Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
Come on a ride along with a Veteran Homicide Detective as the twists and turns of the job suddenly end his career and nearly his life; discover how something wonderful is born out of the Darkness. Embark on the journey from helping people on their worst days, to bringing life, excitement and smiles on their best days.
Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)
SnapShot: Welcome to Hell, Black Monday at the Alaska State Trooper Academy
Step into the punishing world of Alaska's State Trooper Academy, where my transition from eager recruit to hardened law enforcement officer unfolded through 16 weeks of calculated psychological warfare and physical endurance.
The journey began deceptively—arriving in Sitka in a pressed suit with a freshly shaved head, greeted cordially by a trooper who quickly faded into the background as drill instructors descended like roosters, chasing us through the airport while we struggled with luggage and confusion. From that moment, every minute was designed to break us down. We endured 4:30 AM wake-ups, physical training that left us gasping, and combat drills where we fought on our knees until someone quit. The instructors maintained pressure through surprise inspections, throwing mattresses out windows while we attended classes, and enforcing military precision down to measuring the exact distance between coat hangers.
Training dangers became startlingly real when an instructor's demonstration ended with a police cruiser rolling upside down into the ocean with recruits trapped inside. Despite everyone escaping safely, our attempts at gallows humor were met with stony disapproval—another lesson in the unyielding standards expected of Alaska's finest.
The transformation was complete by graduation day. Though I'll never personally embrace the trooper mentality—"I don't have a stick up my ass," as I put it—I gained profound respect for these officers. After working with thousands of cops across multiple states, Alaska State Troopers remain among the most professional, disciplined law enforcement professionals I've ever encountered. This is what it takes to wear the badge in America's last frontier. Could you survive what I endured to become a police officer?
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So there, I was super excited, right, I've wanted to do law enforcement my whole life and now I've got hired. I've spent three or four months on the road as a cop after passing my field training. Now I'm going to go to the academy and I'm super excited about this. Now, the academy is ran by the Alaska State Troopers, and if you don't know the difference between a trooper and a city cop, let me tell you. The trooper has something to prove and most of them have a stick up their ass and they're all paramilitary and URA and one trooper, one riot mentality. Anything they're going to do is going to be hard and fast and they're going to be better than everybody else. No-transcript, you got to be 100% badass. So here I am. I'm going to this academy that is ran by the troopers. I'm weighing in at an astonishing 280 pounds because I'm a fat ass, and I go to this academy. I'm dressed up in a suit and it's me and another dude.
Speaker 1:This other guy got hired a couple of days before me or after me. His name's Casey. He's a great guy, and Casey is this wiry redhead that was a star of the football team, just an absolute stud, and he and I are going to go to the academy together and spend 18 weeks or 16 weeks, whatever it was in Sitka, alaska, getting taught by the state troopers. So we both shave our heads the night before Our wives are there and we get dressed up in our suits and the next day we jump on a plane and we fly a couple hours to Sitka. We land in Sitka and Casey and I are sitting in the very front of the plane and he says hey, are you going to get off first or am I going to get off first? I'm like dude. He said I'll tell you what he said. I'll get off first. You hold my water bottle. So he tosses me his water bottle and we get off the plane and as we're walking down the gateway, a lady, an airport employee, walks by and says oh hey, guys, hey, they're waiting for you. They're right around the corner talking about the state troopers. So when we step off the gangway there into the airport, it's Sitka. It's a small little airport in Alaska, just maybe one or two gates and the first person we see is Trooper Helgo. Trooper Helgo is a bald, six foot two, 230 pounds of lean muscle, tatted from wrist to shoulder, wearing his nice blue uniform light blue top, dark blue bottoms, yellow stripe, looking like a fricking poster child for law enforcement. He's got his flat brim Stetson on. He's about 35 years old at this time and just an absolute stud and soft spoke and he says recruit Turnage, it's so good to meet you here. Here's your name tag and you know, you can just put this on that left lapel and then step right over there and those guys will help you get help you get squared away and I'm like awesome. So I'm like I look at my buddy Casey. I'm like dude, we got this, you know fist bump and we step past Trooper Helgo.
Speaker 1:That's when the other people showed up Hightower. Hightower is a state trooper who's about five foot seven inches tall, about two foot wide, a little sawed off fire plug of a guy with a lot of attitude and a lot of yelling. And from there they're yelling and screaming. And there's nothing nice. They're saying nothing nice. They're yelling and screaming. They're chasing us around this tiny little airport. There's people all over the place. Get your bags, get your bags, get your shit. Let's go Sidewalk, sidewalk, sidewalk. Run, run, run. You're not moving fast enough. Close your mouth, fat ass. So they're doing all this stuff.
Speaker 1:So we're grabbing our bags, we're running, we're sweating like crazy, we're wearing suits, we're like, oh my God, the intensity just went to a thousand. We get our bags. We're only allowed to carry them one at a time from the conveyor belt out to the sidewalk. On the sidewalk we have to line up in alphabetical order with all these other people that we don't know. So we don't know them. There's 20 of, but we got to get to know them real quick and figure out what their last name is and how our name fits in between their names.
Speaker 1:So we all line up on the sidewalk and we're running one at a time, and you can imagine the confusion. We're in, we're out, we're out, we're in, we're trying to get, we're having to move our bags down because people, other people show up. Finally we have all of our bags and they're lined up behind us, one at a time, and they're stacked in a line small, you know, a little bit bigger, biggest, and then we're standing kind of ahead of the bags and, uh, we're standing there and everybody's finally out there. We're all sweating like mad, our stress level is high, we're at attention. Yes, sir, no sir. And somebody comes out and says one of the instructors says who left their water bottle inside, and I'm like, thank God, it wasn't me. I don't even have a water bottle, thank God. And Casey's like, dude, you got my water bottle, like damn it. So I'm like it was me, sir. They threw the water bottle at me. You know, turn it. You owe me 20 pushups, yes, sir.
Speaker 1:So now we have to run all of our bags from where we're standing across this big parking lot to a bus that's waiting for us. We have to stack all of our bags in the back of this bus. You know, like where the fire door is. One of us has to jump up in there, toss the bags into the others. We got to stack all these bags up, but we can only run the bags across one at a time. We're all making 25 runs across this parking lot. We finally get the bag stacked up inside of there. Remember, we're still in our suits, we're still sweating our asses off and the intensity is high because they're chasing us, yelling at us the whole time. They're not being very nice, they're being jerks and nobody likes jerks. So they're chasing us around and kind of like roosters. When roosters chase you, that's what I feel like is happening to us. So finally we all get on the bus and then we meet Tony April. Tony April is a six foot uh tall, solid, thick black man with a bling tooth, state trooper wearing his beautiful blue uniform, and he has got the deep voice and he is now yelling at us on the bus and he's taking us to wherever we're going to go Once we get to the academy grounds.
Speaker 1:Now we got to get off the bus and we got to run these bags in one at a time, but we are not privileged enough to go through the front door, so we have to run around the building to the side door and we can't step on the grass, we can only walk on gravel. Then we run them all upstairs into the main bunk area or not the bunk area, but the great room. We stack them all up and then they come in and they start opening our bags and inspecting them and they're dumping them out all over the pool table. Then they take us down to the classrooms and make us gather all our stuff back up. Then they take us to the classrooms and then they continue to pound stuff into us and work us. We get our PT gear and we go on a five mile run and we come back and then we are on our knees and we're fighting each other on our knees. So we get to pushups, to exhaustion, get on our knees, put on boxing gloves and we're squared off against people and we're just fighting until somebody quits, gives up or dies One of the three. And we're just fighting until somebody quits, gives up or dies One of the three. That was day one at the academy.
Speaker 1:For the next 16 weeks our days went from 4.30 am until about 11 pm. Every night we were in PT from about 5 am to 7.30. We were eating from 7.30 to 8. We spent from 8 am to about 6 or 7 pm doing classroom work, going on runs, unexpected ass kickings, whatever it was that continually tried to throw us off from there. After that we're responsible for cleaning up and studying. We had tests all the time. If we fail the test, we got to go home. It was like a deal you fail, we give you the privilege of leaving because they fire you.
Speaker 1:So all of this stuff was going on. We did this for 16 weeks. We didn't have a day off for eight weeks. Then we had commander's weekend where our families got to come to town. Then, after our families came to town, then we started getting a couple of days off on the weekends. Well, I say a couple of days off, I mean we had a couple of days off over the course of the next eight weekends.
Speaker 1:And, uh, you know, then we go out and we do driving. And this one day we're doing driving and the recruits could not, and we did driving on the parking lot of Mount Edgecombe college which is right on the edge of the ocean. So literally the parking lot goes right to the edge of the ocean and that's, you know, you got. Well, the recruits couldn't get the technical maneuver in the car. So one of the instructors says everybody get. You know, three or four guys get in, I'll show you how to do it. So the instructor is driving and he drives while he overloads his car and his car flips and rolls down that embankment upside down into the ocean. So now you've got three recruits trapped in the backseat, one recruit trapped in the front seat and the instructor as the car sinking in the ocean. They all get out. Our training day was over. They did not find it funny that we were hanging life vests on the sergeant's door. Nobody was laughing about it except us.
Speaker 1:And then week 16 comes, we have graduation. It's the first time we're able to put on our own uniform, it's the first time we're able to pin our own badge on and we go across the stage, we graduate and we become full-fledged cops. So it was 16, 17 weeks of living hell Cleaning bathrooms with toothbrushes, being able to bounce a quarter off of your sheets, having two inches between each hanger in your closet, all the snaps, snap button, button, velcro, velcro. Your shoes so bright and shiny that they can see the reflection of the sky. While you were downstairs in class, they were right above you in your locker or in your dorm rooms, tearing up your dorm rooms, throwing your mattresses and sheets out the window. That is what the Academy looked like.
Speaker 1:Some people think it's this like fun Boy Scout camp you get to go to. No, not ours. Living hell. People that come out of Alaska Academy they get through it. Hell, people that come out of Alaska Academy they get through it. There are some awesome, awesome folks and, to this date, some of the hardest law enforcement officers I have ever met in working multiple states thousands of cops have been around are the Alaska State Troopers. I would never be one. I don't like what they stand for. I don't have a stick up my ass, but they are hard professional cops. That's it. That is a murderous music snapshot.
