First Practical Joke
My first Field Training Officer (FTO) was a much older officer and very near retirement. I don’t think he liked me much, but to be fair, he didn’t like anybody that I could tell. When I was riding with him I did all the work he didn’t want to do. I was young and was trying to be a sponge and learn as much as I could, since the academy hadn’t really taught me much more than how to find laws in the penal code and how to put cuffs on a prisoner without hurting them or me.
There is an old and well known prank that senior officers like to play on new officers, which I had heard about from one of the guys at the academy. It goes like this. The older officer shows the new guy how to get free coffee and sodas at the convenience stores. Then they make sure the new guy drinks as much as he can while they drive around way out in the county, not near a bathroom at all. Eventually the new guy will need to relieve himself, and they pull over on a side road and the new guy gets out and starts to pee. As soon as he does, the older officer hits the overhead lights and speeds off like he is going to a hot call. Leaving the poor new guy standing there unsure as to what to do.
Sure enough, one night my FTO was helping me get super sized sodas and driving around in the middle of nowhere in the county. When I couldn’t hold it any longer I asked to hit a restroom. “This is the country, just pee on the side of the road” he said. I saw it coming, so I got out, started to relieve myself and yep, he took off.
I laughed to myself and finished my business. The one thing the FTO didn’t count on was that I knew that part of the county really well. I jumped the fence and headed cross country to where I knew there was a farm house where I could use the phone. It took me a good half hour to walk across that farm. The farmer was awake and happy to let me use the phone. I called the dispatcher and said “When my FTO gets done with that hot call, I am at this location and I’ll wait for him”. The dispatcher said “What hot call?” And I knew it was the practical joke.
A few minutes later my FTO showed up mad as heck. He screamed at me and said if he had to leave again I was to wait where he left me. They had been looking for me this whole time and were panicking that he had lost his trainee.
Later in the shift a sergeant met up with us and he basically told the FTO that they figured out what he did and that he should never put a new guy in that position ever again. This was not the way to make friends with an FTO. I don’t think he said more than two words to me for the rest of the shift.
When I came in to work the next day…new FTO.