Yesterday's Phoenix (eBook)

THE ACADEMY

“You are all lower than whale shit.”

—Officer Martin Farley

Officer Farley smiled when he said that, but he couldn’t have been more serious. Or correct. The San Francisco Police Department, to a member, viewed the 162nd recruit class as nothing more than bottom-feeding wannabes. Untested, unproven, unworthy. Lower than whale shit.

This was day two of the academy, our first “real” day of training, and Farley had taught us a lesson reinforced daily over the next twenty weeks. We were not cops. Not even close. We were punk recruits, months away from graduating a basic academy. And anyone forgetting their place in the police food chain would regret that lapse of memory quickly.

Yesterday, day one, had been spent mostly at 850 Bryant Street, the Hall of Justice (“850” to the crooks, “The Hall” to cops). The Hall was the headquarters of the SFPD, home to command staff, investigations, support services (crime scene investigations, auto fleet, communications) and Southern police station. It also housed the courts, jails, and the probation department. Most everything related to the criminal justice system in one location. A great concept.

We saw none of these things. Our day began in the Police Commission room, where the Tactical staff (Tac staff), our immediate supervisors, was introduced to the class. Each was a veteran patrol officer, men and women who’d “made their bones.” We were all duly impressed. Within a few weeks our awe of them would fade (in some cases vanish), but for now we were properly humble.

Tac staff escorted us to photo lab, where identification pictures were taken. We stepped up to the camera, one at a time, holding a sheet of paper bearing our hand-printed name and star number. This was placed beneath the chin, mug shot style. The photographer, a cop, worked quickly. Before I could blink the picture was snapped.

Next we descended to the Property Clerk’s Office in the basement. Windowless, this dungeon-like corner of the Hall housed the department’s booked property and evidence. Tons of items were stuffed into cabinets and jammed onto warehouse shelving across the far wall. A wide counter separated this area, and staff, from the public. Today we were the public, and a disinterested patrolman in a dusty jumpsuit pushed a shopping bag containing used equipment (duty belt, handcuff case, chemical agent holder—stuff we couldn’t hurt ourselves or others with) to each of us.

We transferred this gear to personal grip bags, and were ordered to report to the Academy in two hours. I grabbed lunch, the last I would enjoy off campus for months, with a couple of classmates. I was too nervous to savor the meal, but it was nice getting acquainted with fellow recruits.

The afternoon was spent filling out civil service forms and other boring administrative stuff. Classroom seats and lockers were assigned. A parking lottery was held, and I was lucky to get a space on school grounds, rather than on the street. But my luck ended there, and the day finished with a deserved trip to the woodshed.

Weeks earlier I’d been late for a pre-academy meeting with Tac Officer Shirley Guidry. A stupid move resulting in a bad first impression. Now Officer Guidry taught me a valuable lesson (my second, after the whale shit thing) of academy life—never, ever, be late to any assignment. Scheduling, for everything, was tight. Tardiness would not be tolerated.

Officer Guidry pulled me aside and claimed my hair was not regulation length. We both knew this was bullshit, but I wasn’t about to challenge her. I’d screwed up, and now I was being punished. I was ordered to get a haircut that evening, and to write an essay describing the importance of maintaining grooming standards, as well as a “scratch” (a catch-all SFPD form used for most internal correspondence) documenting this screw up. I wasn’t concerned about completing this nonsense; I knew I could get it done. But I was very worried about my future with Officer Guidry. Clearly she had a good memory. If she bore a grudge, I was in trouble.

I started feeling some heat at the end of the day when we were assigned an additional essay detailing why we wanted to be members of the SFPD. My busy evening just got busier. And what a knucklehead assignment. What was next, “How I spent my summer vacation?”

But there was some logic to all this.

Nowhere during the examination process was a candidate required to write anything besides their name. Even the written test was completed on a Scantron sheet. Questions were answered by filling in empty circles with a number two pencil. Hardly an indicator of literacy. Now Tac Staff had to figure out who could or couldn’t write, fast. This essay would tell them a lot.

I choked down dinner and sped to a chain store barber shop that advertised like crazy on television. There I received a short, lousy haircut well within department guidelines. I was embarrassed to be seen beneath that butcher job, but now was not the time for vanity. I turned to my writing assignments, finishing them sometime after two in the morning.

So much for Day One.

Day two was the first day of training. Three important subjects were covered this day. First we learned the rules and regulations governing academy life. Next we became familiar with the training facility. Finally we introduced ourselves to our classmates. This last part proved by far the most interesting.

Learning the rules and regulations governing the academy was like a trip back to grammar school. Each of us, in turn, read aloud from our manuals, a single paragraph describing part of one department order or another. How nostalgic. I hadn’t recited in front of a class since sixth grade. I’m guessing Tac Staff used this exercise to determine who could actually read.

We also learned that while the SFPD ran its own academy, it did so at the pleasure of “POST” (Peace Officers Standards and Training). Headquartered in Southern California, this was the governing body overseeing all law enforcement training in California. POST established the guidelines and the minimum standards required for passing every exam, everywhere in the state. POST, so far as training went, was law enforcement’s Supreme Court.

I learned much later the SFPD had once tried to relax (okay, reduce) some POST standards to help a number of marginal recruits. POST responded by pulling the department’s certification. Anxious to stay in the training business, the SFPD put everything back in place, quickly. It seems even the big boys and girls aren’t above a well-deserved pants down spanking, now and again.

Anyway, thank goodness for POST. Without it the SFPD would be ravaged by special interest groups fretting over “adverse impact.” I can hear them whining now on behalf of weakling recruits. Can’t read or write? Fine, just dictate your reports to someone who can. Can’t handle physical training? No worries, most cops are in lousy shape, anyway. Morally opposed to carrying a gun? Leave your bullets in your locker.

POST has kept the SFPD afloat. Period.

A tour of the academy came next. This would be “home” for the next five months, where we would receive the longest, most extensive training of our entire career. I wasn’t expecting Quantico, but I wasn’t ready for this place, either. The SFPD, a major agency serving a “world-class city” (if you believed Tac Staff), held its academy in an old, battered elementary school. A facility that had never been modified whatsoever for police training.

Lecture was given in a dingy cinderblock classroom, featuring chalk, rather than grease boards. Physical training took place in a musty gym. The blacktop, in need of resurfacing, served as our track for running. We would log many miles here, feet pounding over the faded paint of four square and hopscotch games. Underwhelming? Hell, it was depressing.

Unfortunately, the academy was representative of the entire SFPD. Few facilities, from district stations to satellite offices, properly accommodated the cops and staff working them. Many, like the academy, were repurposed buildings never intended for law enforcement. And most were a real embarrassment when visitors, like outside cops or civilians, entered them.

We returned to class where Sergeant Moses Banbury, the head of Tac Staff, advised we would now introduce ourselves to our fellow recruits. One at a time, in alphabetical order (our seating order), each of us stood by his or her desk and offered a few personal facts about themselves. It was quickly clear we were a diverse group of forty men and women. Our backgrounds, our work histories, (five had prior experience in law enforcement, everyone else came from the private sector) differed significantly. It was an interesting, if strange assortment of people.

In basic demographics, thirty members of the 162nd recruit class were male; twenty of them Caucasian. Four were openly gay. The remaining men were African American, Asian, and Hispanic. Eight of the women were Caucasian, two African American. Two were lesbians. Recruit ages ranged from early twenties to early forties—two generations having only the academy in common.

Finally, the 162nd was a “hybrid” class. Most of us were the first appointees from the top of the new E-99 civil service list. Several were the last hired from the “old” E-98 list. None of us cared about that, but one thing quickly became clear over the next couple weeks—the E-98 folks tended to struggle with academics. I found the entrance exams practically invalid they...