View from the cop: Crime & punishment
View from the Cop is moving to a new site on Wordpress. Blogger Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs Police Department gives his take on crime, offers safety tips and give his weekly picks from the police blotter. Follow Steve Rose to the new blog site.
AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2006 > June > 23 > Entry
Light sabres and new uniforms!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Updates on our preparation to roll out the new Sandy Springs Police Department on July 1.
Wednesday
ASP baton training. The ASP baton replaces the old nightstick. They extend when quickly brought out and flipped open. It’s similar to the “Star Wars” sword thing, only without the pretty colors. The new officers are in the parking lot learning the proper way to use them.
Following that, the new officers are back inside learning CPR. They are not really new but new here. After that, everyone finished receiving equipment. It was like Christmas. Everything is new. Everyone except the Fulton County officers arrived. Per the agreement with Fulton County, those officers arrive on July 1, although they can receive training to be prepared.
Thursday
The chief held the first command staff meeting at the new HQ located on Barfield Road near Hammond. We toured the building and saw where our offices will be. Luck was on my side. I’m only 39 feet from the bathroom and the toilets are in good shape.
The plan is to lease for a year while we build something. The Sandy Springs officers who came from other jurisdictions outside Fulton County are riding with Fulton officers to get a feel how the calls come in and are handled. Most are amazed at how many traffic accidents the officers respond to.
I feel sorry for the ones coming from relatively small departments. We work more wrecks in a day than most do in a week.
I went home and tried on my uniform, belt, and all the equipment. On the belt will be two magazines for your bullets, your gun of course, ASP baton, pepper spray, handcuffs, radio and holder, rubber-glove packet and a couple of other things. I practiced drawing my gun from the new holster and my reading glasses from my pocket.
For you trivia folks, we’ll swear the new officers in Friday morning around 8 a.m.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By nametagman
June 23, 2006 9:27 AM | Link to this
All you have to do is lose the beer gut. This will make the gunbelt buckle easier and keep in place longer. The much younger officers didn’t have this problem, but when you come over from another agency, the rules on beer drinking have been lax over the years. Regarding the reading glasses, every officer over the age of fifty will have to learn to draw from his pocket. The gun is an entirely different matter.
Here come Matt Dillion