Police Academy: Week 15
Monday, August 21st, 2006Officer Survival Week
Monday: Defensive Tactics for Officer Survival
Monday was basically a review of defensive tactics week. We practiced compliant and resistive handcuffing, searching, and frisking. If we did anything else that day I don’t remember.
Tuesday: Traffic Stops
We took the academy’s police cars down the road to the Jim Miller park to practice pulling people over. It may not seem like a big deal, but just pulling over my classmates was pretty intimidating. You flip on the blue lights and siren and your heart automatically starts beating faster, your adrenaline starts pumping, and your tongue forgets how to function properly. But after a few tries all went smoothly. We practiced “routine” traffic stops and felony traffic stops. We also got to practice our radio traffic. The department uses signals and codes when talking on the radio, so it was a little reassuring using them during the scenarios.
Wednesday: Building Clearing
We practiced clearing buildings for burglars all day. We had done building clearings for active shooter situations a couple of weeks ago, but clearing a building for burglars is a different animal. In active shooter situations we clear buildings quickly, moving in the open, and not caring about how much noise we make. When clearing for a burglar, who is generally not a real threat to anybody, we take our time and do it quietly. We learned how to enter rooms so as to see but not be seen, and practiced in the training center, the fire department classroom, and the smoke tower.
Thursday & Friday: Officer Survival Scenarios
We spent all day Thursday and half of Friday at the
Friday Evening: Active Shooter
After dinner we gathered at the driving course for a briefing on the active shooter scenario. We were given GLOCK pistols just like our regular ones, except they shoot paint balls. Three of the instructors children showed up to play dead kids; they had makeup and fake blood on them and everything. I was in the first group to go. We had a five man team, I was a left or right flanker, depending on the direction we were going. The situation was described as an active shooter situation at a family clinic. There was an off duty officer shot and killed as well as many children. Two or three shooters were inside. We had to drive to the academy from the driving course. When we arrived we were met by an officer who was already on the scene. There was a dead officer and little girl on the front steps of the building. As we entered the building a bomb went off somewhere outside that shook the whole building. Inside the front door there were two dead boys, the lights were all out, the fire alarms were going off, and lights were flashing. As we went down one hall we saw a person at the end get shot two or three times. The shooter then came around the corner with his hands behind his back. Three of us got down and commanded him to show his hands. When he finally did show his hands there was a gun in it, and a bullet flying towards us. Luckily, it missed, but we didn’t. We continued to clear the rest of the rooms in the building while the second team showed up to help. They took fire from two other shooters before the scenario ended.
It was such an awesome training experience. All of the people who have prior law enforcement said that he’d never had training like that before. After the other two teams went we cleaned up the building and headed home.
The rest of the day was spent practicing the different strikes. By midday, everyone was complaining about their shoulders and arms hurting. Since I had so much medicine in me for my leg, I was oblivious to the pain that would come in my shoulder and arm.


