Chicagoans is a first-person account from off the beaten track, as told to Anne Ford. This week’s Chicagoan is Janice Wilson, 35, police officer and youth baseball coach.
The police academy? I thought it was going to be tougher than what it was. It was actually fun. After the academy, I went to work in the Fourth District. The station is on 103rd and Luella. That’s where I started my training in the field. You have to do three cycles of training, working on each watch—days, afternoons, and midnights. You work with another officer who walks you through it. They’re training you on radio etiquette, officer safety, learning your beat, writing reports. At the time nothing was automated, so we handwrote our reports. My first day on the street, I was with my field training officer, who did a lot of traffic. We rode around, we stopped a lot of cars that were in violation, and on one of those stops, we got a guy with a gun.
