This week was my first full week working primarily with my supervisor doing law enforcement! It was fun and interesting to see the day to day work of a law enforcement ranger at the Santa Monica Mountains. Everyday we did patrols of the areas that Brandon (my supervisor) was scheduled to do and other miscellaneous jobs.
The first day of law enforcement we actually did not do much law enforcement. The VRP division (visitor and resource protection which law enforcement falls under) had recently bought two new cars because they were getting rid of two old cars. So we started off the day taking care of this business of switching out the cars. It was a hassle because the places that we had to go were quite far away. After this there was a sending off event for the fire fighting team that we attended. People on the fire team were heading up to Canada for a little while so VRP wanted to give them a good send off. This ended up taking the rest of the day.
The next day before we even started our patrol we got a call from one of the people in maintenance (Larry) that there was a smashed and abandoned car on the road. Brandon and I went to check it out and it turns out Larry was right. We ran the plates and with the help of a sheriff from another agency we found out that the dad and the son were into some sketchy activities. We contacted California Highway Police and then they took care of the rest. After this we did our patrol. This particular day was quite cloudy so it ended up being a slow day. We patrolled places such as Solstice Canyon, Cheeseboro, parts of the Zuma trail (sometimes when there was a particularly slow part of the day Brandon would say "welcome to law enforcement" in a funny voice). Since the day was slow we helped facilitate a radio update that the whole Santa Monica staff was doing. SAMO was updating the channels and code that they were using for the radios and we helped by finding radios and getting them to the people coding them.
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| At Solstice Canyon there are ruins of a mansion that burned down in a wildfire in the 1980s |
The third day of law enforcement we did the same patrol. It ended up being another slower day ("welcome to law enforcement"). The one thing Brandon caught was a woman texting and driving. He ended up writing her a warning. The rest of our contacts were casual hikers asking for directions, however since it was not the nicest day there were very few contacts. So we ended up doing some miscellaneous jobs such as helping out with the radios again.
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| Around the Solstice Canyon trails there is a quiet area tucked away that people can go and have a religious experience |
The last day was more action packed because it was nice and sunny. We had a large amount of contacts with people. The majority of them were really good. They were either casual conversations, giving directions, or informing people on the history of the site we were at. There were only a few times that Brandon had to whip out his law enforcement voice. One was when people were all jumping in the waterfall. The NPS banned this about three years ago to protect an endangered species of frog. However, even with the 3 or 4 signs saying not to do this, about 15 people jumped the fence and were in the water. Everyone was very cooperative when Brandon ordered them out so he did not write any tickets. He also told me afterwards that if someone is extremely cooperative and their kid is there he tries not to write a ticket if possible (I thought that was a cool thought process which I will keep in mind for my future career). After this, Brandon noticed a car that "gave off the vibe of an expired plate". Sure enough when we got a look at the license plate and ran it in the system it ended up being expired (it's almost as if Brandon has been doing this for over 20 years). The driver ended up being an old lady so he wrote her a warning.
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| This is the view from an area at Solstice Canyon when it isn't foggy! |
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| Part of the infamous waterfall that everyone wants to jump in but cannot |
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
I really like my supervisor and his way of approaching law enforcement. Brandon has a really good balance of not being too easy going but also not being unreasonably strict to the point where it is hostile when he does his job. I really admire the way that he is able to do this successfully because at the end of the day that seems like a quality that sets you up for success. It was also good to see first hand how the life of a law enforcement ranger is day to day. You truly do wear many hats and do a plethora of tasks (such as helping out with the radios). It's also important to know that, like almost all jobs, there are fast paced days and very slow days. It's not always full of excitement which is good to realize.
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