Originally posted by ASTAC
Being a passenger in a high speed chase does not make you guilty of running from the cops.
and Military cops are cooler and tougher than civ cops..just look at any base.you can see the difference between Military cops and the Federal cops they hire to work along side them.
Though I aspire to be Florida HP when I retire from this Mickey Mouse canoe club, (because I actually like enforcing the law)I don't have to much respect for the police I've delt with in the past. The dire need for more police in this country has drasticaly lowered the bar on the quality of the recruits. Alot of them from my experience were guys that couldn't hack it in the armed forces or were wanna be tough guys. Didn't care about the laaw as much as they did the power trip. What happened to the days of professionals that cared about the laws of the land..and enforcing those laws because it was the right thing to do?
Only a court can find someone "guilty", being a passenger makes you an "unknown", maybe dangerous.. maybe not. Those officers lives are on the line so its better safe than sorry.. everybody is dangerous until proven otherwise.
There's a reason they fled, did the officers know what that reason was?, it could be anything from stupid kids to armed felons... SBSO doesnt hand out crystal balls.
Lower standards are killing lots of Depts, but I can tell you when I got hired, out off all applicants onlly 3% got hired, fewer passed the academy, feild training, probation.. from start to finish less than 1% could hack it.
When I worked in training, we routinely washed out former military MPs, and military in general, regardless of how cool they were in the service.
California law doesn't care and requires every police trainee applicant to pass a whole bunch of tests. While military experience may get you a few extra oral score points, you still must pass every aspect of the process, and be better than everyone else, and the right color, if you want a job.
Written, oral interview, background, 1st and 2nd phase medical, logic tests (the infamous flags), 2 seperate psyche tests; MMPI followed by a head shrink session... after all these, which can take up to a year, you're ranked based on how well you did in each phase, its Fed law, so you can pass everything and still not get hired. If you fail anything, you're out and welcome to re-apply in 12 months.
Once hired; 18 week academy >> 6 months of 15+ hour days as a lower than feces "trainee" >> 12 months of probation during which you can be fired at anytime for no reason.
200 applicants, 1 of them me, were fighting for 3 openings... I had to fight and work my as5 off, nothing was handed to me and being a Marine Reserve really only helped in the academy and later in feild training. Anyone who thinks they can walk on to a police / fire dept after military service has a rude wake up in store.
I'll tell you the #1 reason we washed out military guys: bad credit. Bad credit will kill your law enforcement career dreams, you could be a Navy Seal with icewater for blood, qualified to kill in each time zone with the ability to memorize the penal code... and your bad credit will keep you out.
