Written Test

This evening I took my written test for the confinement officer position. I found out that there was around 200 applicants that originally applied for this job and they selected about 50, me included, to take this written test. Only around 45 of those people showed up tonight to take the test. I’m not going to go into detail on what was included on this test, but it was extremely easy if you could read and comprehend the given passages. Also after this simple test there was a series of yes or no questions to answer based on what things you think were right and wrong. I’m not sure how to further explain that to make sense at the moment. Finally, we had to write a paragraph on why we wanted to become a confinement officer. In this paragraph, I basically stated that this job would be my first stepping stone into becoming an Allen County Police Officer. I was born and raised in Fort Wayne and have come to love this area. I’ve seen it grow, I want to be a part of this community and continue to make this a great place to raise a family. The paragraph wasn’t supposed to be a page long, so those were my main points.

Whoever passes the written examination will be given a personal interview in front of a board of representatives which I believe includes County Sheriff Fries. He said around 25-30 will usually pass the exam. After these people get interviews they will narrow it down to about 8-10 to do a polygraph test. And whoever passes the polygraph will be done with every stage. They only have two full-time positions and one part-time position available in this process, so narrowing it down would seemingly be tough for them! We’ll see how far I get, and if it doesn’t happen this time around, they said that the jail usually hires new confinement officers every three months and I will apply again.

I know I won’t hear anything back for a while, and it’s going to kill me, but I have to be patient! I’ll be sure to keep this page updated!

Witnessed First Take-Down

Last night I was working out at Jefferson Pointe during the night. I was walking around doing my regular patrol when I came across a young white male with a gym bag slung over the front side of him as he walked through the mall. There is not supposed to be anyone on property while the mall is closed. I called out on the radio that I’m going to be approaching this guy. I went near the guy and asked him if he was just passing through. All I got out of him was an “uh huh”. I told him I can’t have anybody walking through there when the mall is closed and asked him to leave the property. He didn’t say anything and just kept walking. I followed him and he made his way to the perimeter of the mall, stood in one spot for about five minutes looking at a new truck that was there on show, and then kept walking the perimeter.

During this time my supervisor was on his way over to help me out and I was also asking the guy if he needed any help, if I could call anyone for him, and kept telling him he can’t be walking around in the mall area. My supervisor arrived and still couldn’t get the guy to be cooperative and stop walking. He called the city police out there. Finally the young male stops for my supervisor and answers some questions. He says he is homeless and has been walking all the way from New Jersey. He says he just needs a place to stay and a bite to eat. My supervisor continues to talk to him and keep him calm until the police arrive.

A squad car finally shows and it’s the sergeant on duty. He exits his car and addresses the guy by name. I’m just going to use the name “Todd” in this example. The officer says something along the lines of “Todd, I thought we had a talk earlier today.” Apparently they had problems with Todd earlier at the bar called Tilted Kilt out by Jefferson Pointe earlier. I guess he was sitting at the bar and did not leave when he was asked to. He is only nineteen and lied about his age to them earlier. The officer said he also smelled like weed and was high. But, they must have let him go with a warning.

The sergeant waited for another officer to arrive. Three more actually pulled in behind him, so there were four cruisers out there. One of the officers that had dealt with him earlier came out. Once he was there, he told Todd he already gave him a chance and then proceeded to tell Todd to drop his bag and put his hands behind his back. Todd seemed to cooperate at first, but then resisted the arrest, pulling his arms away. So then the officer said “Really, you’re going to resist?” and forced him to the ground and hand-cuffed him. They did a quick pat down, but found nothing of importance. They ended up arresting him for False Information and Resisting Arrest. The officer said Todd was from Fort Wayne and all the nonsense about walking from New Jersey wasn’t true.

That was the first take-down I’ve ever seen in person, and it was pretty awesome! See this guy could have talked to me, or could have walked off property like he was told to do and he wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble. But I guess his ignorance caught up with him. These kind of nights are pretty cool when I finally get some action out on the job!

2 Years of Blogs

Seems like yesterday I was writing the post for one year of blogging! Now, as of today, I have been blogging for two! Time flies pretty fast, but I guess the five/six months I was away this year helped that out. I think it was definitely pretty cool that I could still blog when I was away at basic. Props to my sister for typing them out for me although she wasn’t very consistent, plus I had to pay her to do it! Those set of blogs in that time will probably be my favorite, because they had so many new experiences in them.

Like I said last time, I honestly did not think I was going to continue writing these blogs and actually keep up with it, but I guess writing a quick blog is pretty easy while I’m sitting in front of the computer. In the future, I really want to do more fun things and experience more things and write about them. Not only to spice up this blog a bit, but for my own sake of enjoying life!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my posts and keeping updated! This is actually my 198th posting! It’s always fun for me to go back and look at some of my old blogs. Thanks for reading! 🙂

Chica Bonita

We’ve officially been together for one week now, but have been talking for a few. Bailey is her name. She lives in Shipshewana, Indiana and goes to school in Fort Wayne one night each week. The first time we met up, we walked around the mall for awhile and talked up a storm. From there it was meant to be. I went to visit her last week at her house and met her mom, step-dad and sister. Oh and her Yorkie, Bella. It’s definitely a scenic drive out to her house in the country. We went to see “Bad Grandpa” and later went to Walmart for fun. We get along great so I am excited to see where this takes us!

Vote Castleman For Sheriff

Friday I received a letter in the mail from the office of the Allen County Sheriff’s Department. I knew this was good news, because my good-boy self would never get into any trouble with the law. Not more than two weeks ago I applied online for a Confinement Officer position at the Allen County Jail downtown. I honestly didn’t really expect to hear anything back from them, or at least not so soon. This letter stated I was being considered for the position and the next step is a written examination. This written test is of basic knowledge/skills of math, English, and problem solving. Being a smarty pants, or at least someone with more brain cells due to a drug free life, I think I have a pretty good chance at doing well on this basic exam.

About a week after I applied, I ran into a confinement officer in a gas station. I was working the gas stations for STS, when this officer came in for some coffee or something of the like in his uniform. On the side of his arm, his patch said he was part of the confinement area. I told him, “I actually put in an application for the confinement position not too long ago.” He asked my name, told me that this application process takes awhile, and told me good luck. I’m kind of wondering if I was lucky and was in the right place at the right time, or I was just selected based on my application. It could be a matter of both options, but either way I am pretty happy! I really hope this works out for me. Getting this break early in age will really set me up for success!

Next stop, “Vote Castleman for Sheriff!”

Halloween Hootenanny

Besides the fact of kids ringing our doorbell when our lights were not on, me running down to my friends house to get a piece of candy his mom was passing out, and seeing parents driving their children around to houses for candy since it was raining, it really didn’t feel like Halloween to me. I had to work out at Jefferson Pointe on Halloween night, and I was just hoping I wasn’t going to have to deal with any teens trying to vandalize the place. It was raining most of the night, so there wasn’t much activity whatsoever.

Just in spite of it being Halloween, the previous day I had went to get  a scary movie to watch. I always like gory movies and ones that have freaky figures popping out at you. I bought a movie called The Cabin in the Woods. I heard it was a decent movie, and after watching it, the movie wasn’t too bad. It really wasn’t as scary as I wanted it to be though!

That’s pretty much the extent of my Halloween this year!