Week 6 of 52: Washington County Sheriff – Ride Along

One, or more new things per week for the 2013 year...

Week 6 of 52 (February 4^th, 2013 to February 10^th, 2013):  Washington County Sheriff – Ride Along.

                I am unsure as to why I put off doing a ride-along, for so long! Most of my life I have always been fascinated by the police. I remember when I was younger I would play cops and robbers with the neighborhood kids; I would watch Cops on TV and would always look up to them as heroes. I also have to admit that as I grew older and started driving that I started to hate seeing cops (for fear of being pulled over and getting a ticket).

                But putting all of that aside I decided for week 6 of my 2013 challenge to go with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office on a full shift. I was put with Deputy Whitely from 6:00 am to 2:00 pm; we patrolled the Bethany/Tanasbourne area of Beaverton, and Tigard in Oregon. I knew that anything could happen during that shift and was prepared for lots of nothing and whole lot of something! We did a lot of the usual traffic stops, and to my surprise the Deputy I was with gave a lot more warnings then he did tickets, and I really respect and admire that! We got a few more exciting calls, like domestic violence, and overheard other crazy events in Washington County happening, like a bomb threat, armed robbery, welfare check, burglary and a crazy man yielding a knife! Even though we were not called out to all of these events, just hearing the radio blaze about all of these events made me realize that we really don’t know about everything that happens in our community!

                I have to say that the media really doesn't do their part in presenting all the facts, and we citizens need to be more involved in cleaning up our streets and knowing whats going on. I think too many of us live in a fantasy world, in which we perceive the world as perfect. The truth is that there are lots of bad people or just really stupid people who make really poor choices.

                Bottom line, this will not be my last ride-along and the ride-along has prompted me to investigate further, I plan on sometime this year or next entering into the reserve training to become a volunteer sheriff, so that I can give back and contribute to my community!

Did you know how fun it is to radar people?