My Externship with the Virginia Beach Police Department
(along with the mission statement is their core values, the different departments and contact information)
Our externship was to complete thirty hours with an occupation of our choice. My professor and I decided to place me with the Virginia Beach Police Department. I worked for the second precinct which is located on the Ocean Front. I was able to ride with three different officers, each were very different in their own ways but were also very similar when it came to their job. The best part about the police department says all three is the freedom that you receive. You never have someone looking over your shoulder, and you are always moving and never sitting in an office behind a desk, they are out and about on the streets. There main goal is to protect our community and to keep us safe. I did not think highly of police officers until I participated in this externship. They are people to and they realize that, they are just out there trying to save lives its their job. Without them we would live in a very evil world.
During my ride a longs I saw many interesting things and it was really neat to see them close up. All of the officers let me get out of the car and watch them when they arrested someone and let me help with the writing of tickets and so much more. I saw three arrests (two for DUI's and one for drunk in public within a hospital) experienced noise complaints, I even got to see a truck on fire. I also saw two fights and even got to help search for robbers, it was an amazing experience. You will never be able to experience something like this unless you are out there watching, a classroom could never teach you a lot of the information that I learned. The officers wanted to make sure that I got the experience that I needed to realize how the job gets done. They never put me into danger and if they did they were always in front of me making sure that nothing happened to me. It was a life changing experience, and because of it I decided to become a police officer. I would like to do an internship next fall, and then start police training in January! Maybe when I get graduate I might have a full time job waiting for me who knows..