I graduated last night.

The past 12 weeks, I have been enjoying a wonderful program called the Citizens Police Academy taught by the Beavercreek Police Department. Sadly, the course is over....I will really miss it but have many fond memories and experiences and have gained a wonderful insight to the way our local department operates first hand. This is a photo of our class....we are now proud members of the CPA alumni of only 134 members in a community of 40,000 people.
The other photos were given to me by the commander last night of one of the traffic stop exercises we were roll playing during one of our classes. I was playing traffic cop, stopping a suspecious vehicle...I got to use the siren, roof lights, spot light and microphone....and pull over the suspect and tell him what I wanted him to do...of course he didn't want to follow directions...the first few times and I had to use my pretend tazer when he tried to grab me and pull me down....LOL.
The commander took lots of photos during our classes and had them on display at the graduation....he is going to have the display in the lobby of the police station so visitors can see what all we got to do.
I must say that I think our law enforcement men and women are the finest in the state of Ohio and am greatly impressed by their ethics, behavior and what they do on a day to day basis to protect our community.

how impressed am I? I want to assist ....so I have already applied for the COPP class...which is Citizens on Preventative Patrol and will be volunteering at least 4 hours each week. some of the things I will be doing will be directing traffic during power outages, parades and accidents. Waiting for tow trucks, vacation checks, patroling neighborhoods, setting up the speed trailer, using the laser gun to clock speeders and notifying the vehicle's owner, setting up traffic cones, assisting stranded motorists, helping to unlock vehicles, transporting documentation to the courts, fingerprinting, etc....all things to free up the sworn officers so they can be out doing their thing. that course will be 7 weeks long and two nights a week of 3 hours each and then we also have to pass a polygraph and fingerprint background check and have a partner.

One of my neighbors is a COPP and he even attended my graduation last night....smile...he and his partner are going to let me do ride alongs until our class gets established sometime in the spring. So, I am looking forward to that experience too.
now back to the real world and ......laundry...ugh.