seeking advice on starting out

[soundwave]

Hello everybody. This being my first post ever on these forums I thought that I should say that I have really spent the better part of the last 6 or more hours just reading through the different posts. I must say that I am *very* glad that this forum exists and is so active. You guys are all doing a great outreach service for those interested in a possible LE career that I haven't seen anywhere else. Great job guys!

OK... I think that I should start out with some background information on myself and my target department. I'm a 23 year old male and I work as a self-employed Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). For those of you that don't know what that is (and I'm guessing that's the majority lol), I pretty much catch hackers for a living. I've been doing this line of work even before I was an adult and certified in it because I had the knowledge and the drive to use my knowledge to help other people.

The target department for me is in my home town. I live in a tiny little town that only has about 2,300 people in it. I live in Ajo, Arizona and if anyone is or knows anyone in Border Patrol or Customs (now the same dept., btw) they have a big presence here. The town I live in is mostly comprised of a blend between mostly diverse age groups and backgrounds and then a large splash of retired persons. Besides the presence of Border Patrol, Customs and the Dept. of Public Safety (DPS), the only local LE department that we have is the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

As quoted from their site, "Recognized as one of the leading law enforcement agencies in the United States, the Pima County Sheriff's Department serves the 330,000 people living in unincorporated areas of Pima County. Encompassing 9,241 square miles, it is the 7th largest county in the nation, about the size of the State of Delaware."

My question is, where should I start to find out if this is really for me? I have a few ideas but I kind of wanted to get a feel for what current LEOs would think. Explorers and ride-along programs are handled at the actual main office of PCSD in Tucson, AZ -- over 230 miles away from me and not very feasible way for me to find out while maintaining the income. lol

One thing that I did find out is that there's a big program within PCSD, which includes my town, called Sheriff's Auxillary Volunteers (or S.A.V.). I have spoken with one of the managers of the program here (she's one of my clients lol) and from what I understand they help out with pretty much everything that doesn't require an actual POST-certified officer to do (including traffic control, fingerprinting and completing property crime reports). She also told me that I would have to have a background check, be at least 18 years of age, etc., etc., etc.

The last actual job that I worked at was with an adult developmentally disabled assistance program, helping teach them about daily life, hygiene, social interactions, etc. My primary responsibility was to work with a violent client of theirs. As a result I was trained with advanced level 1 and level 2 restraints, advanced public safety, first aid, CPR (adult & child), how to complete state required incident reports and so forth. The daily tendencies of this client: spitting, biting, pulling hair, slapping, punching, throwing objects, grabbing and attempting to use lethal weapons (e.g. knives, broken glass, etc.), jumping out of cars while it was moving, putting vehicles in park while moving, etc. Needless to say, adrenaline seemed to be running all the time. lol But out of all of it I also received a 10-year DANC background check through the FBI courtesy of the state DPS.

Here is the URL for some of the information on the SAV program:
http://www.pimasheriff.com/sav.html

So would this be a viable idea to pursue? Would there be other possible alternatives or avenues that I can take that I may have missed? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance! :D

[Somebody]

AZ DPS is a good agency, it can't hurt to try for them as well, just put in your app that you would like to stay in Ajo... not many people "want" to go there, but if it is home for you, you may be able to pick that spot, rather than be stuck in "Anywhere, AZ". I just suggest that as an option, of course, as the SO is certainly an option as well.

[Matt28]

Why not take some criminal justice/police study classes at a college? A lot of people become interested in certain fields by learning more in depth about them.

[txinvestigator1]

Since you have such computer expertise, do your country a favor and find out who created and keeps morphing and distributing the Coolwebsearch hijack trojan.

Then tell ME who and where this person is.....I will take care of the rest.

[soundwave]

AZ DPS is a good agency, it can't hurt to try for them as well, just put in your app that you would like to stay in Ajo... not many people "want" to go there, but if it is home for you, you may be able to pick that spot, rather than be stuck in "Anywhere, AZ". I just suggest that as an option, of course, as the SO is certainly an option as well.

That may very well be an option. I know that up until about 8 months ago there was a really cool DPS officer here that used to ride a motorcycle around town in his off time. Where he went I have no clue and have only seen one DPS car ever since and it seemed to be just passing-through.

Why not take some criminal justice/police study classes at a college? A lot of people become interested in certain fields by learning more in depth about them.

Did I mention that the nearest college is at least 200+ miles from where I am? lol

Since you have such computer expertise, do your country a favor and find out who created and keeps morphing and distributing the Coolwebsearch hijack trojan.

Then tell ME who and where this person is.....I will take care of the rest.

I can answer this one pretty easy. The Coolwebsearch program that installed on your computer is not a trojan, it was put on your computer using a security vulnerability in Internet Explorer. If you update your system using Windows Update (http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com) it will patch the hole in your browser and you shouldn't get it again. You might also want to consider updating the virus definitions for your antivirus program (or get one if you don't have one) as may of the antivirus companies are starting to include definitions for preventing this from happening.

Thanks for everyone's responses so far, I'm really looking forward to what everyone has to say. =O)

[rdp]

Most colleges offer distance education where classes can be taken on-line. It is time efficient and allows you to work at your own pace and schedule.

If you want a ride along, there is a way. Keep pushing it to see what it takes. Remember too, the ride along is one day.........you are only exposed to a sliver of LE.

[Menace]

I would recommend that you schedule a ride along with PCSD or TPD and plan to spend a weekend up in Tucson, you'll enojy it and from what I hear, if you join PCSD, and you VOLUNTEER for Ajo...they'll love you. You'll love SALETC if you decide to be LE in Southern AZ.