Update

Last week I made the third trip to Richmond to take the long dreaded polygraph test. Of course I passed it with flying colors. Everyone keeps asking me if I have heard anything since then. To answer everyone at the same time, no. I am surprised to an extent and at the same time I'm not. I knew from the start this was going to be a long process. They started out with over 600 applicants. I know it has to take a lot of effort to narrow the field down the fill the 25 open vacancies in the next academy. In a way I'm really happy that I haven't heard anything cause that means that I still have a shot. On the other hand it's rather aggravating to not here anything cause I'm not sure what the next step is. I know if I was meant to get this job then everything will work out. Several people don't wanna see me move back out of NC, but I have to do what makes me happy and if getting this job makes me happy, then that's what I'm gonna do. Hope everyone is having a great week. I have 3 more days in my vacation. Im gonna spend them doing nothing. I'll update again next week or sooner if I hear anything.

Back to the grind

After 4 weeks in Basic Training for Correctional Officers, and an extra week off just because I wanted to, I finally returned to work this past Friday night. I lucked out and was A-section first half which meant I was able to just walk around and help where needed. When I finally made it into the block, and the inmates seen me back for the first time, there were numerous gasps for air. Several inmates even yelled out "oh no, Burns is back", throughout the block. I took this as a sign that they just love me when I work haha. For the first hour or so, I kept hearing those same things over again. Several inmates came up and asked me how my vacation was. I of course told them it was awesome! It was definitely a little weird getting back into the swing of things after being gone for over a month. There were so many new faces of inmates that had transferred in from other camps, from other units, and even from the other block. I know its gonna take me a while to get used to it all again. Its almost like starting over except for the few inmates who hate me even more now that I'm back. It's ok. For me, that just tells me that I do my job right, the way its supposed to be done, and the inmates hate that. That sucks for them I guess. Just makes me look like a better officer when they complain about me. The weekend ended up going by pretty fast. Saturday drug my at a snails pace but Friday night and last night flew by. Thank goodness. It was nice to see my co workers again after being gone for so long. They were, surprisingly, happy to see me. Even the one that I haven't really gotten along with since I got there welcomed me back. It was kinda nice. also waiting for me at the Unit was a letter from the Superintendent of the facility congratulating me on my accomplishment. This kind of positive energy is what makes me so happy that I left my former job and came to work with the state. It makes you feel appreciated in everything you do and accomplish. The first weekend has come and gone and it's now my short week. I was feeling a little tired already after 3 days, so I decided to take the week off lol. Yes, you read that right. I was at Basic Training for 4 weeks, took a week off, worked 3 days and now I'm taking another week off. The best part is, I'm only having to use 12 hours of vacation time, which in the end will come out of my holiday comp time bucket. That means I'll end up using no vacation time at all! Haha! Love it. Now, it's time for me to go relax at my moms...for a week!

Polygraph outta the way

Today was the big day for the polygraph test for the Richmond Police. I was really nervous going into it because I have never taken one before, therefore I had no idea what to expect. The examiner I had was completely full of himself and "tooted his own horn" for nearly the entire 2 hours. He was the best, he had been on TV, he knew all the cheats, etc. Blah, blah, blah. After that went on for a little while he kinda chilled out. Started talking to me about Buffalo cause he realized I had lived there. Come to find out he was from North Tonawanda. What a small world. In the end, all that talking made me feel a lot better. He went over a lot of my background stuff againjust to see if i had given the same answers as before. He gave me the test twice. I didnt complain. In the wnd, I ended up passing it. Now its on to the next step I suppose.

I'm Certified!!!

This past week was one of the hardest weeks of the four. It was 5 days of just straight power points and lectures. I wasn't sure that it was ever going to end. We had to learn so much information, plus we had to review for the final exam. There were so many things this final week that I was afraid I was gonna forget because we had such a short time to retain it. I have never been a person that does a lot of studying. This was no different. There was only one night out of the entire 4 weeks that I came home and studied. Is that something to brag about? No. But, it just goes to show, paying attention in class makes a huge difference. It seemed everyone else was there to make friends, be buddies, have a lunch pal, etc. Me, I went there to learn and that's what I did. There were two women in the class that aggravated me more than most of the inmates I deal with. They were both older and just plain B$#@es. Is that mean to say? Of course it is but the truth hurts. They were the ones that pretended to know everything about everything the entire four weeks. They hated me. Which is fine. I didn't like either of them either. The other day the oldest one asked me something and I gave her an answer. She then asked me what unit I work at and my response to her was, "the it ain't none of your business unit." She got ticked off and said that was rude. Really? I thought it was the sweetest comment I could say. Either way, neither of them liked the fact that I never studied, yet I was always answering questions. So when it came time for testing I was sure they were both gonna make higher than I did because of all the studying they did. The testing session came and went and I was the 4th one done out of 21. Is that a good thing? Not necessarily. But I was pretty confident that I passed. After it was all said and done, we lost 2 people who didn't pass the test. I ended up getting an 86. The highest score was a 92. I definitely gave myself a pat on the back for that one. After the test was completed we had to have graduation. Since I wasn't sure whether I was gonna pass or not, I didn't invite anyone to the ceremony lol. My Sgt. told me that he was gonna come. That meant a great deal to me cause I have never worked for someone that cared about the employees like the 2 Sgt's I work for. They have been supportive in everything that has gone on and even with the things I'm trying to accomplish outside the DOC. There were also 2 other Administrative people from Nash that came to the graduation. It really meant a lot to me to see them showing support for the officers that complete training. Now that training is over I have a full week off. I don't go back in to work till next Friday. I'm gonna make the best of it and just try and make up for some of that lost sleep. But I can now walk back in that facility next Friday and hold my head high and say that I am now a North Carolina Department of Corrections, Certified Correctional Officer.

Week 3 complete

Week 3 has come and gone. It wasn't anything special really. Most of the week was spent in the classroom except for Wednesday we had to qualify with the standard shotgun used by the DOC which is the Remington 870 pump action 12 guage. Since I really had no experience shooting a shotgun before I was kinda worried I wasnt gonna qualify since everything was timed. But in the end it wasn't that bad at all. We received 7 rounds for the shotgun. Each round is a 12 gauge 2 3/4 inch 00 buckshot with 9 pellets in each. To qualify, you have to get atleast 36 holes in the target. You have a potential to get 63 so you wouldn't think it would be too hard. Well for some people, it was. We were shooting at distances of 25, 40 and 50 yards. For someone who has never shot a shotgun before it was rather easy. At the end of the day, I came out in 2nd place of our class of 21. I had 58/63 and the guy who beat me had 60/63. That's not too bad if you ask me. If you feel you can do better while being timed, you let me know and I'll be happy to let you prove it. At the end of the day we had low/limited light training. They let us fire the handguns again as well as a few more rounds with the shotgun. I did pretty well on those too. We finally got outta there at 8pm. It was a long day for sure, and picking up brass on the range with flashlights wasn't fun at all.

To the right is the shotgun Target from last week. I picked a white guy this time cause someone mentioned I had shot all block guys prior to this one. Now I am a racially indifferent shooter :)

CRDT in the books!!

Well this past week we had CRDT training and expandable Monadnock baton training. I have to say that this was some of the most intense yet fun training I have ever went through. There were so many things we had to learn. It took up the entire second week but I'm sure we could have spent much more time on it.

The first part of CRDT or Control, Restraints and Defensive Techniques, we spent learning the nerve points on the body that we can use most effectively. The nerves that we learned to use were the suprascapular, common peronial, femoral, superficial, brachial plexis, radial nerve, mandibular angle and the jugular notch. A lot to remember right? I personally don't care about learning the names till it's time for me to write a statement about a use of force where I used one of them and I need to know the name. The main thing I wanna know is how to use them. With the training we got in that short week I can control almost any type of inmate or even a person on the street that's being aggressive. There is a little bit of something for everyone. And not only did we learn all those types of techniques, but we learned multiple ways to administer them. That's where the fun part comes in.

For each one of the moves that we learned throughout the week, we had to partner up with another officer to practice on. They wanted us to make sure we understood how to do each technique effectively. Me and one officer worked together for the first couple days. Both of us felt the same way. We wanted to make sure we did the moves hard enough so that the person receiving it felt the pain on a smaller scale than the inmate, but still enough so as to leave a lasting impression. The brachial plexis and the radial nerve are the two that stand out the most on lasting pain. These two regions hurt for several days after we did them just because he and I were doing it at about 50%. When I say it hurt...there were times where we took each other to the knees in pain. Not only did we want to know what it felt like, but we wanted to make sure we were doing it properly. Whats the point of learning something if your just gonna pretend to hit the other person and not know if its effective or not. You haven't learned anything at all.

The femoral nerve and the common peronial nerve one the ones that had a lasting impression as well. Obviously the femoral nerve runs along the inside of your thigh. The common peronial runs along the outside of your leg about 2 inches above the knee. When hit properly, the pain is excruciating. That is not an understatement. One guy managed to get hit in his manhood one good time. What was funny about it was he had just said an hour before how he never wanted kids and that people who had kids were selfish. Well guess what...a couple more shots like that and you won't have to worry about having any kids. For each one of these nerves there were several ways to administer them. We learned and practiced them all...the most effective in my opinion was the knee spear. It hurt like a b*%$@!! Especially when the person hit you harder than they were trying to.

The mandibular angle is one that I couldn't resist trying on my nephew when I got home that day. These are the nerves right behind the ear at the base of it. There is a little indention there and you just have to press your fingertip in there and it will almost make a grown man cry. I know for a fact that it's not something I want someone to do to me again anytime soon.

We learned several blocks and other defensive moves. One of which was the arm bar take down. By the end of the day I felt like I needed a new shoulder. If you have never had it done to you before, try to avoid it. Bouncing off of those mats when you get taken down for an hour was a serious workout and made my entire body hurt. Not to mention the guy I was having to take down was like 6 inches taller than me and 90 more pounds than I am. It was definitely fun to learn though.

One of the last things we learned in CRDT was how to perform the guard in and guard out technique. This was by far my favorite because we performed it to its full potential.I ended up partnering with a 5'3" 200lb officer. We practiced all the different holds and learned them. Each one we had to perform it almost 10 times to make sure we could do it and it be effective. Finally the did role playing and told one officer to be the inmate and have the officer in the guard. I happened to be the officer that was in the guard. We were directed to utilize all the techniques we had learned that week to get out of the guard. We took this task very seriously. He had me locked in and I was literally fighting for my life. To understand the difficulty of this you have to understand the positioning. The person performing the guard is on their back with the other person locked in between there legs in a type of headlock. The guy that had me in the guard was all muscle. He was doing everything in his power to keep me locked in. I was trying all the pressure points and nerves to get loose and nothing was working. I even grabbed skin on the side of him and twisted and pinched trying to break his grip. Nothing worked. He had me so tight that i was within a few breaths of passing out. I actually lost hearing completely because he had cut off the blood flow and oxygen. I was so close to passing out. Finally the instructors came up and hit me and tried to boost my confidence. Out of nowhere my adrenaline kicked in even more. I managed to get an immense amount of strength and pick this guy completely up off the ground and slam him back on the mat to loosen his grip. I did a few more nerve techniques and finally I broke loose of the hold and stumbled away ready to pass out again. By then, we had gotten the attention of the entire class because we were taking it to the highest end of the realism spectrum. We were both completely physically exhausted after that for almost half an hour. Looking back I'm so glad we did that because it showed me just what I was capable of when put under a stressful situation such as do or die. It don't get much closer than that.

The training we got in CRDT is immeasurable. There are so many things that we learned that we can take with us and use every day if the need arose. Im so thankful that I had the chance to do all of those things.