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Adam Johnson
English 4
Ms. DeBock
26 April, 2016

Real World Experience Narrative Writing

For my service time, I went to spend the day with Myrtle Beach Police Department of
which is owned by the City of Myrtle Beach in the state of South Carolina. My project is on
what role do police officers play in a community and what they do. I spent the day with the
Training, Regulatory, Family Services, Investigative, Crime Scene, Patrol, and K-9 unit
divisions. I walked in the office of the main building at 09:30am there I was greeted by the
receptionist of which not five seconds later. The officer Sgt. Brian Murphy took me through the
training simulator of which they had firearms hooked up to gas hoses to attempt to match the
sound and recoil of multiple firearms. Meanwhile scenarios are played on a beam detector
screen synced with small lasers hidden in the weapons, there are multiple scenarios from traffic
stops to S.W.A.T Team seizing drugs or clearing a building and rescuing a hostage.
Where I went next was the regulatory division which is mostly administrative and
recruiting tasks. I talked to a officer who is former U.S. Air Force Security Forces Specialist
a.k.a Air Force military police named Cpl. Gibson. Him and I talked for a while on the benefits
of having military police training can help and go a long way into your civilian policing career.
He also said that after leaving active duty military go reserves or national guard to continue your
education and max out the possible benefits and retirement you can get from both civilian police

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and military alike. As well as of right now going for a position of CSO (Community Service
Officer) within Myrtle Beach Police Department.
Afterwards I went to visit the Investigations, Crime Scene, and Family Services
divisions. Investigations is the vice and homicide team, working murder cases, collecting
evidence, and interviews suspects for interrogation. Crime Scene works closely with the
Investigations division at the scene of the crime hence the name, Crime Scene works at the crime
scene taking ballistic shells from spent casings shot from firearms, hand prints, semen, urine,
stool, tire tread marks, wounds on deceased victims, Blood and Finger DNA, and all are brung
back and tested in a complex process I am not allowed to disclose. The Family Services division
describes themselves Family Services works mostly public in-family related issues the biggest
one being domestic violence issues which keeps them very busy especially in the Myrtle Beach
area.
The next division is patrol which I must say that was an adrenaline rush. I met SRO
(School Resource Officer) McMahon who was the SRO of Myrtle Beach High School explained
how important the patrol divisions really are without patrol units there is no department.
Patrolman for the police is essentially like the Infantry for the Army it is the main backbone and
structure of the entire thing. I also went on a ride along and got to see what happens first hand.
There was a call we got over the radio that said there was two black females fighting over a
purse at one of the beach accesses. Officer McMahon turned on his lights and sped down the
highway pedal to the metal to the site of the incident. Thankfully, the situation was resolved
peacefully and the suspects after being detained were let go.
In conclusion the last division I spent time with was Officer Harlow and K-9s Alli and
Roscoe. I learned quite a bit on how they train their K-9s to detect and sniff out multiple maybe

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all types of narcotics from marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth, and different types of pills. Myrtle
Beach Police do not have Attack K-9s just narcotics but attack dogs can be adapted when need
be. Watching Alli and Roscoe go to work and being able to run Alli through their obstacle course
was an incredible experience everything I did that day was something I will never forget. That
day I gained a whole new appreciation and respect for police officers and made some friends
along the way. Again that day was a once in a lifetime moment and I will never forget it.