Jerry, I have been checking into this myself. During training you will get the chance to shoot on the fire range if you choose. However, auxiliary is an unarmed position. You will be equipped with pepper spray. I’m trying to find out since it is an unarmed position if we can be also equipped with a taser.
Why do departments like yours put men and women in uniform with police on them and then make them a sitting duck with not being armed? You are just creating a victim as has happened in New York. I live in Michigan. I spent 26 years in public safety, 14 as a reserve police officer and when the sheriff's office took over the city for budget reasons, a reserve deputy and marine deputy. The entire time, we were fully uniformed and armed. Our police chaplain was uniformed and refused to shoot a gun...he was summarily dismissed from all duties beyond chaplain duties and the uniform was only ceremonial because the full time officers said they were not going to have to worry about their own lives and the chaplain's in a shoot out. You're in uniform, you're in the car as a employee, you will defend yourself. I finished off my working years as a campus safety officer for a private college and even in that role, I was fully uniformed and armed. Only cops got hired there, so it was a natural progression. Thus, I will never understand the mentality of reserves/auxiliaries that are put out in the field as uniformed targets and defenseless victims. If your full time officers need firearms, OC and tasers while they are in uniform...why can't aux get a gun and spray at the minimum and train them accordingly. Our prosecutor meets with all new reserves each year and explains we are uniformed and armed as the career officers and we will be judged just as harshly as the career officers if we screw. We train you to their standard, you will live up to it or pay the price. I never had reserve on my uniform anywhere, no opposite or different colors, my badge was standard issue "deputy" and I was not called Reserve Deputy on the road or in public. It was only a deliminator on the inside of the department. We all knew the limits of our own authority when on our own. Otherwise, we are and will be treated as and considered an equal in the department.
Do we get to be armed once we qualify? Are we count as a Police Force personnel?
Jerry, I have been checking into this myself. During training you will get the chance to shoot on the fire range if you choose. However, auxiliary is an unarmed position. You will be equipped with pepper spray. I’m trying to find out since it is an unarmed position if we can be also equipped with a taser.
Why do departments like yours put men and women in uniform with police on them and then make them a sitting duck with not being armed? You are just creating a victim as has happened in New York.
I live in Michigan. I spent 26 years in public safety, 14 as a reserve police officer and when the sheriff's office took over the city for budget reasons, a reserve deputy and marine deputy. The entire time, we were fully uniformed and armed. Our police chaplain was uniformed and refused to shoot a gun...he was summarily dismissed from all duties beyond chaplain duties and the uniform was only ceremonial because the full time officers said they were not going to have to worry about their own lives and the chaplain's in a shoot out. You're in uniform, you're in the car as a employee, you will defend yourself.
I finished off my working years as a campus safety officer for a private college and even in that role, I was fully uniformed and armed. Only cops got hired there, so it was a natural progression.
Thus, I will never understand the mentality of reserves/auxiliaries that are put out in the field as uniformed targets and defenseless victims. If your full time officers need firearms, OC and tasers while they are in uniform...why can't aux get a gun and spray at the minimum and train them accordingly. Our prosecutor meets with all new reserves each year and explains we are uniformed and armed as the career officers and we will be judged just as harshly as the career officers if we screw. We train you to their standard, you will live up to it or pay the price. I never had reserve on my uniform anywhere, no opposite or different colors, my badge was standard issue "deputy" and I was not called Reserve Deputy on the road or in public. It was only a deliminator on the inside of the department. We all knew the limits of our own authority when on our own. Otherwise, we are and will be treated as and considered an equal in the department.