Chapter 14

Constitutional and Case Law

After waking from that dream, I was ready for anything to take my mind off the previous night.

“Hey, Will, are you okay?” Julio asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Man, you were tossing and turning all night. I thought you were having some kind of damn seizure or something.”

“I’m good. Sorry. It was nothing like that, just a bad dream.”

“Okay, just don’t go losing it on me. I’ll have to call the loony bin.”

We both laughed at the thought of me in a straightjacket, drool hanging off my chin. I don’t know why I was laughing though because the thought was quite disturbing. Being locked up and doped up on drugs was not for me.

“No thanks. I’ll pass on the loony bin, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, it could be fun.”

We both made our beds, got dressed, and ran down stairs with the other recruits. We began this day like all of the others. First, we participated in a wonderful run or calisthenics. Second, we would go enjoy a wonderfully terrible breakfast. After breakfast, we would go and brush our teeth and get dressed into our recruit uniforms.

We traveled back down and entered into the classroom. We assumed our positions behind our desk standing at attention. Lt. Hudson entered a short time after the last recruit entered. At this point, we began our first full day of classroom learning.

“You are going to be taking in a great deal of information over the next two weeks in the class. This is an informal atmosphere, and we encourage questions, participation, and conversation. This is an environment of learning, and as such, when in this room, you will not be penalized with physical exertion or yelling. It has been proven that a person cannot concentrate under high stress so we will try not to make this environment to high stress,” Lt. Hudson stated.

This was a very welcome statement. We got a lot of stress pretty much all of the time. To know that, we don’t have to worry about that on top of trying to learn everything that needs to be learned is truly a gift from god.

“I will be instructing you on the bill of rights, Terry stops, consensual encounters, search warrants, arrest warrants, pat downs, searches, and various other essential laws as they relate to your duties. You best pay attention because this can end your career,” Lt. Hudson informed us of this in a most matter-of-fact tone.