Episode 17 - Part II WAPOL

Join me for the second episode in my 8 part series about my time with WA Police.

In this episode we dive into my first rotation after graduating from the academy—my time on the "Booze Bus." This was a whirlwind experience, packed with a mix of adrenaline, rookie mistakes, and unforgettable moments. From setting up Random Beath Checks to encountering all sorts of characters on the road, it was a real initiation into life on the front line. 

But it wasn’t all action and excitement as I noticed cracks in the workplace culture—signs of bullying and harassment and then there were the rookie blunders, like the time I forgot to secure my firearm. It’s an episode that has it all: the highs, the lows, and the hard lessons that come with being thrown into the deep end straight out of the academy. Join me as I reflect on my introduction to policing, and how it set the stage for everything that followed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Everyday Warrior podcast where we talk free to break free. As someone who's been told they talk too much, can speak with a mouthful of marbles and might just be able to sell ice to Eskimos, I have found the perfect space to speak my truth and dive into deep conversations. This podcast is about celebrating everyday warriors, the people who face life's challenges head on, breaking through obstacles to build resilience, strength and courage. Join me, your host Trudy Marie, as I sit down with inspiring individuals who have fought their own battles and emerged stronger, sharing raw, real and authentic stories that make you laugh, cry, debate, wonder, intrigue, feel all the emotions and get curious about life with. This is a safe space to explore, question and find your own path to new possibilities. Let us Let us all embrace the warrior within and realise that while no one is walking in your shoes, others are on the same path, journeying through life together. Love the Everyday Warriors podcast? You can support the show for as little as$5 with a one-time donation or by becoming a monthly subscriber. Your contribution helps me continue bringing you inspiring stories of everyday warriors who overcome challenges to find strength, resilience and new possibilities in life. Head to the link to buy me a coffee and fuel the next episode. Every bit counts. Hello and welcome to another solo episode of the Everyday Warriors podcast. And I'm here today to give you part two of my time with WA Police. And today what I'm going to be talking about is my first location straight from the Academy, which was, as we affectionately call it, the booze bus. And in fact, it's actually part of breath and drug operations, which is a part of traffic. Now, leaving the Academy, every dreaded going to the booze bus it was just one of those things that people thought that they were under the instruction of supervisors they couldn't get out and deal with real criminals they had to deal with traffic and it just was not seen as one of those highly regarded places to go straight from the academy whereas I didn't care I was like just let me at it see what I can learn you know what what's in it for me and I I was just eager to get out there and do something regardless of what it was. So I started on, there were four buses at the time. I don't know how things run these days, but I was part of one of the buses and no one from my squad was on my bus. I was the only person from white squad and the rest of the probies on that bus were actually from my sister squad, which was the red squad. So I felt really alone, even more alone than I'd been at the academy because I didn't really know anybody from that particular squad. Like the people on my bus, I had nothing to do with during my time at the Academy. So one of the girls actually from Red Squad became a really good mentor for me. She was much, much younger. However, she had been a PAO, which is a police auxiliary officer working in at the watch house. And she gave me so much insight into what she had experienced and what she had already seen and when it came to things like searches and ways of dealing with people and how to address some of the people you were dealing with like she became a wealth of knowledge and I was so grateful for her to actually take the time to teach me that and almost like take me under her wing even though I was an older person she just really gave me and exposed me to some stuff that I would not have otherwise have known and would have taken me probably years to start to develop on my own so she was awesome for that but as I said I knew I had lots to learn especially the road traffic act and the regulations because while you're studying at the academy this is kind of passed over as like a really brief introduction because there is so much to learn and so much to know like that's why traffic is such a separate division of WA police because there are so many other bits and pieces about the law that you have to know. So I found it really interesting to learn that aspect of the job. It was also my first real experience of dealing with drugs and drug paraphernalia. I was that good girl, completely innocent. I'd seen marijuana plants in my time, but I'd never actually seen like like other drugs and other drug paraphernalia. I didn't even know what a bong looked like. And so being a breath and drug, one of the good things that we had the opportunity of doing was actually going into the property storeroom and being shown and they were actually doing a clear out. So destroying evidence that was no longer required. And they had this big container of product, like all these evidence bags that were going to be destroyed. And we were allowed to kind of sift through them and have a look and see what was in the bag, see the description on the bag, see what was inside the bag, compare it, and actually identify it. So for me, that was gold, because I was able then to go, oh, so that's what potentially meth looks like, or heroin looks like, or cocaine looks like, or a bong looks like, or, oh, that's a bong too, or, you know, whatever the case may be, even Even to deal with like some of the meth stuff I had never seen before. So that was really cool. And then being able to apply that on the street, knowing what to look for. So within breath and drug operations, there are two parts to it. So most people would be very familiar with going through a booze bus stop or a random breath test stop where you are required to blow into some kind of alchemeter to give you a reading of the alcohol in your blood. and so that was kind of the easy part like everyone was familiar with that most drivers were familiar with that and I'd done them myself in the past so it wasn't foreign to me but when it came to doing random drug tests we did two types we did a targeted one if we presumed a car or a person looked under the influence when we were speaking with them and then we also did completely random ones now with that you never knew what you were going to get and quite often I was surprised when I would you know go to do a random test stand there talk to the driver be totally cool calm collected have a conversation with them while the test processed only to turn out to have a positive test and I'm standing there going what the fuck I never expected that and it happened on so many occasions and I can tell you that the people who really pissed me off the most were mothers with children in the car especially during the day when their kids are at school and they potentially have a toddler in the back seat and they come up with a positive drug test like it used to goad me because I was just like how can you do this like it's just so irresponsible but anyway I became really good at being able to look for the signs look look for the paraphernalia, look at the potential hiding spaces of how drugs can be hidden within a vehicle, within on a person and what sort of things to look for. So that was one of the cool things to experience working on the booze bus. We also did a number of like trips around WA. So the general work was that you'd rock up to work every day and they would tell you, your supervisors, where you were going to So where the bus was going to be parked. Now, sometimes we would park in the one location for the whole time. Other times we would do half a shift in one location, break for crib, and then the second location would be driven to for that time. And we'd have to set up the whole road safety, the lines, all the equipment required, so on and so forth. But on top of that, we would also do the occasional trip to... smaller regional towns so we would actually take the bus out for the whole day and drive in or around the Perth metropolitan area but to some of the outs outlying towns that may not normally get that kind of thing and because there's always the booze bus along with some additional vehicles you had the opportunity of them being able to ride in those vehicles and you know do some traffic stops with speeding do some traffic stops with random breath testing random drug testing things like that so it gave you exposure to how things would actually be as you're driving around the Perth metropolitan area if you were in a station but you just had the exposure I suppose on a lesser busier place we also were able to do two road trips during my time on the booze bus the first one we went down south and we were based in Busselton for a food festival that was on I think around the Margaret River region but we were kind of based in further north to capture those people going to and from the festival and that was really cool because you know it was a weekend away you were working you were in a different area and that was kind of cool the other one we did was going up to Geraldton for a local football match like I think it was the West Coast Eagles and the Dockers doing a pre-match and we were able to go up there and I really enjoyed that particular trip because I got to travel in one of those vehicles and do a run up Indian Ocean Drive. And that was my first time of actually being exposed to kind of a federal police style situation where a car we stopped was actually was driven by and had people in it that had illegal visas and shouldn't have been in the country. And that was a whole process then to be able to hand that off to other officers to then hand off to the federal police to deal with. and I'd never come across anything like that before really wouldn't have known what to look for in that situation and it was my supervisor that obviously guided me through the whole process so that was just another thing to go cool tick off the list I've done that the thing I loved about the booze bus too was the fact that it took me all over the city like there was never a boring day because you never knew where you were going to be working and it could have been anywhere I talking like from the far north to the far south to the east in the hills to the inner city areas it was just you know almost like a lucky dip of where are we going today and I always just found that interesting it got to me to know the city a little bit better areas that I was unfamiliar with I became more familiar with and I constantly you were just learning you were learning about you know how different people acted in different areas different socioeconomic areas what what sort of reception you had one thing that used to make me laugh especially on a Friday afternoon was the number of people that would especially tradies that would finish the afternoon obviously have a few beers at work and then get in the car and drive now for most part they would blow just slightly over the limit because the alcohol was still in their mouth and they were like oh but I've just had one beer before I've left work and I said look I totally get it and we had rule around that that they used to have to sit and wait and do a secondary test and the secondary test quite often they just blow under but I used to say to them like it's fine to sit around at the end of the day and have beers after work but what is your boss doing to behave responsibly to one either offer a light beer or to offer food with that beer so that you aren't causing those sorts of situations where you are potentially putting yourself in danger because you're blowing over the limit. While you're at the booze bus you are also able to complete a number of your tasks in your probie book. So your probie book was basically 10 tasks that had to be done three times and there was a time limit between each one. So the quicker you could get them done the quicker you could then get the second part and the third part done. So obviously being based within traffic you've focused on the traffic style tasks so there was a breath and drug style task in there so I was very fortunate enough that I could complete the three tasks but because of those three tasks they also related to other tasks so one was to like do a brief one was to do like a field report so from the one job you should have been able to tick off two or three tasks within that one job so I left pretty much like the booze bus after six months of having completed a number of those tasks because I saw through each one to the nth degree where I could and was able to tick off a lot of those jobs even if it was only the first one and then I could continue on at my next station with the second and third task but I was really fortunate to be able to I think complete three full tasks out of like so that was six tasks out of the 30. one thing I did come across within the booze bus and this is another sort of bullying like or segmenting type situation was I when you were on crib break especially if you're in the one place you can either bring your crib with you or if we were in a residential area we could actually go out and buy lunch dinner at the local takeaway whatever was in the took my crib every day so when when you'd eat on the bus because that's where you were you're out on location so you just eat on the bus so I started eating with the supervisors because most of the guys were my age or similar age to me most were married many had children many had children even my kids age so I felt that during our breaks I was able to one get to know them as human beings and not as supervisors and two we had something to talk about and relate to because we were parents of children and we had all the same sort of situations like you know sleepless nights or you know things that you had to do outside of work all that kind of stuff and this started to piss the other probies off from the other squad now I as I said I already felt a bit isolated and lonely because I was the only person from white squad on my bus and all the rest were from red squad so one they had already had repose with each other and built up relationships with each other the supervisors obviously already knew each other on the bus and I was in the middle and instead of going and sitting with the probies because for most of them they were all under 25 or around that age they were all into partying on the weekends or going out after work and I'm like I just can't relate to that level of conversation like that's not where I am at my life but by sitting with the supervisors they were on the same level as me did in life like it's not like I was better or worse than them it was just I relate to these guys better but the shit I used to cop like I got accused of brown nosing and accused of not wanting to be like sitting with the probies because I felt like I was better than them and shit like that and I'm like are you guys for real like we're all adults here it's not like school where it's like oh it's us against the supervisors like you know let's split here it's like Like go and talk to people who you are actually interested in communicating with and have something in common with. And right now I don't have anything in common with you guys. You guys are talking about partying and where you're going to on the weekend. And I'm sitting here telling you what I'm going to cook tonight for dinner with my kids. Like, how does that work? I was also very good at administrative work, at making sure all my paperwork was correct, making sure that all the stats were recorded. And I was getting noticed with in the office for that. So like I said, there were four buses. I would do a lot of the work, a lot of the additional work. I would help supervisors out where I can because I was so eager to learn and so eager to understand the processes. And everybody else was like, why? Why do you bother, Trudy? Like, you know, it is what it is. But our senior sergeant, who was such a lovely man and so relatable, and I remember him meeting me in the car park one day like we rocked up for shift together and he kind of made a joke with me and I was trying to like why are you having this conversation me and then I went oh what have I done and what I'd realized is that when I had finished the shift the night before I had cleared my firearm and I'd put away my magazines and my ammunition but I hadn't actually put away my firearm it got it was still in my holster which got locked in my like personal locker and of course when they did the nightly audit they're like we're missing a firearm whose firearm is it yep that's Dwight's go find it found it in my locker I that's a cake fine like there was a thing called cake act and you got fine cake so that one actually cost me more than a cake it cost me a carton but I never ever left my firearm in my holster ever again I made sure every single night that it got locked up in the armory where it should have been but he was so good about it he could have been rude he could have been very aggressive towards a simple mistake and he was actually really genuine about it and yeah as I said I in my career I never ever made that mistake again during my time at Brethinger I also had my first not guilty brief and I remember this one in particular because it was an older woman who I locked up on drug charges well I arrested her I should say on drug charges so it was a random stop did the drug test on her it came back positive so as a result we tipped the car and what annoyed me is that she was of an older age as a grandmother age she had another passenger in the car of a similar age who was also with her granddaughter and She had multiple charges previously that had said that she was no longer authorized to drive. So I had to impound her car. And it was just a shit show of a job in the sense that I had to make sure that, you know, the passenger and the little girl got to a safe place and got like transport, that this woman was sorted out with all her charges and things like that. And anyway, she went not guilty. And I think the only reason she went not guilty is that traffic charges actually have a really heavy penalty and often have jail term penalties and she knew that the next time she got caught she would possibly do some jail time and I think she went not guilty just to delay that process but the paperwork you have to go through in a not guilty brief and the things that you have to make sure where all your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted and you've got all the evidence and you've got all the statements and I was just like oh my god thank god I am actually okay with admin work because that's a lot of paperwork to deal with and you ask any cop out there and they will tell you that the worst part of the job is often the paperwork. So yeah that was my first not guilty brief which I had to experience. The second one I had to deal with was a charge that came back with no conviction and I was just like what the hell like this should have been a straight out conviction like guilty what's the fine what's the penalty like what the hell happened like why did this person get let off anyway my supervisor looked it up for me because I didn't understand I was just going through a certain part of um like the system to find out about these charges and he goes the reason there was no conviction is because the person passed away before the court date And I was like, oh, okay. And that really kind of hit me in the way that I could not have foreseen that this particular person in the process of dealing with a traffic penalty, traffic charge on the day that I dealt with him, that he would not make his court date because he'd passed away. Like that life in that moment just became so finite. Like here I was trying about like why did my charge not go through and you know what did I do wrong and I'd done nothing wrong the person just was not able to attend court and I will never forget that particular period either so I end up spending six months at the booze bus before I was transferred which is about the normal time that a probationer will spend on the booze bus before they get transferred out and the next lot of probies come through and But it was such a great experience. I learned so much from my supervisors during that time, so much about drugs and drug paraphernalia that I could then take with me to my next location, traffic situations that I could take with me to the next location. And it was just a real positive start to my policing career and what I was exposed to in a really kind of, I suppose, safe way because let's be real like you're not dealing with you know hardened criminals in the process of committing a crime you're dealing with people driving vehicles on the road and I say that in a way that it's not an are typically unsafe environment to be in in a lot of cases it was actually a lot of fun like we we had fun with those particular jobs and the particular locations I did Christmas time during that period I did New Year's I think I even did Easter but it was all just an interesting period and yeah a real great way to start my real life policing experience. Thank you for tuning in to the Everyday Warriors podcast if you have an idea for a future episode or a story you'd like to share yourself then please message me as I am always up for real, raw and authentic conversations with other everyday warriors. If you love what you are hearing please be sure to subscribe and hear all the latest episodes and spread word to your family, friends and colleagues so they can listen in too. If you are sharing on social media please be sure to tag me at underscore Trudy underscore Marie underscore so I can personally acknowledge you. I am always open to comment about how these episodes have resonated with It would also mean the world to me if you were to leave a five-star review to ensure that the Everyday Warrior podcast is heard by more listeners around the world. And remember, lead with love as you live this one wild and precious life.