The jail was the perfect learning environment to get to know the criminal mind. Police officers would arrest the offenders and bring them in the jail. This was their first stop before being bailed out, going to court, or going to county jail or eventually prison. Many prisoners came in drunk, under the influence of drugs, or violent. The jail was always a buzz of activity during the grave yard shift on which I was first assigned. Eventually I moved to my favorite shift; the p.m. shift.
Although the jail environment is a rather bizarre culture, it was one of my favorite jobs. However, after two years I felt like I was “doing time” myself behind bars, and I eventually developed the desire to go out in the streets and arrest the criminals myself. The jail environment prepared me for the next step in my life. By the time I graduated from the police academy and was out on the streets as a cop I could read the criminals very well, better than those officers who had no jail experience. I could tell who was lying to me and who was giving me a straight answer.
Twenty years later, today, I am in a military police unit. My law enforcement career has taken me from the jail, to police officer, SWAT officer, Reserve police officer, Reserve Deputy Sheriff Sergeant, United States Federal Air Marshal, Reserve police sergeant, and finally Staff Sergeant with the California State Military Reserve. In between being agencies I was training law enforcement officers either in Defensive Tactics, Tactics, or Firearms courses.
I was never one to stay too long in one job. There were just too many things I wanted to do and experience. If someone would have told me twenty years ago, when I was just starting out in the jail, that I would be training police agencies all over the world and jumping out of helicopter, scuba diving up to Gas & Oil Platforms, assaulting trains, buses, planes, and following around terrorists, I would never have believed you. My career was definitely in the fast lane, and I would not trade all of those experiences for anything. It is that background that is the backbone to the Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection system. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND PHOTOS
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