Life Lessons: What I learned during my career in law enforcement… and in life

Recognize your strengths and weaknesses, and act accordingly. Play to your strengths while you work, but work on your weaknesses. Many things that happened in my career were the result of random acts. The important thing is to keep your eyes open to recognize the right moves. I switched fields twice in my academic career — I believed the entire experience was part of growing up.

The lesson here for young people: Do not hesitate to switch interests, majors, or fields of concentration. Success is a journey — not a race. Prepare well, retain good practices, and make a habit of effective strategies:. An important lesson in life is learning whom you can rely on, depend on, and trust, and whom you cannot.

Human nature and values — whether of business owners, top management, associates, or staff — vary all over the place. Steering your life, family, career, time, investments, and loyalty toward those you can trust and rely upon is a priority. Never forget where you came from, and always remember what you are here for.

Be true to your values and faith. And I knew exactly what it was. You know, I had smelled it before. Once you smell a dead body like that, you never forget it for the rest of your life. And when I went upstairs, the mother, she comes right at me, and she says, officer, I want to see my daughter. And I knew the daughter was dead. I hadn't even been in the apartment yet, but I knew she was dead.

And I convinced the mother just to let me go in and take a look first. And when I went in there, what I saw was - it was horrible. I mean, she had been dead several days in August. And the heat - the body had decayed very badly. I was a kid at the time. I was only, like, 25 years old.

And right then, I knew - I didn't care. I was not going to let that mother see her child in that condition. I didn't care if I had to roll around on the floor with her and handcuff her. I was not going to let her in that apartment. You know, mom was, like, twice my age. She was my mother's age.

And I really wasn't experienced in this. I didn't - I was only a cop for, like, a year-and-a-half. I really didn't have the life experience to fall back on. But somehow - in police work, you're in people's lives during times of crisis, and you have to rise to the occasion. You have to know what to say and what to do. And somehow, I convinced mom that it was best to remember her daughter the way she was and not the way she is. And luckily, she listened to me.

OK, so she never saw her daughter's decaying, bloated body, but you did. How do you get that out of your mind? I still remember it many years later. You know, there's - some stories, especially back - you know, when I was a cop during the '80s and the '90s. And when things were crazy, you know, we would go out on patrol, and it wasn't unusual to handle, you know, 15, 20 jobs a night. And then when I was working plainclothes, you know, we'd make, you know, two, three, four, five felony arrests a week.

And a lot of it you forget, but some stories, they stay with you over the years. During the 20 years you were on the job, you worked in uniform and in plainclothes. What are some of the advantages and maybe disadvantages of not being in uniform? I always liked working in plainclothes, especially in Manhattan. We would drive around in a yellow taxicab, which was actually a police car.

It was identical to all the other 13, 14, taxicabs that are out there. You couldn't tell the difference just by looking at it. And we would use that to go out and, you know, follow guys. If you're walking down the street, you know, you could look over your shoulder until your head falls off trying to figure out which cab was ours.

You're not going to. So our job was to go out, blend into crowds and look for the bad guys before they did their crime. Like, we would be riding down the street, and after a while - I kind of equate it to being like a doctor. You know, you make a diagnosis. You see this guy on the corner. Something doesn't feel right. And I would tell my guys, all right, let's stay with him. Let's give him a few minutes. And sure enough, you follow him, and you see - and you realize that he's following people, and he's looking around.

Testimonials

And then all of a sudden, he does a robbery, and you're right there to jump him as soon as he does it. So you'd - like, one of you would be driving, and the other would be in the back seat, like a passenger? I was usually driving, and I would have one or two guys with me. They'd be in the back seat as passengers. And then if we spotted a guy we liked, you know, one of them would get out, take him on foot. Sometimes we'd follow a guy for hours before he did a robbery or, you know, tried to steal a car or break into a car. That's a good question.

And like I said, it's kind of like being a doctor. You make a diagnosis. You see this guy - and I laugh. Sometimes you could see the light bulb on over his head, you know? He's got a bright idea. But the biggest thing is, when you're walking down the street - when a normal person walks down the street, you're kind of, like, in your own world.

• Building A Powerful Vision Board.
• 10 Life Lessons You Can Learn From the Smartest Older People | Time!
• PLEASE PASS THE TOE JAM?
• LEADERSHIP.
• After 20 Years On The Job, NYC Police Officer Tells His Intense Stories.

You're looking in front of you. You're looking where you're going. Maybe you're talking on your phone or whatever.

1. Testimonials – Elkhart Area Career Center;
2. De lOrigine des espèces (French Edition).
3. Prose Works (Authorized Edition)?
4. ;
5. 10 Life Lessons You Can Learn From the Smartest Older People?

But a bad guy - he's watching everybody else. He's looking for his victim. And you could always pick that up. When you see that guy, and he's looking around and he's watching everybody, where they're going, he's looking for his victim. And that's usually the clue where I knew we had something. Your father was a cop, and when you were young, you hung out at the bar, when you were underage laughter , with your father and his friend. And you loved hanging out with cops. Did you know things about your father's work that your mother didn't because you were hanging out with the cops in the bar and she wasn't?

Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, he wouldn't tell my mother - just like I don't tell my wife. I mean, my wife doesn't - all the time I was on the job, I wouldn't tell her what happened to me or how some guy pulled a gun on me and tried to shoot me. I wouldn't - I would never in a million years tell her. When I was working, when I was out on the street late at night, and you know, she'd call me up - how's it going? And I would always tell her, hey, I'm having a nice, quiet night. Don't worry about it. I'm in - I'd lie to her. I'd say, you know, I'm in the office doing paperwork.

Go back to sleep. You know, meanwhile, you know, I'm out on the street, you know, with two guns on my - strapped to my hip, and I'm waiting for some guy wanted on a homicide to show up. You can't tell your family what you really do. You have to protect them. You've got to protect them. I don't want - my mother, you know, my mother just shook her head. You know, she was very happy for me when I went onto the police department, but I remember her shaking her head. She's going - she goes, you know, I worried for the past 25 years, and I'm going to have to do it again.

And I felt bad for my mom, you know, because I was putting her through that all over again. But she understood that this was what I wanted to do. When your father was dying, you were about to take your lieutenant's test. And it's a test, apparently, that's just given once every seven years. So if you fail, you're out of luck for seven years. You'd already felt that you weren't studying enough. And your father told you something just, you know, very shortly before he died.

Can you tell us what he told you? I was in my office up in the Bronx. And my sister had called me up. Her and my mother had taken him to the hospital for the last time.

Testimonials

He was going into hospice. It was done with. There was nothing more anybody could do. And she says to me, if you want to talk to him, you'd better hurry. So I jumped in the car, and I raced to the hospital. And when I got there - my father was a tough guy, you know? He was just one of those old-school - just a tough kind of guy. And when I walked into the hospital room, you know, he was sitting there in his hospital gown.

He was half unconscious. They were shooting him up with a lot of morphine. And I knew this was the last chance I was ever going to have to speak to him on this earth. And I knelt down next to him and, you know, I grabbed his arm and I shook it. And I kind of, like, woke him up. And I'm like, hey, dad, it's me, it's me. You know, how you doing, you OK? And I didn't know what I was going to say. I didn't know what he was going to say. You know, throughout life - you know, neither one of us are the mushy type.

You know, we're not the, you know, the hugging and kissing type. We were never like that, so I didn't think it was going to go that way now. And all of a sudden, you know, he opened up his eyes, and he realized it was me. And that's when he reached out and he grabbed me. And he grabbed me by my jacket, and he told me - he goes, you listen to me, and you listen good. You know, in his morphine haze - he was out of it - he still remembered that my lieutenant's test was coming up in a couple of days.

And he was really afraid that I wasn't going to pass it because of him. This was Thursday, and my test was on Saturday. And he says to me - and he's struggling to breathe. He's having a hard time. I mean, this is the last bit of energy that he had, and he was using it for this. And he grabs me, and he pulls me in closer again. And he goes, I want you to promise me something. He goes, and I'll promise you something.

He goes, you promise me, he goes, you hit this thing on Saturday, he goes, and I promise you I won't die until Sunday. And I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He - just so that he wouldn't mess me up for my test, he was promising me he was going to hold off and he wouldn't die until Sunday. But that's the kind of guy he was. So you decided to lie to him. And you knew he was in a haze and couldn't really keep track of the days, so you told him that it was Sunday and that you passed even though it wasn't even Saturday yet.

You lied to your father for all the right reasons, to give him permission to let go. Did you feel OK about lying to him in telling him that it was Sunday and that you'd passed? He - right after we had that conversation, he went into, like, a coma, and he was out of it. And it was difficult because he was struggling to breathe. He was fighting for every breath, and it was painful to watch. And I knew that he was suffering. And this went on for, like, more than a day.

And as this was going on, I kept thinking - I says, I can't believe this. You know, he's going to keep suffering like this until Sunday just because of me and my test. Because of these experiences, I was able to get onto a fire department while still a student at EACC. During the application and interview process, it was great to be able to tell people that I would be coming from the career center with several state firefighting certifications and great references.

Without this program I would not have the career I do. The program and staff at the EACC and a drive to learn earned me a full ride scholarship to college. Jamie Stith, Zeno Ladis were my 2 biggest influences during my time in the automotive program. Achieved the goals that I have and provide for my family in the way I can. It showed me more about vehicle repairs. It landed me jobs in the field that i worked in for 14years.

They have leading edge technology that all the big shops have and helps you when you go out into he field. The instructors were extremely knowledgeable in the content but also had connections which helped me become a volunteer fire cadet and attend an emergency medical technician course. I never thought I would look forward to going to school as much as I did for Law Enforcement class.

Lesson Plan: Community Policing Practices and Reform

The life lessons and priceless impact Mr. I know a lot of us students of theirs feel the same way I do.

What Should I Know Before Pursuing a Career as a Police Officer?

The skill sets and expertise they pass on with so much devotion and selflessness is something that goes far beyond pursing that career in Law Enforcment. I knew that I was going to become a Marine regardless of my decisions of pursing college first or trying to get into the Law Enforcement field right away. The detainee handling I was taught at the Career Center is something I find myself going back to the basics that they taught us no matter my clime and place and I have used it in my everyday life with the Marine Corps. In attending the career center I was able to start working in the profession I have always wanted to straight out of high school.

It is amazing that I was able to to that and I was pointed in the right direction by the instructors there. I am now right where I have always wanted to be and am loving what I do! I am a car sales professional for Lochmandy Motors. I learned how automobiles work and how they are repaired. That information Is invaluable in my daily business. I took this as in introductory to computer programming. Wright, my instructor, gave us a great cross section in programming languages and how it was being used in businesses. I was hired my senior year as an entry level developer with a start up software company in South Bend.

I switched my college major to business management and went on to start my own company. The Career Center gave me the foundation I needed to succeed. The School helped me get my first job in the industry working my way up through the ranks to service manager at a dealership. When I left the dealership to operate my own automotive business for fifteen years. I learned so much from her and see her as a role model, she always did everything in her power for us to have fun but most importantly to learn every lesson.

I competed for CSI and it was an amazing experience, I finished in third place it was definitely fun, and it has been a bonus in resume. My second year I was in Law enforcement and it was the best way to end my high school career. My instructor Jon Chevalier was always there, even when my classes my senior year were stressing me out he always looked for ways to help me.

I always felt like I had to make him proud, because he worked so hard for us to always believe in ourselves and motivate us to get were ever we want.



Every quote he wrote on the board I still have it till this day. He taught us that in this career not everyone will like you, but you should will always be honest. I learned how to properly handcuff someone, how to do a proper traffic stuff, write a ticket, but most importantly I learned the importance of law enforcement and I loved it!

Gave me a head start on my career. Also the actual hands on experience that the workforce requires. Having instructors that made careers in fields made the learning experience much more enjoyable than just a textbook. In emergency situations you are in the eye of the public at all times it seems, especially on scene. And with instructors that spent a life time of experience makes the room filled with passion, and students feel that. When I was in law and EMS I looked forward to class and learning a more in depth perspective on how to help people.