there are still a handful of houses that were well cared
I have a uncle who retired from DC as the first district commander before continuing on to be the assistant chief of Atlanta police for 8 years, before retiring a second time, resulting in me having a positive view of law enforcement. Also, the parents of several of my friends are part of law enforcement. This experience allowed me to understand what officers do when they are not out on a designated call (such as patrolling) and allowed me to see how people react to officers from the officer’s point of view. This helped to solidify my positive view of law