Well, here goes... the second blog post of this quarter. This time, I actually have an idea of what to write! Last night, I spent 4 hours riding along with an Ellensburg police officer in order to get some kind of an idea of what they do during the evenings.
As I predicted, the night was pretty uneventful. Most of what happened last evening were traffic stops where the officer I rode with just let the driver off with a warning (one stop actually happened as a person was going into their driveway). I only saw one arrest take place (a lady who was driving with a suspended license). My officer also spent about 20 minutes driving around a trailer park looking for a car that had been involved in a collision earlier that day, plus he responded to one noise complaint near the CWU campus.
Other than that, there was not a lot of police action last night. However, the officer I rode with made up for it by taking me to the KITTCOM emergency dispatch center and the Kittitas County Jail. I met several of the staff members and took tours of both facilities.
As uneventful as last evening was, I also found it informative. I noticed my officer practicing many of the rules that Professor Jackson discussed in class, I learned about law enforcement in Ellensburg, and, most importantly, I got some inspiration for this weekly blog post. Given the crime rate in Ellensburg, next week's post will probably be more commentary on the police blotter.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
First Real Blog Post -- Kind of Disappointing
Well, this here is the first official blog post I am doing for this class, and I must say, I'm a little disappointed! I told you last week that I would highlight hilarious police blotter stories from the Ellensburg Daily Record, but as I looked at this week's blotter, nothing really struck me as hilarious. In fact, a lot of it looked like crime you would see in any town.
Most of the crimes I saw on this week's blotter had to do with auto break-ins and auto thefts, which is not really that exciting to me considering that I am from Sunnyside, where it is not unusual to open Monday's newspaper and see "20 cars stolen over the weekend!" The rest of the crimes involved other thefts, vandalism, a gas drive-off by an elderly woman, and even some space-wasters such as "a dog was reportedly barking" (probably a nuisance) and "two people were reportedly standing outside of a vehicle that was in a ditch" (may have seemed suspicious, but how do you know that's not their car?)
Yeah, my first weekly blog about the Daily Record's police blotter is disappointing. I definitely was expecting more funny small town police blotter entries, but there weren't any this week. I mostly enjoyed reading the blotter itself, which is much more detailed than Sunnyside's police blotter -- I mean, in Ellensburg, all of the crimes, arrests, and ambulance calls are extremely detailed (fire/ambulance calls even include the age of the person and their medical condition). In Sunnyside, the police blotter is a daily news article consisting of "15 domestic incidents, 13 assaults, a report of animal abuse, etc...". I don't know, I guess the crime rate in Sunnyside is so high that a traditional police blotter would take up too much space on a newspaper page.
I hope I can create better blog entries in the future. This Tuesday I get to ride along with an Ellensburg police officer as a class assignment, so I'm sure that experience will yield some interesting blog stories. I don't know... I might end up seeing only a few smashed car windows.
Most of the crimes I saw on this week's blotter had to do with auto break-ins and auto thefts, which is not really that exciting to me considering that I am from Sunnyside, where it is not unusual to open Monday's newspaper and see "20 cars stolen over the weekend!" The rest of the crimes involved other thefts, vandalism, a gas drive-off by an elderly woman, and even some space-wasters such as "a dog was reportedly barking" (probably a nuisance) and "two people were reportedly standing outside of a vehicle that was in a ditch" (may have seemed suspicious, but how do you know that's not their car?)
Yeah, my first weekly blog about the Daily Record's police blotter is disappointing. I definitely was expecting more funny small town police blotter entries, but there weren't any this week. I mostly enjoyed reading the blotter itself, which is much more detailed than Sunnyside's police blotter -- I mean, in Ellensburg, all of the crimes, arrests, and ambulance calls are extremely detailed (fire/ambulance calls even include the age of the person and their medical condition). In Sunnyside, the police blotter is a daily news article consisting of "15 domestic incidents, 13 assaults, a report of animal abuse, etc...". I don't know, I guess the crime rate in Sunnyside is so high that a traditional police blotter would take up too much space on a newspaper page.
I hope I can create better blog entries in the future. This Tuesday I get to ride along with an Ellensburg police officer as a class assignment, so I'm sure that experience will yield some interesting blog stories. I don't know... I might end up seeing only a few smashed car windows.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Introduction
Hello! I'm Elizabeth and this is a blog I'm writing for my COM 326 class. This is supposed to be about crime in Ellensburg, but it will be a hard blog to write since Ellensburg is a small town with a fairly low amount of crime. I suppose this blog will be about the many different incidents I see in the Daily Record's police blotter, along with stories I hear from Ellensburg police. There are several hilarious incidents in the Ellensburg newspaper compared to what I see in Sunnyside's newspaper, so each week I will highlight a few police blotter stories that I find hilarious, along with asking the police department for any stories they may have. I hope you enjoy reading this blog!
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