Receptioning
The reception area at the Fillmore Police Station on Sespe is a sage green box with brown square tiles. If you put the image into a giant blender, the result might resemble unappetizing—and in any case inedible—mint-chocolate chip ice cream. A lone red candy dispenser keeps me company, its personality split three ways: it simultaneously invites quarter-laden folk to “Enjoy delicious M&Ms candies—a helping hand is given to local civic activities,” and “Enjoy delicious Skittles Sour Candy,” and also touts, “Bubble King.”(1) By the glass entrance door, a gray file cabinet marked, “Turn in Prescription Medication Program” stands guard, cautioning, “Pharmaceutical drugs only!” (Emphasis not mine.) Behind me on a blind-covered window, a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department recruitment poster pitches “$61,400-$84,600 Plus Benefits.”

I have time to notice all this because a concerned, smartly-dressed middle-aged couple stands at the reception window, reporting in great detail a suspicious figure who has been lurking about on his bike in their neighborhood. “We’ve been watching him for over a month now,” they say. A woman with her young son comes in to pick up, fill out, and turn in a ride-along form, and then—and then—I’m ushered past Candy Dispenser, past the security camera that was surely watching every breath I took and every move I made, (2) into the mysterious recesses of the building.

Through the Door
The affable Sergeant Dave Wareham welcomes me to the shared office on the other side of the recruitment poster. A brightly-colored plush parrot perches on a desk nearby; it, too, watches me, its head tilted slightly to better hear. “Where shall we begin?” Wareham asks. How about:

Becoming a Police Officer
The Sheriff’s Department accepts applications on a regular basis. Accepted applicants proceed to testing; there’s a general practical knowledge written test that covers verbal, math, reading, and writing skills, somewhat like the SAT. There’s a physical fitness test that includes pulling a 160 lb dummy for a distance, running 500 yards in satisfactory time, completing an obstacle course, and even jumping a six-foot fence. Is there a technique to that? “Yes. Attack it.” Wareham explains that most people run up to, then stop, at a wall, when the momentum from approaching the wall actually allows the jumper to kick off the surface of a solid wall to scale it. There are different kinds of fences that all deputies must be able to jump (they’re viewable at the Police Academy located at the Camarillo Airport, by the helicopter hangar).

Applicants also fill out a 20- to 30-page background packet asking for previous addresses, who their neighbors were, and detailed explanations of any drinking, drug use, or criminal history, as well as about their financial record. The department uses this profile to look for people who take responsibility for their actions; the police force especially is not the place for folk who may have, or are likely to develop, conflicts of interest. There’s a polygraph test, too.

A complete physical is required as well as a psychological examination (“300 questions that are really bizarre, I’ll tell ya.”) Finally the applicant meets with a psychologist to explore any traumatizing experiences and how the applicant dealt with them to gauge maturity level and mark reactions to notable life experiences such as family deaths.

Those who make the cut join the Academy class. Wareham describes it as “a highly intense college curriculum,” only classes are taken under constant supervision with a tactical officer yelling in your face. The idea is to train future deputies to cope with stress, because on the job out on the streets, “you’re going to be yelled at.” Infractions such as—Wareham looks around for an example—a stray thread on the uniform would merit a yelling-at, and the penalty might be having to handwrite a memo on the importance of maintaining impeccable uniform appearance at all times. And handwriting means block writing. As I glance around to see if the current officers have kept this up, Wareham concedes that legibility is what matters most outside of the Academy.

So the trainees are paid to take part in the 16-week Academy where they learn all sorts of neat things, such as how to drive a police car—fast. And make turns, going fast. Was it fun? “It is. It’s a lot of fun,” Wareham smiles. They also learn how to shoot handguns. They learn to fight. They study Spanish. They study law, and how to apply it. They learn First Aid and CPR. They learn “the 10-code,” a shorthand for officers to communicate their actual activities.

Graduates of the academy begin work in the Custody Department, four to six years as full-fledged deputies (citizens can sign up to observe activities at the Ventura County Detention Facility). Here they study human behavior and learn to take care of people under the influence of drugs as well as the mentally ill, in a controlled environment.

Once on patrol, there’s four months of field training under the supervision of another deputy. The new deputies learn how to handle different kinds of calls, and brush up on procedures such as making arrests.

There’s a lot to learn, just as there’s a lot to handle: a deputy must be prepared to face challenging circumstances alone until backup arrives. “One deputy, one riot” summarizes this philosophy. I picture a large, angry mob(3) and a lone police officer having to approach them. What would you do? I flinch as I ask. Unperturbed and always smiling, Wareham calmly states: “Take command. I’m in charge. It sounds scary, but when you’re trained, you know that’s your role.” While this fortifies me intellectually, picturing myself in the hypothetical deputy’s position, only now with zombied-out revolutionaries in striped trousers turning to me with their pitchforks, I shrink into my chair. Unaware of this escalation but noticing my diminishment, Wareham continues, “Being a police officer is not a job for everybody.” But there’s so many of them and one of you, though, I protest. He reminds me of the guns I’d have with me. “But you need to be able to validate the use of lethal force; you don’t have to use it. You could wait for backup—unless someone’s in jeopardy.”

While I contemplate escaping in the police car, Wareham points out that there are varied positions in the sheriff’s department: helicopter pilots, homicide detectives, canine officers—ooh, is the dog here? Unfortunately, the dog is out with its trainer. Does it take commands in German? Yes. Are they friendly? If the trainer indicates it to be—you should never approach one that’s alone in a police car; it’s trained to protect it. I think of the non-police dogs I occasionally incite to vicious barking in the parking lot some mornings merely by taking notice of them. Yeah, wouldn’t want to approach them on my own. So no German shepherd petting today; my German’s getting rusty, but oh well.(4)

Venturing Deeper Into the Station
Sergeant Wareham takes me down the hall, explaining that people come in for help for a wide range of reasons, from “I lost my wallet” to “My boyfriend was murdered last night.”(5) On the Computer-Aided Dispatch system, we monitor an incident as it unfolds before us in code. Wareham deciphers the dispatcher’s shorthand: it’s a 211, a robbery; the Disturbing Party may still be in the area; the Reporting Party is making statements that sound “irrational” (this was spelled out); the situation reaches radio-blocking status and takes over the frequency; Code 3: lights and sirens.

At the end of another hall, there’s a menacing matte black AR-15 mounted on the wall. Wareham explains that after a past incident, the front windows of the building were replaced with bulletproof glass. Situations happen; the gun’s there to be used if the occasion calls for it.

We step into a room with two desks and cubbies of various documents; that’s where offers write their reports at the end of their shifts. From there we enter a room filled with large dark blue lockers and two large safes. It also smells somewhat like a locker room. “That’s exactly what this is,” Wareham laughs. He pulls out a yellow Breathalyzer kit from one and says the devices are tested every week by the County to ensure they’re calibrated correctly. I notice this box is labeled, “Porthos.” “Yes, there’s three of them,” I’m told. So the large black bags stored here are the deputies’ equipment bags—they can weigh about 40 lbs or so. Wareham says that as their cars are their office, deputies take along everything they might need when they go on patrol.

In the briefing room, a modest-sized Toshiba flat-screen is mounted above the evidence lockers. Wareham shows me how evidence gathered from crime scenes are put into various receptacles and are deposited in the double-locking lockers. Once they’re locked, they can’t be opened and the evidence tampered with; only the evidence technician from the crime lab has the key.

In the corner there’s a bulletin board marked “Wanted”: a series of photographs of jaded-looking youths are labeled with names, birthdates, and aliases. These are the known members of “STO,” the local tagging crew. It stands for “State the Obvious.” One wishes they wouldn’t.

Wareham leads me down the hall on the other side of the briefing room, where an intimidating burly, shaven-headed fellow pushing a mop courteously says, “Excuse me,” as I pass. When we duck into a doorway, I ask Wareham why the man is wearing a bright orange T-shirt. “Oh, that’s an inmate worker,” he replies cheerfully. Oh.
In a small room with a tamper-proof image-securing computer, I spy a can of Campbell’s Select in the corner cabinet. The law requires that within two and a half hours of being brought to the station, juveniles must be offered food. Wareham opens the cabinet wide: there are also blankets and rolls of clothes inside—the same outfit that I’d seen on the inmate.

Wareham points out the eyebolts to secure handcuffs on the detention bench in the probation room. We pass the spartan interview room to reach the jail: two adjacent rooms that look none too inviting. The second in particular gives me pause. There’s a detention bench and a round table inside, but what catches my attention is the carpeted wall behind the bench: it’s savagely scratched up. The people in there weren’t very happy, eh? Wareham answers in the negative and points to the letters “LBZ” burned into the carpeted wall above the eyebolt. How did they manage that? He doesn’t know, either. The whiteboard on the outside of the door hasn’t been wiped off yet. Block letters read, Name: “Alfonso,” MJ Grower; Charges: all we can charge him with. Apparently he wasn’t very likeable.

In the last alcove by the back exit, images from the station’s security cameras play on screens above a radio emitting strange tunes. Who chose the music? “The inmate workers.” Ah.

Back in briefing room, Wareham runs me through an intoxication test, and we officially establish my sobriety.(6)

The Sergeant
So how did Sergeant Wareham become a cop? He grew up in Pennsylvania, attended Penn State with the goal of becoming a corporate lawyer, and loved his college experience. When he visited his sister in Ventura (America’s “Ventura Highway” determined her destination), he started working for the Star Free Press, but returned to Penn State to finish his degree in Administration of Justice and Business Law minor despite having been offered a major promotion—“It was a very good summer,” he recounts. He came back to work for the Star Free Press the after graduation, and eventually began to study at the Ventura College of Law. One day he sat next to a deputy who was getting paid to go to law school. The rest is history—almost: “I never finished law school, but I still have aspirations,” Wareham says. His passion for justice fuels his interest in becoming a defense attorney one day, although he might consider pursuing a master’s in education as well; Wareham is a credentialed substitute teacher. How cool is that.

Exit
The sergeant walks me to the front to of the station, where we discuss Alfonso’s marijuana operation discovered in the hills during a recent fly-over. Helicopters don’t take passengers, alas, but citizens are entitled to ride along with a deputy once every six months. He suggests I sign up for Friday or Saturday night, when “there’s more action.” Friday, then!
He disappears into the building; I jaywalk across the street.

Part II to come.

(1) ith that mixed in, it’d be more like an unappetizing and inedible Frostie™.
(2) Doesn’t sound nearly as catchy in the past tense, does it?
(3) They’re wielding pitchforks and milling around a guillotine, but I don’t divulge these details.
(4) It’s been years since I’ve had a legitimate occasion to bellow, “Nein!”
(5) The question then would be, why did you wait until today to report it?
(6) It’s not going to change.