Babe Watch

[Watchman]

We are about to start a "boat patrol" here in the county that I'm in. I suppose that we are about the only ones in the state that dont have some sort of water patrol , since we have a gazillion miles of lake and river here.

It will be staffed by fulltimers and reserves. We are going to use an OEM boat and rig it with the usual lights and siren and radio and all the other stuff.

Mainly, it'll be used for holidays and heavy traffic weekends.Uniforms wil be black BDU shorts, a bright yellow golf shirt with identifying marks and some sort of water shoes or sandals. Nylon web gear will be used and ballcaps. We probably wont have everything on the belt, just a pistol,mags and cuffs.Something we can take off quick if the need be. Some training will be involved.

From what I gather,BUI and getting stupid around swimming areas along with occasional complaints of rowdy drunks in the parks will be most of what we watch. Of course, watching scantily clad women with binoculars in some of the prettiest country in the south will be part of our dutys.

It seems like it could be fun.

Any body here have any experiences with this sort of thing? Any advice or tidbits of info ?

[Joseph]

No but keep the binoculars handy and every now and then check for people in trouble. That's if you get the chance. I guess the occupational hazard with this assignment is eye strain.

[Watchman]

Eye strain ?

That and heart palpitations !

[Evnings]

I love pool patrol. Got to make sure the apartment pools are safe. You can never tell when a good looking babe in a bikini will be in distress and need police assistance.

[shooter1201]

It's this time of year that I really miss Florida. I lived just north of Daytona Beach, so you KNOW what I gave up by moving back to Tennessee. However, all is not lost. My town has several excellent pools.

BTW....summer before last, 2 officers got 'caught' spying on pool goers via binoculars. It seems a little old lady reported them. The Chief was not amused....

[jeeper]

Bino's are a "no-no", even I know that. The method I was taught was to use the squad cam. The screen is QUITE clear and the zoom on most of them in my dept. is very high. Dare, I say it, but it may be even better than binoculars. Try it some time!!

PS!!!!! make sure you do NOT hit "record". Although, that should be common sense.

[wonderwoman]

You are soooooo lucky. I live right by the coast guard and every morning I pass those guys on the way to work I go green! Lots of nice speedos out there also.

Watchman.... you gotta watch the beach whales though!

[Johninaustin]

We run a boat patrol here. 22 ft Boston Whaler style boats with rescue gear and a 225hp motor. operators are cross trained as EMT's. Town Lake, Granger Lake, and Lake Austin. All told about 80 miles of shoreline area, all with more traffic than your average interstate. Watch out for jetskiers, (they're getting so bad we're starting to ban them during weekends) and drunks of every description. You'll spend a lot of your time investigating accidents and injuries, rescuing stranded boaters, etc.
Get with whatever magistrate you are going to work with and lay down some sort of groundwork for enforcing the Water Safety Act in your state. Especially get on the same page concerning Boating While Intoxicated. Catching them is not a problem, just about every second boat is piloted by a drunk. It's prosecuting them that will tie you in knots. Oh, and reasearch your nudity laws, especially concerning "Topless" behavior.

[Watchman]

We had our first meeting last night. The Corp of Engineers and the Ar. Game and Fish put on a pretty good educational meeting.
We only have 2 AG&F agents for the entire county which spans about 30 miles of river and lots and lots of lake.

Their main concerns are jet skiers and drunks. There are only 3 Corps Guys and they arent even armed ,so there is only so much they can do. For the boating accidents, the AG&F will be assisting us for awhile till we get our feet wet.

It's going to be a coordinated effort and it appears that we have lots of support. So far, its considered experimental, we'll just have to see how it goes. We have several additional training classes to go to.

I was suprised at the laws concerning alcohol. It appears that we'll not lack for action.

Our main intent is not to dog everyone , but mainly be seen as a detterant to stupidity. We have a few parks were drunks ocassionally get out of hand,and as you know, drunk boaters are not hard to find. Jet Skiers getting stupid in boating and swimming areas are also not hard to find.

We'll just have to see how it goes.

As far as "topless behavior" is that a problem ?