A Marshall Patrol Officer's Day
I start my shift by testing my equipment... light bar, siren, and radio. If I have an emergency, that's a bad time to find out something doesn't work!
Much of my day is spent on pretty routine stuff. I escort businesses to the bank, take occasional reports from people who had something stolen, and investigate a minor traffic accident or two.
If I see a driver break a traffic law, I'll have to make a car stop and warn the driver so it doesn't happen again. If it's serious enough, I write a ticket and the driver will have to pay a fine.
Sometimes I get an emergency call over the radio. I flip a couple of switches, and my red lights and siren come on. Cars in front of me move aside so I can get where I'm going sooner. There are different kinds of emergencies... a serious car accident where someone is injured, or someone is breaking into a house, or someone is hurting someone else.
On the way, I see kids coming around to the front yards so they can see what's making all the noise, and dogs start howling with the siren. I can't wave at the kids right then, because I'm concentrating on my driving.
Sometimes we have DARE officers that go to the schools and teach classes. That's important, because drug education will keep more people from trying drugs. It helps, too, because students get to know the officers.
We have several DARE officers who teach Drug Abuse Resistance Education in the Bueker Middle and St. Peter's Schools.
As you can tell from the picture at the top of this page, a police officer's office is the patrol car. It's not too relaxing, because there's no place to put your feet up on a desk. You sure can't drive with your feet up on the dash! A lot of people don't know we have regular radios in our cars besides the police radios. It would be very boring if we didn't. We can listen to music and the local news.
We spend a lot of time in our cars. So, we try to keep them clean and nice both inside and out.
If you see us driving down your street, wave at us. If we have a chance, we'll pull over and talk. Sometimes we have sports trading cards we can give you.
Talk to you later!
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