The Scouts Take A Tour at the Lehi Police Station.

Stephanie and I took our Scouts for a tour of the local police station. The Scout theme for that month was Patriotism. We figured that taking a tour fit in well with that theme.

The boys were so excited. We arrived at the station, and gave the boys strict instructions to be on their best behavior.

In the waiting room, we were greeted by Officer Call, and a new trainee:


After the meet and greet, we went into the room where breathalyzers are preformed. Officer Call showed us all of the equipment in the "drunk tank", and asked if anyone had any questions. One Scout politely raised his hand and asked,
"Have you ever tazed anyone in the butt?"
Without missing a beat, Officer Call replied,
"No, that would not be effective."

"Have you ever tazed your mom?"
"No, I haven't".

Officer Call then showed the kids how his handcuffs worked. He talked about needing to arrest several people at the same time once and not having enough handcuffs. He asked the group what they thought the right thing to do in that situation was. Another Scout raised his hand, "What's the answer?", Officer Call asked.

"One time I went to McDonalds, and I got a cool toy in my Happy Meal."

"Yeah, that's pretty cool", said the officer.

At that point, I made a concious decision to not look at Steph anymore, as I knew we would start laughing uncontrollably. I'm pretty sure Officer Call would brutally beat us for that.



Next, we went to take a look at one of the holding cells. Before we went in, Officer Call admonished everyone to not under any circumstances touch anything in the holding area. Joshie asked why.

"Because bad people are very, very dirty".
I found this kind of funny for some reason, and I laughed.

"It's not funny, I'm serious", the officer barked at me.




After I had my head bitten off, we went and looked inside the cell. On the surface it looked clean, but from the sound of things, there are all sorts of gross things flung about in there.







We went rummaging around in the police garage. There's random boat kept in there, and some dummies.
We asked what the dummies were for, some of the kids speculated that they were for target practice. They are actually used to sit in the driver's side of the police car, as it sits on the side of the road, to trick drivers into going the speed limit.





And, of course, the police car. Each police car has it's own lap top, so that the policemen can update their status on Facebook.
Joshie actually said, "Man I want to be inside one of these one day". Hopefully, that will never happen.




Lastly, we were concluding our tour up in the dispatchers office. There was a plaque in there dedicated to a fallen officer who died in the line of duty in 2001. The group was hushed as Officer Call talked about his fallen friend, his voice cracking with emotion. Just then one of the Scouts asked if he could tell the officer something.
"Yes, you can" said an uncharacteristically polite Officer Call".




"My sister was born in 2000"

We all waited for the Scout to make his point. When we realized that was his point, Steph and I turned around as if we were looking at something, and tried to stifle our laughter at the randomness of it all.

Officer Call, being the quick thinker that he is, said, "So, she was 1 year old when this happened", and some how was able to transition back to his tribute to his fallen friend.





Lessons learned:
We trust and respect the police
Bad people are dirty
Tazers are ineffective if used on the buttocks
Kids are really, really random.