Officer 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 luxurious Wynhaven Apartments right down the road from the academy. As we pulled into the apartments there were about 10-15 Mexican men sitting at the entrance, five of whom took off in a dead sprint. (We were all in police cars, by the way.) We were actually fortunate to practice in these apartments. Though the buildings we used were condemned, there were still squatters living there. We got a lot of good training while we were there.

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.

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On Monday we finished up our time on the range. We had all qualified on the state course, but we had to qualify on the Cobb County course as well. As with everything else so far, the Cobb County course was much more difficult than the state course. We had to shoot while moving, transition from a baton to the firearm and shoot, and shoot with our left hand only. I ended up scoring a 95.6%. We also practiced with our secondary firearm on Monday as well. We carry a secondary either hidden under the shirt or on the ankle.

Tuesday was taken up in the classroom talking about mental illness: the different kinds of illnesses we’ll come across both in children and adults, how to talk to someone who is mentally ill, and what to do with them if they are a problem. The lieutenant that taught the class was very amusing and made the class go by quickly; which was a bad thing. With nothing left to do for the day we hit the physical training (PT) room. Having not done any PT in two weeks, we knew they were going to make up for lost time. I was doing great until we did the alligator crawl. The gator crawl is like a pushup and a lunge at the same time; we do this back and forth across the room. By the end of the third time across the room people are screaming because of the pain. During my senior year in high school I tore the quadriceps muscle in my left leg. It hasn’t given me any problems until the gator crawl on this day. I quietly ignored the pain as long as I could, but it didn’t take long before I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I ended up taking a lot of medicine, icing, and wrapping my leg for the rest of the week.

Wednesday was all about the ASP Baton. We spent a couple of minutes in the classroom going over target and non-target areas of the body to strike, the different kind of strikes, and other things we’ll need to know for the test. 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.

Thursday and Friday were spent learning verbal judo. As one instructor told us early on, “Verbal judo is telling someone to go to hell, and having them look forward to the trip.” Verbal judo is all about communicating correctly. We talked about the eight step process of making a traffic stop, and the five step process of getting compliance by simply talking. Though dry at times, the two day course was very important and helpful. We did PT again on Thursday, but it wasn’t as bad as Tuesday’s. We leave at 3:00 on Fridays since we come in an hour early on Mondays, so there was no PT to suffer through on Friday.

Yesterday, Michelle and I went to the Silver Comet Trail for some recreational bicycling. The trail is part of the Rails to Trails project, which converts old railroad tracks into biking/running/walking paths. The Silver Comet Trail, named for the train that used the track most often, is a 60 mile trail that goes from Cobb County to the Georgia-Alabama line. We did a 10 mile round trip, having lunch halfway in Powder Springs.

There’s a funny guy in every group. The funny guy in my academy class is Rodriguez. He told me today that he was disappointed that there was nothing about him in any of my journal entries. No, “Rod made me laugh today when he made a funny sound.” No, “Rod’s such a great guy.” He hasn’t been mentioned in any of my journal entries, so here’s one devoted solely to him.

I had taken some pictures of him a little while ago so here they are. *Note: He’s making these faces, he doesn’t actually look that stupid in real life.

Week 13
Week 13 was quite a week. Monday started off with a continuation of Friday’s Active Shooter class. Before lunch we practiced clearing halls and classrooms in five men groups. I wasn’t feeling very good and apparently it was obvious to the staff. They sent me home once lunch started. Whatever I had when away with plenty of rest.

On Tuesday we were back at the Douglas County range to do real building clearings. They have a house built out of railroad ties that we practiced in, then used live ammo. Apparently, CCPD either is crazy for letting us use live ammo, or they really trust us and our training. I prefer to think it’s the latter. Major Banks was there with his video camera; he got some good footage. The head index that day was 105 degrees, and we were outside the whole time wearing gun belts and bullet resistant vests. As we were picking up all of the discharged shells, one of my teammates started feeling dizzy, so he laid down in the shade. I was driving him home in his Jeep when his back started cramping. I knew that was a sign of heat exhaustion, so I stopped at a doctors office that we were passing by. I took him in to get some immediate help, but they were unable to do much so we called for an ambulance. They started him on an IV and said he was severely dehydrated.

Wednesday we learned everything you could want to know about domestic violence and stalking. Detective Debbie Hollan from CCPD taught our class. She’s known around the country for her work with domestic violence and stalking. She’s the author of Georgia’s stalking laws, and a self proclaimed bitch. That class was interesting though. Thursday we learned how to deal with and respond to domestic violence.

Friday we had three classes: burglary, evidence, and arson. The classes were interesting, but the most interesting thing that happened wasn’t part of the schedule. The training center officers, sergeants, and lieutenant came in to brief us on a situation that was taking place in the other academy class. All we were told is that there was a problem with the class and we’d be further informed when they were authorized to do so. We were told not to talk to anybody from the other class or to anybody else if we knew what was going on.

Week 14
There was so much tension in the training center on Monday that it was hard to breathe. (Luckily we learned CPR that day.) The other class, known as Mandate Class 17, all looked as if they were on death row. No one talked, no one smiled, no one even raised their heads. We had heard through the grape vine that some of the class had cheated on a test. After the class ended we were told to hang around until the chief arrived to talk to us. We normally leave at 4:00, but the chief didn’t arrive until 5:30. Chief Hatfield informed us that they had terminated Mandate 17. They fired all 20 of them after an internal investigation revealed they had all cheated on their tests. Those who “didn’t cheat” did nothing about those who were cheating, and therefor were guilty as well. Doing nothing to stop an illegal act, for an officer at least, is just as bad as participating. There have been three articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution so far about it.

Article 1 | Article 2 | Article 3

The rest of the week we learned everything about being a first responder. I can do CPR, splint a broken bone, and deliver a baby among other things. At the end of Friday we took a 100 question test; we all passed, and none of us cheated.