02 Dec A Day in the life as a Law Enforcement Trainee

Hi everyone! It has been about a month since the last blog post and a lot has happened. The fun part of the day to day life of a Law Enforcement Trainee is that you never know what is going to happen that day or even the next hour. The picture above is from a weekend that I spent in Mendocino National Forest, even though my original, or home forest, is the Tahoe. My LEO’s that I patrol with were asked to go out on a small detail to help the Mendocino out because there was a big Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) event, which in turn led me out there to help and make contacts as well. The part of the Tahoe National forest I’m on does not have as much OHV traffic as the Mendocino or even other parts of the Tahoe, so it was a great learning experience to be out there and see new things. We also made contacts that were not purely for citations. As law enforcement officers, or soon to be, need to make contacts other than warnings and citations, because it shows good community policing. We are genuine people that care about the public, our lands, and natural resources. We just want everyone to recreate safely and without harming/damaging our lands.

This was a wonderful experience to be able to see a different forest and how it operates. It also goes to show that each forest is different in many ways, in knowing where to go to make contacts and what issues arise in each area of different forests. As we are approaching the holiday season, the Tahoe and El Dorado forests (neighboring forest in my area) have many great pine trees to choose from to take home as a Christmas tree! With that being said, the public will need to buy a permit online and tag their trees when hauling them from the forest to their home. This is a popular time and thing to do right now, but this isn’t something you would see in the Mendocino forest or the Angeles forest in Southern California.

Another great example of having a forever changing day to day work place is that we have to make time for our training that we have to do as law enforcement. There are firearm qualifications that law enforcement officers have to go through two times a year, along with defensive tactics training as well to keep us ready, refreshed, and knowledgeable about any new and improved law enforcement tactics. I was able to go down to Southern California and meet many LEO’s from the Angeles, Cleveland, San Bernardino, and Los Padres National Forests and see how they do their DT training and even got to see a taser training as well. The day to day life of a Law Enforcement Officer and for me as a trainee/intern is forever changing, not a single day is the same and it keeps you on your toes. One of the many reasons I wanted to do this as a career is because of the many hats that Law Enforcement wears and what they do and accomplish each day.