Abbe’s Ruminations April 2024 : No One is Fooled
I’ve always felt odd about April Fool’s Day. Someone being jested and made to feel less. I felt the same way when my father would make off-color jokes about the Iris or Polish or our cultural heritage. He declared that he made jokes about being Jewish and this gave him the right to deride another group.
Perhaps I’m being too hard—but I’ve seen the hurt in friends’ eyes, the fake laugh and uneasy smile. Just like sarcasm, jokes and pranks stem from the negative. I’ve learned that people think they are funny, and like all things, there is a line where laughter comes, but crossover that line, and a bad taste remains.
I prefer pure, carefree giggles that rely on expressions, circumstance, and the haphazard nature of being human. I remember dancing across the kitchen with my kids, cheek to cheek. A visual found silly, daring, and fun.
While I’m all for fun, today I’m asking for more. I declare April as a month devoid of derision and hopefully division. I decided to re-educate myself in Civics and the workings of the community I live in. I enrolled in a nine week Community Police Academy of Burien/SeaTac. Twenty years ago, I took a similar class in Bellingham, WA.
The layered hierarchy of interaction between the police, city, county, state, and the federal government is part of the infrastructure of my world. Knowing what the police, can and can’t do has been a revelation. I use the word police loosely as no one really understands what the department encompasses. When you think of the police and procedures you must include the Sheriff, the policemen on the beat, the prosecutor/ courts, 911 communications, dispatch, AFIS (Automated Finger Identification System), Drones, Helicopters, K9 responders, Firearms, Major Accident Response and Reconstruction, Major Crimes, and the Bomb squad.
I’m only half-way through the 27 hours of instruction. Here are a few amazing things I learned.
The most important call you make is to 911 and from there live operators distinguish if it is a non-emergency, a crime in progress, robbery ( stealing which includes force against a person) or burglary, domestic dispute, assault, or disappearance. Dispatch is the next step and here it gets more complicated as the police have designated districts. 911 workers listen, question, and discover who is present (kids make everything urgent), a domestic dispute must be answered in a certain about of time. Due to financial constraints and lack of qualified applicants, the police assigned to an area are minimal (my own small town has only three officers each day assigned to go out.) They must drop one case for another. If they are in pursuit of a vehicle, they can enter another district. The dispatcher notifies the other police to meet them along the way.
Documentation of all calls is crucial. Follow-up means a policeman, when not involved in an active pursuit, comes, and takes a report. They are constantly juggling their workload. Statistics only reflect calls that have case numbers with police filing the report.
Training and continual education is rigorous for the policeman and more intense for those working 911 and the dispatchers. We are talking about a year or more of study, exams, and training months on the job for each department. Most leave after a few years due to the mental strain of huge workloads and witnessing difficult cases.
I’ve always wanted to investigate a crime. That goes back to my time wanting to be a spy. As a writer, I’m fascinated by not only the mindset of a criminal but also the police protocols.
Did you know that fingerprints are influenced not by genes, but the position and touch in the womb. An identical twin will have the same DNA, but the fingerprints will differ according to how the how the baby’s fingers touched the womb. I don’t have discernable fingerprints like swirls or loops. I burned my hands on a hot iron when I was a kid, and the tips are worn away. That happens with age too.
If I were to commit a crime, my fingerprints would be sent to the latent investigators who look for markers that distinguish my unique identifiers. Of course, since I’ve never been booked, the computers wouldn’t find anything.
Someday, I might write a thriller or mystery, until then, I’ll be a good citizen learning about those who care for us behind the scenes.
In the meantime, I continue to enjoy fun with friends. The Walkers of Burien meet once a month. Here we are along the Seahurst Trail.
Abbe would love to hear from you. You can send comments to her website at http://www.abberolnick.com
