Police Officer Interview

Words: 1059
Pages: 5

Criminology The individual that I interviewed Adolpho Moriel is a current police officer, ex border patrol officer, and retired veteran from the army. My connection to officer Moriel is through a friend of my younger brother (he is the uncle of my brother’s friend). I have met officer Moriel before, interacting in birthday parties or celebrations where we have both been invited through my younger brother and his friend. I have never really had a conversation with him about his career as a police officer, I knew he worked in San Diego but I never dwelled on his job. The reason he become an obvious choice for this interview was because of his wide variety of experience in multiple fields that I am interested in. The fact that he can compare …show more content…
Did you find what you expected? Why or why not?
He stated that, “He likes the work”. Then he explained that he always wanted to work in the government service, helping people out. He also knew what to expect because of his experience before being a police officer, being in the Army, and border patrol. His prior work helped him get accustomed to his police job more quickly than it would have been just joining the police force straight out of high school.
12) What are the worst parts of your job?
The worst parts of his job as he identified are the accidents. Being that he is a highway police officer he is one of the first responder to major crashes on the freeway, and those accidents can be brutal. He describes how long it takes to clear the accidents and how much pain the victims can be in. In particular what hit him hard in those situations are the children, as he relates them to his own. He states how crashes like that are not that common, but still occur enough to have an impact on him. There is also the paperwork which takes a lot of time and is a non-glamorous aspect of police work.
13) What are the best parts of your job?
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When I asked him why, he emphasized the importance of writing in police work. He stated that in the police academy they can teach you how to shoot a gun, how to drive a police car, but with the time they have they cannot teach a future officer how to write. Writing reports is such a big part of being an officer, and not having the ability to articulate your actions in a report is going to be detrimental to a police officer.
16) Do you think people in general have lost respect for law enforcement? if so why ?
Yes, he said it has gotten worse. He states that nowadays there has been a lot of disrespect towards police officers. He states that some individuals actually want confrontation with police officer for the attention and lawsuit money they might win. His answer towards why, is because if the news. He states how the media portrays the actions of bad cops to such an extent that there is becoming a bad connotation of cops. The fact that some departments in his area have had a severe drop in recruits can be connected towards people not wanting to join the police force because of their reputation by the media.
17) In addition to the above questions please provide an overview of the officers assignment and if you think you would be interested in working their agency, doing their job and why. If not please state why. Include what you learned from the interview in a summary