Editor’s Note: This is the fifth installment of a series of columns where Kate reflects on and documents her time in the Citizen’s Police Academy. However, she is not participating in the academy in her capacity as a reporter, but as a citizen of Covington.

Tuesday was my last weeknight at the Citizen’s Police Academy. We still have our firearm range day this coming Saturday morning (which will already be underway or over by the time you’re reading this), so I am planning to write one final column next week to put a bow on this series. But my Tuesday nights will no longer be spent at the Covington Police Department, learning something cool and waiting to see how long it would take for someone to mention the writings of yours truly.

But the show isn’t over yet! So here’s the highlights of my recent hangouts with the police. 

Tuesday night was criminal investigations night! That’s the night that I’m sure many of my classmates were eager for. Forensics and crime scenes are, to many, the cool part of this job. I know that more than one person in my class is in school to pursue this very career path (or something like it), so this was a big night for them.

Before we got into all of that, however, we heard from several officers about their different roles in the department. (Note: When I say ‘officer,’ know that it’s very possible that the person I’m referring to is a captain, lieutenant, sergeant, etc. But I just write these off what I remember, so I do not know each person’s name and rank for the story. So I’m using the word ‘officer’ loosely—my apologies to all.)

We learned about FLOCK cameras, which may be one of the most misunderstood tools in the business. Lots of people think that FLOCK cameras issue speeding tickets and whatnot all by reading your license plate. I myself have fallen victim to one of those pesky school zone cameras. But FLOCK cameras are primarily used to track stolen vehicles.

The officer leading this presentation said that Covington has a FLOCK camera at every entrance to the city, meaning that if a vehicle is registered as stolen and enters or exits the city, they will know. 

One pesky little detail is that sometimes vehicles are recovered, but aren't immediately removed from the FLOCK registry. So you’re driving around in the car you just got back from a thief and it’s still pinging as stolen. Whoops.

We also learned about the internet and how it’s a major tool in investigations. Facial recognition software is advanced enough to identify adults based on a Facebook photo of them as a child with a filter on it. (And yet, my iPhone won't let me in if I’m wearing a hat?)

We learned more about data collection and analysis and ICAC (the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program), but I’m limited in my space here and have a lot to get to today. If learning more about that piques your interest, go enroll in the next Citizen’s Police Academy! These columns don’t supplement the experience; there’s so much that takes place each week that doesn’t make the cut (shoutout to the Explorer Program that I failed to mention in Week 3).

Later on Tuesday evening, we were shown a series of images from a real crime scene following a homicide that occurred several years ago in Covington. The crime scene team detailed how they approach these scenes, with the telltale yellow placards. Here are some of the things I learned from this, as well as a mock scene they showed us:

• It’s always better to notate and photograph something and have it not be relevant later than to overlook it and it turn out to have been important. Less isn't more – more is more.
• A crime scene is only pure the moment a crime is committed. As soon as that moment passes, victims, perpetrators, witnesses, passersby or even the law enforcement are making changes that affect the narrative. These can be necessary, such as attempting to render aid, or intended to cause chaos, like when a perpetrator tampers with the scene to mislead.
• Vicks VapoRub does not help mask the smell of bodies. Actually, it can make the odor worse because it activates your sense of smell, I guess. 
• I don’t want to work in forensics. Everyone else thinks that it's so cool and interesting. Why am I the odd one out because I'm NOT eager to see a dead body?

Tuesday was undeniably a cool evening. But I had a pretty sick Wednesday, too.

The following night, I participated in my mandatory police ride-along. We’re all required to take a two-hour spin in the police cruiser. We are not permitted to exit the vehicle during traffic stops, but we get an up-close view. It’s really cool.

The poor guy who was stuck with me was Officer Jason Cabe, but he took it like a champ. It’s become known that I work for the news and am doing this weekly column, so Officer Cabe knew what he was getting into with me.

So that my humor is not misinterpreted, since a written article offers no tone of voice, let me just be straightforward real quick: All of the officers were perfectly welcoming and happy to bring me along. Any joking about my columns or the news was good-natured, and I have not felt unwelcome during any of my experiences with the CPD, including during my ride-along.

As Officer Cabe and I zoomed around Covington, he showed me how the laptop thing in the cruiser works (I’m sure there’s a name for it if they’d like to let me know). It’s pretty cool in there, but I don’t want to spoil everything for those of you who may wish to participate yourselves—you don’t have to be in the Citizen’s Police Academy to sign up for a ride-along.

Not to toot my own horn here, but I even pointed someone out for not having a license plate (sorry, bro). Also, one person whom Officer Cabe saw driving without their headlights on at dusk only avoided being pulled over because we didn’t catch up to them until they were pulling into a business and parking. Whoever you are, you don’t even know how close you came to being pulled over.

All in all, it was a really cool two hours, and I’d definitely do it again sometime. Though I’ll save most of these sentiments for my final iteration of this series, I’ll go ahead and say that if you’ve got any interest at all in the CPD, go ahead and sign up for the next round of the Citizen’s Police Academy. It’s been nothing but a positive and informative experience for me thus far. And I’m not here to just hype CPD; that’s my genuine reflection on the experience. But I’ll get into that more next week.

Kate Verity is the news editor of The Covington News. She can be reached at kverity@covnews.com.