Shift 13:
I was with the Traffic Officers again on this shift. I stay by my thought of not wanting to go into this designated part of any Police Agency. The traffic officers are the hunters, so their role is quite different from the general duty officers.
Anyway, on my shift I went to cells first, because the guy I was partnered with is a workaholic and went in to work super early and made an arrest. He came back to the district to do some paper work, which is what led us to go to the cells. After that, we went to the hospital because there was an impaired driver who crashed. The general duty officer didn’t know how to take the blood sample, and the traffic officers do, so we went to the hospital to lend the GD a hand.
I saw and semi learned how the blood process for the police is, quite a bit to it. So to remember it all, the steps from seeing it only once might be a bit hard... Anyway after that we did some patrols and went to a family festival where people last year normally didn’t wear seat belts. So the corporal I was with wanted to do seat belt checks there. After doing that for awhile, we just drove around looking for people to give tickets to.
We gave out about 20 tickets that shift, and some of those tickets had 2 or 3 charges on it. So in the end of the shift he gave about 30 or so charges, and like only 3 warnings. We also impounded two vehicles from prohibited drivers. So I saw a true ticket giver this shift, and saw how it was supposed to be done. Quite an informational shift which was great, but I don’t think I could ever give that many charges in a day, not something I find exciting like traffic officers do.
Sean De Melo is a 21-year-old criminology student from Kitimat currently finishing up the Community, Crime and Social Justice (CCSJ) program. He hopes to pursue a career with the municipal police in Vancouver.
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