Auxiliary officers' role has grown through years
At Schaumburg's last Citizens Police Academy session, students heard about the all-important task of traffic and DUI enforcement as well as about the jobs performed by the department's auxiliary officers.
The role and responsibilities of the auxiliary program has changed greatly since Schaumburg hired its first six reserve officers in 1960.
Changing their name to auxiliary officers in 1985, their numbers have grown to about 40 today. They assist Schaumburg's full-time officers in the areas of parking enforcement, traffic direction, prisoner processing, Septemberfest and security at such locations as village hall and the convention center.
They not only keep an eye on the inside of village hall while evening meetings are taking place, but watch over the municipal grounds all night long.
Supervisor Frank Afable said it's an ideal part-time job for many, though the responsibilities and training required exceed that of most part-time jobs.
Accident reconstruction: One of the most important -- and amazingly accurate -- aspects of police work is the reconstruction of serious or fatal traffic crashes.
Even before witness testimony is heard and taken into account, the traffic crash reconstruction team can work out the speed and trajectory of colliding vehicles as well as if they'd been standing there watching it happen.
Such accuracy can possibly overinflate the public's belief in the police's ability to reconstruct an unseen event or crime, but the nature of traffic crashes lends them particularly well to reconstruction.
Marks on the road and the imprint of the collision on the vehicles and other objects is what makes the reconstruction of a crash so potentially accurate -- albeit as a result of painstaking attention to detail that can often require the closure of a roadway or particular lanes for hours.
Such perfect physical evidence isn't always available in other types of incidents like thefts or even murders.
DUI enforcement: There's nothing even remotely funny about a drunk driver from a police officer's point of view.
Even the ones lucky enough to be stopped before they've hurt or killed anyone are a nightmare for officers to deal with.
In addition to their confusion and lack of coordination, many can vomit or soil themselves while in the squad car.
Even back at the station, there's a danger of a drunk person falling and hurting themselves. And for those who insist on resisting a hospital's collection of a blood sample by court order, there's even more about the arrest for the officer to love.
Still, despite the greater public awareness about drunk driving that's grown in recent years, traffic officers still encounter such drivers on a regular basis.
That prospect is enough to make every shift feel like the equivalent of Monday morning in a civilian's world.