Week 5 Blog 15

I'm actually surprised that score went by so fast. And this week we have a very interesting project to work on. As some of you may or may not know the Essex Police Chief is also the Harbormaster here. So this week we were given an assignment to create a powerpoint for him on boating safety. We have these Safe boating books that we are working out of to create this powerpoint. He said that we could make the powerpoint really fun and interesting so we have been adding a lot of pictures for visual reference and we have also gotten to look at some funny boating videos to put in the powerpoint. There is this one video that we watched that has a crowd of about 5-6 people on one boat and they are going really fast, and the boat ride is really bumpy, and at the end everyone ends up falling over because they didn't have enough strength to keep themselves up. Another one was when a guy was trying to ride over another guys wakes and he didn't slow his boat down, so his boat launched in the air and he fell out. The importance of this video was that this guy was wearing a floatation vest, which ultimately saved his life. This has been very interesting to work on because my family has a boat and when we bought it we learned a lot about the boating requirements, but some of the information in this booklet I did not know. So not only am I helping out by going through this information, but I am also learning valuable information at the same time!

Week 5 Blog 14

Perhaps one of my favorite parts about interning at the Essex Police Department is the people. All of the officers, and everybody who works here is really nice. It's pretty awesome to be able to walk around the Department and everybody knows our names. All of the officers are also very eager to teach us everything that they know. On our second day one of the officers was telling us about the process that goes into an arrest, and just the other day another officer was reading out of one of the book and testing out our knowledge, it was actually really fun to answer all of his questions. Some of the officers have even asked us what we plan to do with out futures which I think was really nice. My friends ask me all of the time if it is scary working at the police station, or if the officers are really mean, and if the police officers are out to get them. Every time I honestly answer that at first I was a little bit nervous to be doing my internship around police officers, but after a while I got used to it and now I look forward to coming to my internship everyday. I also tell them that everyone is really nice, and that talking to the officers is awesome. But what never seeks to surprise them is when I tell them that the officers are not out to get them, they are only doing their jobs, making sure that everything is running smooth and that everyone is safe. 

Week 5 Blog 13

This week one of the Detectives and the Sergeant are reviewing our information that we compiled earlier on during score. They are making notes on our pages and writing about what information they think that we do need to find, and what information we need to revise. So we are currently revising the information and compiling more into it. I am learning a lot about the police through compiling this informations, and just from being at this internship in general. One of the more important facts I have learned is that there is no in between, it is either a really busy day, or there is nothing going on at all. Some days the officers will be in and out so much that you can hardly find where anybody is, and other days it is really slow and everybody wants it to pick up some more. What is also really interesting is that me and the other intern work every weekday from 9am to 3pm and usually not much happens in those hours, except maybe catching someone for speeding. But as soon as us, the interns, leave it seems that everything happens and the day picks up a lot quicker. I really don't know how the officers don't get tired when they are on the job, but I give them a lot of credit for what they do!

Week 4 Blog 12

There was nothing really for us to do today, so we decided to work on our paper. I had already finished my paper mostly but I hadn't added any citations. Adding the citations was probably the hardest part of the paper writing process because it takes the most time. I hadn't decided how I wanted to put my citations together yet, so it also took me some time to figure that out. I ended up asking my cousin who is in college about I should do about my citations, and she said what she has always done was label the citations with numbers and than to put the numbers next to the sentence that I paraphrased in. I thought this was a good idea but did not completely understand, than she told me that it was kind of like Wikipedia style. So for the rest of the day I compiled all of my sources and began to number the entire paper accordingly along with the information that I had used from those sources. I decided I didn't want to quote too much in my paper because it would take too much time, and I didn't think it would work very well in a 20 page paper. Overall though the entire writing process of the paper was quite easy. At first I thought that I may have trouble reaching the quota of 12 pages because I wasn't exactly confident about my topic, but I was completely surprised that my problem ended up almost being too many pages.

Week 4 Blog 11

The project that we are working on requires that we drive around in our cars, and get in and out of our cars frequently. The beginning of the week was nice and sunny so we finished the last 20% of the portion of the project that we already started. It only took us the rest of a score work day, which was very fast. However this was only a portion of the project that we are working on, the entire project is huge, and if only one officer was working on it, it would take him much longer than it has taken us right now. Knowing this I feel very happy that I can help this officer get it done. I feel kind of sad that we will not be here to see the entire project completed, and I wish we could but score is going to end before that happens. It is a good feeling to know that we are making a project a little less stressful for this officer though, and I am happy that I am able to do anything to help. It is also pretty fun because we get to use our cars and drive all around, I generally hardly use my car so it's nice to be able to drive around sometimes. This officer is on vacation right now as well so we are really helping him out, I hope that he is happy to see how much we have got done when he returns. 

Week 4 Blog 10

Today was my birthday and I figured if my birthday is one of my score days, why no make sure everyone is having fun! So I decided that it was a good idea to brave the Angie Miller crowd in Beverly and go pick up some cupcakes for everyone at the station. There is this small little bakery that is located in Beverly on Rantoul street and it's called the cupcake cafe, it is a very small bakery but from what I had heard she makes very good cupcakes. But off the subject of cupcakes, generally me and the other intern are working on compiling a list of nicknamed places all throughout Essex, this is so that they can be compiled into a list that will go to the regional dispatch, so for example if someone were to call 9-1-1 and say "I need help, I'm located at Burnham's Corner". This will be entered into the the Regional Dispatch CAD system, once entered if they get a call and the dispatcher types in "Burnhams corner" the computer aided dispatch will provide them with a more specific address. 

Week 3 Blog 9

Today my car got a real taste of the police car life. For my research paper I am writing about police cars, and one of the facts that I wrote about was the difficulties that police cars have to go through everyday. One of these difficulties is idling for hours and hours, even though the odometer on the vehicle says it has a certain amount of mileage on it these cars have hours of idling on their engines. My car got to experience this the other day, I must say this is probably the most the mustang has gotten used since I bought it a year ago. But overall this week we have made a lot of progress on the project that we are helping one of the officers with. I am very glad I get the opportunity to help with this project because it requires a lot of work. We started a new portion of the project on Tuesday and we worked on it again on Wednesday, and if I had to guess we completed about 80% of this portion of the project. Right now though the officer we were helping is on vacation so one of our assignments while he is gone is to get that 100% complete. The goal is for us to widdle down the amount of work that gets done so that when he gets back we can hopefully get the entire project done. He left us with our own little box with all of our stuff nice and organized, I thought this was really nice of him, and he even left us with a set of very specific instructions! I really hope we get a lot done while he is on vacation!

Week 3 Blog 8

Today was a pretty interesting day. Me and the other intern got to go down to the Gloucester courthouse with one of the officers. This was very important because as normal citizens we all know that people get arrested but we really don't know the entire process that happens after. We had to dress up nice to go to court because we wanted to represent our department positively, I totally agreed with that so I went shopping the weekend before to pick out some clothes to wear to court. This was especially difficult for me because if anyone knows me I don't dress up very often, but it was worth it to display a tidy image. Compared to most of the other people that showed up to court that day I looked like I was ready to go to a huge event, most of them just wore jeans and a T-shirt. Going to the courthouse was particularly interesting and eye opening, the week before we went some of the officers told us that we would probably see people that we knew there. In my head I didn't really believe that I would, but once I got there I was very shocked to see that there were quite a few people that I knew there. The trial that was supposed to partake that day did not end up happening because it ended up being dropped, but I still think I learned some valuable information about the entire court process. I must say it's nothing like Law and Order haha. 

Week 3 Blog 7

Today there wasn't too much to do. Both the other intern and I asked all of the officers if they needed any help with anything and they didn't. So I took this opportunity to get started on my paper, generally I find it easier to get work done when I am in the right place. Like if I have a big project due I will have a much easier time getting it done in the library at school than I would have at home. This was the case at the police station, I found it really easy to just sit down and get lost in my paper. I got to the station at around noon and before I knew it, it was 3:00 and I had already finished almost 5 pages of my 12 page paper. Up until about 3:30 I worked on my paper, and I had easily gotten it up to a good 7 pages, I was happy with this for the day. The rest of the day we talked to one of the officers, we asked him questions that we were curious about, and we talked a little about the project that we are working on. Before I used to be worried about ever having a conversation with a police officer, now that I have spent a little more time at my internship it's actually pretty cool to be able to talk to the officers. Another thing he mentioned was when he told us the kind of schedules they work, he told us that when he works double shifts he never really gets tired. He also told us about some of the crazy hours that officers work sometimes, like if they were already working a double shift, sometimes if something serious happens they can end up working a extra couple hours. A typical double shift that an officer works starts at 8 A.M and ends at 12 A.M, this is a total of 16 hours, even if they were having a busy night, I have no idea how they don't get tired!

Week 2 Blog 6

One of the missions of the Essex Police Department is to keep the community informed, the community comes first. The Department has a website on the Essex page where they post information and documents that the public may need but they needed a way to post information and reminders to the public. Most people may not know but the Chief of Police really does not like Facebook at all, he calls it "Spacebook". But knowing that us the interns were both on Facebook and knew how to use it he came up with the idea for us to make the Department a Facebook page. So we both got to work at it, it took us a little while because we needed to make sure that everything was perfect and the way he wanted it. But it's awesome that we were given such big responsibility, and I think it's important that the Department has an outlet where they are able to reach people from the community. So far after a couple days of being up and running the page already has about 55 likes, which isn't bad at all. I think it was an awesome Idea to make a page for the Essex Department, because most of the other Departments around this area have them and they use them to post; reminders, information, photos, and anything else they think that the public should see. I think these Facebook pages allow the public to feel more connected to the Police, which is very important!

Week 2 Blog 5

Today the police station is very busy with all that has been going on in Boston recently. But the other intern and I were given a project. Today we are compiling information about all the other police departments around here in Essex county. Once we have compiled this information we need to put it in a spread sheet and organize it. In my own opinion I like being given projects because it means that I can really just sit down and work. What's strange is that if someone were to come over to my house and see my bedroom, it's what my mom calls "a complete disaster area". But when I am doing any sort of project or anything with information I always keep my information really neat. Here there is only one computer that the interns are authorized to use but I bring in my own computer and I get to work on it. This helps me out a lot because I am a lot more used to my own computer than any other computer, using it helps me work more efficiently sometimes. Overall so far I am liking my job here at the police station, slowly I am getting over my weird fear of the police, and for me this is a very good thing!

Week 2 Blog 4

Today was a pretty eventful day! I am generally used to getting up at around 6:30 in the morning in order to make it to school on time, but today I got to go to the station at around noon. This was awesome I got to sleep in a little and get some of my house chores done. When I finally got to the station both of the police officers were watching the news coverage of the manhunt going on in Boston. I hadn't watched the news today and I wasn't aware of what was going on exactly, they both informed me. I was shocked I couldn't believe that was going on so close to me. Later I continued to help one of the officers with the project that he is working on. For safety purposes the interns aren't allowed to ride in the police cars, I completely understand this, because there is a possibility that the officer could get a call and have to go on duty. So I got to use my own car and follow the police car. In the beginning I was driving around getting everything done. But as we were driving around I pulled over to the side of the road to turn around because the road was narrow, little did I know the grass in that area was very soft and muddy underneath. My car being rear wheel drive got stuck, I tried and tried to get the car to go, but it wouldn't budge, the tire would just dig deeper. The officer I was working with was really nice and helped me get my car out of the rut. I felt really bad that my own stupidity got it stuck in the first place, and that he ended up pushing it out. But he was really nice about it and I am really appreciative that he helped me. 

Seanna: Week 1 Blog 3

Working outside of school on an internship is really fun. I like it because I don't have to sit down all day long, and I don't have to each lunch at only 11 o'clock. I am allowed to take my lunch break when I need to, I like the feeling of being able to be independent. This experience has been very eye opening for me, going into this internship I only had a basic knowledge of what the police actually do. Every day I am learning something new. As I mentioned in my previous entry everyone at the Station is really nice and everyday I meet someone new! Recently the other intern Nick and I have been assigned to help out one of the officers with a project that he is working on. It is a good feeling knowing that a simple high school student such as myself, can help a police officer with something important to the town. My favorite part so far, I will have to admit is that we get to work on computer a lot, which is practically my favorite thing to do. If something can be done on a computer, it is rarely boring. 

Seanna: Week 1 Blog 2

My opinion of the police just keeps getting better and better! So far this has been a very valuable learning experience, I have learned more here in 3 days than I have learned in the 4 years that I have been in high school. Not to mention that the information is far more interesting than it is at school. There are these really cool books that have a lot of law information in them. At first I thought that they would read just like regular books, and if anybody knows me I don't usually read books unless I absolutely have to. But in this case I could pick one of these up and keep flipping through the pages, before I know it an hour would go by and I hadn't even realized it. Perhaps I have been cured of my terrible reputation with any sort of thing with a binding and an absurd amount of pages. This has also really got me thinking about what I want to base my end presentation on. One thing I hadn't realized about the police here is that they do a little bit of everything, if something needs to get done they will just get it done, no complaints. The other day I went to go get some shoe polish for them so that their shoes could stay shiny and remain professional. It made me happy knowing that I could help out even in small ways. 

Seanna: Week 1 Blog 1

I am not certain why but I have always had a very strange fear of the police. Once when I was 10 my mom got pulled over because I wasn't wearing my seat belt,as soon as I saw the lights on the police cruiser go off, I started crying and telling my mom that I was really sorry. She couldn't understand why I was so upset. I was just really scared of the idea of a cop coming up to our car because of something that I had done. I think I have finally gotten over this fear though, through my internship I have learned something vital. The police to a certain degree are people just like everyone else. By "to a certain degree" I mean that they handle sensitive information that the average person does not have access to. I had no idea what to expect going into this internship, all I knew was that I wanted a career in law enforcement, specifically the crime lab. This of course meant working with police officers. On the first day of my internship, naturally I was a little bit nervous. But all of the people who work for The Essex Police Department are all really nice. In my own opinion this is an awesome place to do an internship if your looking for a career in law enforcement. The people here make the environment really comfortable, and they are all really interested in helping us learn more about what they do. I have already learned so much about what the police have to go through in their careers. Most importantly I have learned that police are just doing their jobs they don't mean to make anyone upset they are just enforcing laws and making sure that everyone stays safe.

New Labels

New Labels