Tarullo on What "Matters"
3/17/2004 2:31:34 PM | Football
Life After Football: Matt's Internship with the Manlius Police Department
My professor (Randall Jorgenson) brought it up to me. He asked if I was interested in going into any specific type of law enforcement. I didn’t know that much about it, but I thought it would be nice to learn about and get some perspective on it. Sometimes people go into a career without knowing much about it. In this case, I got to see a lot of things about police work. There’s a lot of investigative work that needs to be done – at the crime scene and with people. You really have to be able to look at something and determine what happened, how it happened, when it happened, basically answer the five questions. After that, when you find something, you need to be able to put two and three things together.
I did a lot of research for it. I probably wrote six or seven papers. I really had to put the work in. It was very hands on. In the classroom you learn theory, but you don’t really get practical experience. In this situation, I still remember most of what I learned. I wish more people could get the experience of getting into that practical setting. I want to thank everyone there because they were very helpful.
On a typical day, I’d go in around 8 a.m. and start with the paperwork. Then we’d go out on the road and do some traffic stops, basically just enforcing the law around the town. It was great because every day was different. I got to do the patrolman’s part of the job, I got to do the investigative part of it, and I got to do the weapons specialist’s part. I got to see how everything fit together and the differences within police work. Not everyone just goes out and arrests people. There are different subdivisions that all have to function to make the department work.
The most interesting day I had was when I got to go to the city crime lab. They had roomfuls and roomfuls of items and materials that you wouldn’t believe. It was interesting to see the tests they have to perform. There are so many different areas that people can get into and start helping our society get better and more advanced. That’s the thing that excited me – getting a chance to help and understand the way people act.
I got to do some special things with the police department in Manlius. I got to shoot some different weapons. I got to shoot a nine millimeter, a 45 and a semi-automatic assault rifle. I also got to blow up a door with a weakened form of C-4. The most interesting thing though was the people. I got to interact with a lot of different people and they were all really interesting. They’re what make the job really special. Just like in football, it’s not the wins that make a season special, it’s the people that you win with.
I want to learn more about the law. I want to figure things out within the law. Instead of just enforcing the law, I think that more reform and understanding needs to happen both at the federal and state levels. It’s a really interesting job. I don’t know where I’d start, but I know that it interests me. With the degree I’m going to have in a few weeks (psychology) it would be very likely for me to get into that line of work and succeed at it.
