Started Community Police Academy yesterday.

[Tgace]

Easiest explination is "aggravating circumstances"....things that bump a crime level up.
In my state we have a traffic offense called "Aggravated Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle", an unclassified misdemeanor. If you are caught driving without a license you will get a ticket for "Unlicensed Operation of a Motor Vehicle". If your license is suspended/revoked for certain reasons, that "aggravates" the offense up to the previously mentioned level. Some States have "Aggravated Battery" not really clear, but it probably involves weapons/level of injury etc.

 

[arnisador]

AH, makes sense! Thanks.

 

[Tgace]

The last section of the class involved domestic disputes. We covered the types of abuse; verbal, physical, emotional, economic, and sexual. We also talked about the abuse cycle and it's three stages. The first stage being tension, second being violence, third being contrition, repeat. The detective gave a review of policies, process and techniques when answering a domestic call. In the past the police were asked to act as a mediator in these disputes, but the official stance of most agencies has changed to that of making an arrest at each call. This is generally seen as a way to avoid liability for further violence and allows abusers to be put "in the system" for later records and further action. However now because the police almost always arrest at least one of the group, many people don't want to call. Many are shocked to see their partner arrested and protest that this was not their wish or intent. This is a negative because it makes it very unlikely that they call again for future complaints, even if there is violence involved. During this presentation the class was split and taken to different rooms where a domestic dispute senario was staged and class members acted as officers, while the rest of the class and a few officers observed and commented. Later we were informed that these senarios were modeled after actual cases the department has experienced.

Until Next week.

My state is "pro-arrest" and IMHO its a good thing. Were the Police, when somebody is beating you up and you call us, we arrest people, thats what we do. We arent there to scare people into behaving, act as ref's or be relationship advisors. Thats the help the court can mandate after we do our job. We get abusers into the system so they get help or at least court mandated separartion. If your spouse scares you to the point of calling the police than thats what needs to happen. Some "old timers" dont like it because it means more paperwork. And here we dont have to make an arrest on "every domestic call", verbal arguements are a common example, sometimes only reports are filed. But some offenses are "manditory arrest".

 

[OULobo]

I apologise for splitting up the reply, but it's easiest for rebuttle. There were some things that were different here.

My state is "pro-arrest" and IMHO its a good thing. Were the Police, when somebody is beating you up and you call us, we arrest people, thats what we do.

This whole course is designed to show that the police do so much more than just arrest people.

We arent there to scare people into behaving,

Essentially, isn't that one of the purposes of making a presence, random patrols and wearing on a uniform? Deterance.

act as ref's or be relationship advisors. Thats the help the court can mandate after we do our job. We get abusers into the system so they get help or at least court mandated separartion. If your spouse scares you to the point of calling the police than thats what needs to happen. Some "old timers" dont like it because it means more paperwork.

Actually, we were told that when the opinion of the court changed to an arrest being the perfered choice of action, there became more paperwork if you chose to only file a report and not arrest, because of liability issues. The standard domestic arrest process became streamlined and easier. Again the negative to this was that people started to not call when the situations were dangerous and they should've called. All this because they didn't want their spouse arrested. The department I was at seemed split on personal opinion.

And here we dont have to make an arrest on "every domestic call", verbal arguements are a common example, sometimes only reports are filed. But some offenses are "manditory arrest".

That's prety much what the case is here, but the officers are strongly encouraged to make an arrest.

 

[Tgace]

I apologise for splitting up the reply, but it's easiest for rebuttle. There were some things that were different here.

Not a problem.

This whole course is designed to show that the police do so much more than just arrest people.

On a daily basis yes. When somebody calls 911 because they are being threatened, beat and abused and the call the police for help...No. Like I stated before. In these cases, the court mandates the proper counciling, not us.

Essentially, isn't that one of the purposes of making a presence, random patrols and wearing on a uniform? Deterance.

When somebodys been hit, choked, pushed around in their own home, the time for deterance has passed. Letting people know that if you hit your spouse-you get locked up, thats deterance in a way.

Actually, we were told that when the opinion of the court changed to an arrest being the perfered choice of action, there became more paperwork if you chose to only file a report and not arrest, because of liability issues. The standard domestic arrest process became streamlined and easier. Again the negative to this was that people started to not call when the situations were dangerous and they should've called. All this because they didn't want their spouse arrested. The department I was at seemed split on personal opinion.

Where I work...

Domestic(non-arrest): File a DIR (one page "domestic incident report")

Domestic (arrest): File a dir/type up a booking sheet/fill out informations/fill out any statements and/or supporting depositions/get criminal history/photograph/fingerprints/submit any evidence or siezed weapons to property office. (easily an hour+ tied up in the station)

That's prety much what the case is here, but the officers are strongly encouraged to make an arrest.

If there is any violence or a future possibility of it if we leave without an arrest, so are we.

 

[OULobo]

The continuing journal of Ron's Excellent Police Adventure.

This class was fun and informative for the whole class. Again, we had no problem running over in time because everyone was interested and had many great questions. The first subject covered was narcotics investigation. First we went over trend drugs by decade and continued in to current trends. We covered the process of going down the chain of drug distribution by offereing reduced sentance for cooporation. A few examples were given where the trail went on for 7 or 8 steps from the local user to the larger distribution groups. Many common drugs were given time for discription of appearance, methods of production, behaviors common from usage common countries of origin and effects on the body. A significant time was dedicated to rave drugs and rave culture. Consequently, I found it interesting that while the officer presenting was knowledgable of the facts of drug use and culture, he was noticably lacking in the nuances of youth drug culture. I'm sure this is constantly a problem for a department to deal with a culture (slang, methods, used) that evolves so rapidly. One thing I personally found interesting was the re-appearance of heroine as a preferred drug, due to the exhorbent price increase of cocaine from the "war on drugs" and the increased purity of heroine. Another interesting demonstration was on the availability of information to the public on all the aspects of drugs though the internet, although it comes to no suprise to me personally.

The next part of the class dealt with computer forensics. This part of police work has grown extremely rapidly over the past few years due to the quick increase in technology and availability of technology. The biggest problem being credit card fraud and identity theft, but the most popular issues being online sexual predators of youth and child pornography. The basic methods of hard drive data recovery and the current methods of online tracking were outlined. The officer presented common ways criminals obtain personal information and suggested ways to prevent fraud. In closing, the class was given a consumer version of a compter forensics program that allows access and scanning of, even a password protected computer's, entire hard drive. The free program was sponsored by the city's woman's league for parents to monitor their children's computer activites.

The final segment of the night was dedicated to the department's K-9 unit, Floppy. Floppy is a Belgian Malinois, bred in the Netherlands and trained in New York. This breed and the German Shepard are the most common of all dog breeds for police and military work. This particular breed has a stronger bite than American Pit Bulls, but with no "lock jaw" reflex. The cost of a trained K-9 dog is about $8000 and the dogs have a 6-8 yr. work life. In Ohio it is not illegal to own a trained police dog privately (while city ordinances often state that certain dog breeds must be leashed at all times), so at the end of his work life, Floppy will be sold to his handler for $1. The dog is a considered a full officer and if attacked the attacker would be charged as attacking an officer. The opinon of the handler was that this breed, while great for police work, was far too hyper to be a good pet. Floppy's handler went over the tasks that Floppy is trained for. The two main tasks that the canine was trained for are apprehension (bite work) and narcotics detection. Floppy is also trained in tracking, article detection, SWAT, and, of course, PR work. All the training for these dogs is based on play motivation. So even when the dog is working, it thinks it is playing. Most of the K-9 skills are based on scent, with the exception of some tracking skills and the bite work. The dog is trained to bite the first available target during apprehension and is also trained to only bite a fleeing suspect. The mechanism for attack is running or aggressive behavior. If the suspect stops or flees in a slow manner the dog will not attack, but may bark and growl to incite a rapid flee so that it can then attack. While it's sense of scent is good, this particular dog breed is not generally able to track humans by scent. Instead, it is trained to track by disturbances in the trail. The narcotics detection skills of the dog are often used in authorized traffic searches and school locker searches.

'Till next week.

 

[dearnis.com]

Haven't checked the updates in a while..... it sounds like you are learning a great deal and having fun with it. Arni (and others interested): if your local department is too small to offer something like this check with the County Police/Sheriff's Dept. or the State Police/Highway Patrol (pick as appropriate to your locale.)
Chad

 

[arnisador]

That's a thought. I'd really enjoy doing this.

 

[OULobo]

Ready for the next instalment, here we go. This one is a little shorter.

The first subject to be covered was the detective's division. The detectives investigate crimes that are too time consuming, delicate or high-profile for uniformed officers to handle. They are also in charge of crime scene investigations, interrogations, interviews and survailance. Presented to the class was a case of a murder-suicide from three years ago. The process of investigation, including crime scene work, interview and documentation were described. Included also was a basic demonstration of fingerprint identification and footprint casting.

The second subject breeched was that of juvenile officer's duties. This demonstration included common practices in handling juveniles, the bind-over process (trial as an adult), the difference in the adult and juvenile systems and alternatives to incarceration.

The final protion of the class involved a short description of a local task force and a case study on search and seizure. The task force was formed to secure the interstate that runs through the city and is consequently the greatest crimnal threat to the city. The interstate is a pipeline for drugs to and from large cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, Pittsburgh, ect. The interstate draws the commerce of hotels, but these hotels also provide a fertile area for criminal activities. Two examples of the task force's actions were examined. The first involved a heroine bust. This case was of an individual that chose to leave his inner city Cleveland house to go to our suburb to do his deallng. The mentality behind this is that the suburbs are less active in drug interdiction and that hotels allow for mobility and anonymity. This particular case involved a user that was caught by a canine and he flipped on the distributer. The distributer was survailed for a few days and then a search warrent was obtained and served. The hotel room contained a significant amount of heroine and the dealer was out on parole. He went up for thirty.

The second case involved two cars that traveled from Pheonix to Cleveland to transport a large amout of weed. The mule vehicle, or vehicle that carried dope to Cleveland was a rental. This vehicle contained a mother and child to provide the cover of a traveling family and therefore reduce suspicion in the event that they are pulled over. Many transporters use rentals so that their own vehicles can't be confiscated if they are caught. Officers that were patroling the local hotels' parking areas took note of two cars that had no front plates and were backed in to their parking spaces. These are red flags, because often the cars are rented from states that only require rear plates and these plates are concealed by from cursery observation by parking with the rear plates facing the building. The plates were found to be out of state and registered to a rental company. The cars were survailed and the owner's room was identified. The owners paid cash for the room, another red flag, as it stops a paper trail. During survailance the officers noted that the only the two male occupants ever left and only for short periods of time and while speaking on a cell phone. After the search warrent was served the officers located the dope in the trunk of the rental car and it was double vacuum sealed to reduce odor during a long trip.

The final part of the class was a case study of search and seizure. The five basic powers of the police were outlined; arrest, search, detain, question, identify. The case involved the infamous Jacobs Field Peeper. This was a voyuer that used a camcorder in a leather bag to remotely film up the skirts and short of female Indians fans attending the game. One of the victims recognized that a man was withing her personal space and had placed a bag near her. Although strange, she thought nothing of it until it was noticed that the same man was repeating his behavior with other women. The victim followed the peeper until he was lost in the bleachers. At this point the victim notified security who notified police. The security cameras were trained on the bleachers and the victim was able to identify the peeper. He was detained and questioned about the contents of the bag. He replied "All I have is binoculars, here have a look." (paraphrase). This was consent to a search of the bag. In the bag under five rain panchos was a video camcorder with a peice of blace tape over the activity light. When questioned about the camcorder's contents, the suspect replied that he wished to see an attorney. The bag was seized until a search warrent could be obtained. As the suspect was not an immediate risk or suspected of a felony, he was released. After the affidavid was printed and the warrent was signed by a judge the tape in the camcorder was played and studied. The contents of the film was obviously evidence against the suspect and he was arrested at his residence. The suspect was found guilty and sentanced to counciling and probation for a 3rd degree misdemeanor.

 

[OULobo]

I went on a ride along on Saturday night on the 11pm to 7 am shift. It is a little hard to report all the events of the night, but I can give a very brief summary so that people get an idea of how exciting or boring the actual job can be. During the shift we issued a few traffic warnings, aided a stranded motorist, arrested 2 people on two separate instances of DCI (disorderly conduct while intoxicated) and aided a neiboring city on a domestic violence call.

 

[arnisador]

My brother did a ride-along once and found it interesting. There was a lot of gang activity where they were and he learned a lot about how they check for that sort of thing.

Traffic warnings, not tickets? Being nice because you were along?

 

[OULobo]

Traffic warnings, not tickets? Being nice because you were along?

I wondered that too, but this officer stated he had a personal policy that he didn't write "cheap tickets", only "good tickets". We radared a truck doing 49 in a 35, and he said that 1 mph saved this guy from a ticket, he got a warning instead. I heard some other officers say that they only write "good tickets" too. From what they said, these are tickets for obviously dangerous situations. Most of them said they ticket at 15 mph over and that they don't bother writing tickets that aren't overtly dangerous, like if a guy is driving at 40 mph on a 25 road at 4:00am with no houses or cars on the road. That's what I meant by being more generous than I would be. I would write them for anything over 10 mph past the limit.

 

[arnisador]

Maybe it's not worth them being off the street in order to testify in those cases--everyone would challenge a ticket written at 5 mph over. fewer at 10 mph and fewer still at 15 mph, I'd guess. They'd be in court all day. Obviously a problem over all--I wonder how individual officers feel about it? Is a day in court a better day of work than a day driving around? Less is accomplished, maybe, but it's safer and less hectic. Of course, it can't be what attracted people to the job in the first place.

 

[dearnis.com]

Every officer says that they only write good tickets...until they get caught issuing one for an unsigned vehicle registration!!!
Court decisions in Delaware allow us to stop for a noted speed violation, but issue a ticket for a reduced speed (for example you are stopped going 22 over, but your "break" is only being cited for 9 over); I personally like this because a written warning seldom teaches a person anything.
When I worked patrol I would usually issue warnings for equipment based stops where I was more curious about the vehicle and its occupants than genuinely concerned with the non-functional tail light. That is until I found that the operator was wanted, had a revoked license, no insurance, etc....
My view on warning stiffened a lot once I started working fatal crashes. Most, regardless of alcohol contribution, are either speed or traffic control related. I used to feel bad about ticketing teenage drivers, knowing how I was costing them their newly earned freedom. After spending way too many hours explaining to grieving families that had Jr. not been driving way, way, over anything resembling a safe speed he would still be with them I no longer feel this way.

Loosely related- good criminal arrests grow from good traffic stops.

 

[OULobo]

Okay, I may be dropping the ball here, but yesterday was a class on court proceedings. We had the city prosecuter, a well repected defense attorney and a magistrate come in to give (not so) brief job descriptions. While it was very interesting, it could get a little mind numbing.

Before I go on to the presentations, I just want to mention an occurance at the class yesterday (and vent a little). If you are only interested in the presentations, feel free to skip this paragraph, but there was quite a lesson learned. While in the class, a man in the rear who is, at this point in the progress of the program, well known for getting on a soapbox during the presentations decided to really get fired up during the presentations of the lawyers, both defense and prosecution. His opinions are idealistic and a little ignorant. While no one initially had any issue with his occational outbursts, questions and bickering, after this many weeks, the class has become a little less tolerant. The man was finally requested to hold his questions and comments until the end of the presentation. The reason I bring this up is that it was a great demonstration of how the people in the class, like the officers on the force, are just a cross section of the general public. There are people, although relatively few, who are argumentative, persistant, motivated and often misguided in class, just like in the citizenry.

On to the presentations. The first presentation was by the magistrate. She gave us a quick view of her duties, including acting as a referee in cases involving traffic and lesser misdemeanors. She described the process of sentancing and the methods used to determine and factors that effect the decision of punishment. She also included the process of becoming a magistrate, the local system of courts and some of the common figures in the local courts.

The next presentation was from a local defense lawyer. There is no public defender for our city, so local attorneys who volunteer are chosen from a list to act as court appointed defense attorneys. He wanted to make it apparent that the current court system is designed with the assumption that it is better for a guilty person to go free, than for an innocent person to be punished. He touched a little on ethics and the requirments of the bar, and most importantly that the defense lawyer is not a direct opponent of the prosecuter, but an instrument of the system too help justly prove wrongdoing, aid in rehabilitation and ease the strain on the courts by mediating plea bargains.

The final presentation was by the city prosecutor, who described the duties he is entrusted with by the city. The foremost of these is the assignment of proper charges for an alledged crime. He described the process of a moving felonies to a grand jury for arraignment. This process allows the crimes of greater weight and penalty (felonies) to be turned over to the county prosecutor for trial in the county court.

The rest of the class was a mock trial of an OVI case. This was interesting to see how some of the proceedure is applied in a case. Another thing to bring up is the respect and jovial nature of the parties involved. There seemed to be no anymosity between the prosecution and the defense, besides off hand quips and barbs traded with smiles and laughs.


Two more classes and graduation to go. The rest of the classes should be really fun. Next week is vehicle operation and self-defense, and the week after is firearms, SWAT and hostage negotiation.

 

[OULobo]

Okay guys, this one is pretty much just plain fun and short. It's not that I'm getting lazy, just that the class is designed to have all the fun participation intensive stuff towards the end, so there is less to write about and more to experience.

The first part of the class was about vehicle manuvering. We met at a local transit parking area and did a manuvering course in the cruisers that the officers set up. the course included a group of cones for a "slalom" section, a 180 degree turn, a hairpin turn and a high speed stop. The course was performed with an officer in each cruiser and the attendees were allowed to attempt as many times as desired. The requirement for the officers is a timed performance and a performance of the course in reverse, with points deducted for cones hit or nudged. Needless to say this was fun, but there isn't much else to say about it.

The second part of class was devoted to officer safety. It was given by the officer that will be handling the self defense portion of the course that will be in the gym next week. For this reason he combined the officer safety and the self-defense class work into one class, allowing more time in the gym. The class work consisted of the force continuum that officers are obliged to adhere to. This is the breakdown of appropriate reactions from the officer in response to a citizen's actions. There are 5 levels of action and the officers are allowed to escalate one level above the actions of the citizen with due regard to special circumstances. The first level allows presence, command, position and escort if the citizen is showing aggression ques or is verbally threatening. The second level is for general resistance and allows for pressure point application, basic joint locks and restraint holds. The third level is in response to "wrestling" and allows for electrical devices, baton restraints, muscle mass strikes and mace. The fourth level is in response to striking or kicking and allows for active baton strikes and choke holds. The fifth level is in response to attack with a deadly weapon or indirect lethal force and allows for lethal force. Special factors include relative size, gender, number of attackers and fighting from the ground. Another point to bring up is that any action that risks the conciousness of the officer is considered lethal as it would allow access to the officer's weapon.

The viable unarmed targets were addressed. These included basic (to MAists) nerve areas and joints. The areas of sensitivity and effect with the baton were shown and discribed with the qualification that some areas are on different levels of the force continuum (throat is lethal [level 5] while the butt is not [level 4]). The officer included a brief description of the different systems the techniques of there self defense teachings are derived from ,which included jui-juitsu (for ground), karate (kicks), Aikido/Hapkido (locks/throws) and Israeli (Krav Maga for elbows). The officer passed out various pieces of equipment that the officers carry including service belt, tasers, ASP batons, radio, service firearm (full sized Glock .40), vest, handcuffs, and mace. Other basic equipment is kept in the cruiser, like flashlight, stopstick, cones, shotgun and AR-15, speed devices, ect. Also included in the discussion were experiences and limitations of less-than-lethals like mace, stun guns and tasers, and the 21ft. rule.

Next week self-defense (gym time), body searches (no cavity searches), handcuffing, body placement, leverage, securing a suspect, firearms (range and classroom) and room clearing / apartment search and secure exercise. I can't wait.

 

[dearnis.com]

My little addition-
I was scheduled to teach in our citizens academy for the first time last night; DUI (yes, we still call it that) detection, apprehension, and prosecution. But my real work got in the way; bad wreck, I got called out for that instead. My partner told me today he had a great time.....
Completely unrelated; one of the municipal departments we overlap with is hosting their 1st citizens academy; they are quite small (<20 officers), but it should go well for them. They stated they are limiting participation to those who live within town limits, which is the first I have heard of that.

 

[OULobo]

Ours was limited to residents of the city or people who worked at companies within the city. I'm glad to hear so many other places are doing this type of program. They are just so much fun and there is just so much information.

 

[OULobo]

This entry is going to be a little like the last. The whole session was very fast paced and participation oriented.

The first session involved gym work for self-defense, suspect securing and search. As a martial artist I found that the most interesting thing was the lack of any coordination or skill from any of the other participants. For the self-defense session we rotated through stations were the participents did closed-fist jab-cross on focus mits, palm-strike jab-cross on focus mits, horizontal elbows on mits, knees on a kicking sheild, roundhouse kick on a kicking sheild, PR-24 (nightstick, much like a Okinawan tonfa) strikes on a heavy bag and ASP (collapsable baton) strikes on a heavy bag. The amazing thing was watching all the students stumble, bumble and mildly hurt themselves during the exercises. Obviously this is a jaded view, but it was a reality check on how much the average citizen really doesn't know about the physics and mechanics of correct strikes.

The next part of this session involved securing a suspect. This includes escorting and hand cuffing safely. The proceedure taught for escorting involved grips as the wrist and shoulder. This allowed conversion into an armbar or a modified sankyo hold/lock if there is resistance. The officer made it clear that resistance on the force continuum only allows for holds/locks or 1 step escalation to pressure points. Then he demonstrated techniques for cuffing. First and formost was facing the suspect away from you and not allowing him to look over his shoulder at you. This is to restrict his knowledge of your position and thereby not give him the opportunity to formulate a method of attack or escape. We were told that the "put your hands on the car/wall" technique is generally frowned upon currently because it allows the suspect to maintain balance and leverage. Demonstrated techniques were instructing the suspect to cross his legs or spread his legs as far as possible and put his arms out to his sides palms up or behind his back palms out / back of the hands together. We were told that it was important to continue conversation with the suspect to keep his mind off the cuffing process until the first cuff was on. Also included were grips used to restrain both hands of the suspect behind with one hand while applying cuffs with the other hand. The students were given the opportunity to apply these techniques on each other. Also briefly demonstrated was the military method of actually leaning the suspect on the nearest wall with the only point of contact during cuffing being the forehead. This is discouraged due to liability if head injury occurs.

The next part or the session involved search. This demonstration involved the quadrant method and all the common but sneaky hiding spots like in the belt, watch, hat, bra, crotch, ect. The policy of the department is to only perform a cursory search of females until a female officer is on site to perform a more in depth search. The student were partnered up and separated. One partner was given some common contraband to hide on his person, then they were brought to the other partner for escort, cuffing, and search. Of all things, I actually missed a balisong hidden in my partner's wallet.

The next lesson was firearms. After a short info/Q&A session that centered on the evolution of service firearms and the recent concealed weapons laws, we headed off to the range. The officer in charge of this session was a Range Officer and a Glock armorer. The department allows the officers to choose between three different sized Glock .40 cal. semi-auto pistols for their service side-arm. The students were allowed 6 rounds at each of three distances; 10, 20 and 50 ft. I had a pretty good grouping and placement until 50 ft., then I had two strays, but all of it was in the qualifying zones (even some double chest, single head shots). Qualifying requires 80% in the qualifying zones and is only required once a year. Most officers admitted to practicing only once every two or three months or so.

Moving on to the next session we were allowed to do three property search and investigation exercises. Auxillary officers were enlisted to play in the exercises. We were given blueguns and maglights, and we were sent into a building with designated boundries to investigate an open door alarm. The first exercise examined how to open doors/enter rooms safely, studied line of sight/fire and looked at positioning of available personel. This particular scenario involved a person eating at a desk and claiming to be the last person at an office party. The "officer" (that's me) has to examine the situation, interpret any danger, question the suspect and secure him if needed. In the exercise the suspect was infact a burgler and was armed. The actor was instructed to draw and shoot from a rear waist band holstered gun if the "officer" ever let him out of sight. The second scenario was designed to distract the officers long enough for a second attacker to approach from the rear. In this instance there were three "officers" in the group and the last (that's me) was supposed to cover the rear while the primaries investigate the initial suspect. The final scenario involved a disturbed individual threatening suicide. This exercise was designed to see if you had a good idea of when it was justifiable to shoot. At some point while talking-down the suspect or insisting the he drop his weapon he would turn his gun to the "officers".

The final portion of the days studies involved polygraph / voice stress analysis. An officer that is currently on loan to the FBI terrorism task force returned to do the presentation. The design, application and results of a test were shown and examined, and the method of detection was described. During this session we were allowed to operate the tester and ask questions. The most interesting part of this portion of the days events wer the ideas of interpretation and jeapordy. Interpretation involves the notion that what you call white, I may call beige or eggshell. So in my mind if you ask me if the wall is white, I will say no and believe what I say is true despite the fact that you think the wall is clearly white. The idea of jeapordy is that there has to be something at risk before the machine will work. If you try to do a card trick and ask me what card I picked it would be hard to see if I am lying because at the heart of the matter I don't care if you know I'm lying. The majority (90%) of the public is "testable" in that we have a set of morals, a good idea of what is legal and a notion of what is right or wrong. The other 10% of the population that isn't testable are sociopaths and lack either the notion of right and wrong or the opinion that they are in jeapordy.

Well only one more session before graduation. This one is hostage negotioation, SWAT and crowd control. See you next week.

 

[OULobo]

Next entry, Last entry. Today is the last session. the next Wed. is a graduation celebration which I will be unable to attend due to trip I must take for work obligations. The event is basically a chance to meet the chief, meet the mayor, give your family/friends a tour of the station, get a shirt from the program, get a graduation certificate and have some pizza. I've met the chief and the mayor already, I could do without the pizza and I'm sending my fiance' to take the tour and pick up my certificate and shirt (not that anyone reading this probly cares). So effectivly this is my final post on this thread except for basic discussion.

In this class we covered SWAT and hostage negotioation. The SWAT session was taught by an ex-army airborne ranger that is now a SWAT sniper (pretty cool huh, nuttin but respect). SWAT (as anyone who has seen the movie may know) stands for Special Weapons and Tactics and first originated with Daryl Gates in the late 1960s at the LAPD before he moved on to become LA police chief. The teams were founded to counter the increasing amount of heavy armorment that many criminals, specifically from the drug element, were employing against ill prepared police. The first teams actually were outfitted in basic military gear and the equipment evolved for more specific duties as time passed. Now the mentality of SWAT is to settle the situation with the minimum loss of life and collateral property damage. It is important to remember that deploying a SWAT team is in itself considered an escalation on the use of force continuum. There are often times of reconsideration on the amount of force that is about to be applied vs the charges to be leveled. One instance given was of a SWAT call to a residence where a person refused to exit his apartment. Upon later investigation the officers only had a misdemeanor charge on the resident and so they were withdrawn and the suspect was arrested the next day when he showed up for work, no fuss.

There are many misconceptions involved with SWAT. Firstly, they are not hotheads and adreanalin junkies. These personallity types can be detrimental to the operation fo the team. SWAT is not all about breaking windows, swinging in on ropes, and shooting the place up. The majority of SWAT operations take a long time and are extremely monotinous. The average response time is 45 min., making mobilization of SWAT a slow and grinding process. Our team is composed of officers from the general 6 city area, with 7 officers from my city. They field up to 30 calls a year. The primary missions of a SWAT team are 1) hostage resque, 2) barricaded suspects, 3) serving high risk warrants (known violent history or known armed suspect). The officers are always restricted in training time by what the city budget planners and department supervisors will allow. This is because there are no full time SWAT officers on the team, and all the officers still have the duties of being a full time police patrol officer, supervisior or detective. The training schedule has been raised from 4 hrs/mo to 8 hrs/mo and the current goal is 16 hrs/mo.

The traits that are needed to be on a SWAT team include familiarity with weaponry, independent physical fitness, availability, good teamwork skills and a calm and professional attitude. The team is divided into different sub-units including breechers (those who gain entry), entry (those who enter), gas specialists (those who make entry unnecessary by forcing the subject out), snipers (primarily observation), and medics (damage control). Although not technically part of a SWAT team, many times a negotiator is also included. The breechers are generally physically large individuals that are equipped with various devices that allow passage through basic barriers like doors. These include sledge hammers, pry bars, bolt cutters, battering rams and shotguns. The shotguns are loaded with compacted clay slugs that destroy the locks on doors. Most breechers don't enter the situation because their size restricts mobility in tighter hallways and cluttered domiciles. Gas specialists are well trained in the application, capabilities and limitations of various gasses used in SWAT situations. Gas not only poses a basic health risk (risk of complications), but is a fire risk (Waco anyone) and a vision obscurer for the entry team. The sniper is estentially a hidden observer with a surgical offensive capability. This allows for basic intelligence without letting the suspect know he is being observed, and allows for a pre-emptive strike if officers or hostages are in immediate danger. The snipers are restricted by the same use of force rules as all other officers, except if there is an executive decision that all other options are exhausted. Interestingly enough the SWAT snipers are trained with a very different mentality from the snipers in the military. Military snipers are enouraged to make long distance hits to main body mass. SWAT snipers are trained to shoot at lesser distances and to hit only the head through the madula oblagata (whew. . sp) of the brain. This makes for a non-reflexive kill and avoids unwanted discharges of the suspects firearm. As a point of reference, most SWAT snipers can hit a dime at 100yrs.

The armorment of the team includes the forementioned breech equipment, gas and various guns. The gun included in our SWAT team's gear, besides the basic Glock .40 cal side arm, is the H&K MP5 sub-machine gun. This gun has a variable rate of fire including single, three round burst and full auto, and fires the .40 cal round used in the department issued side arm or some use the common 9mm round. The snipers use the Remington 700 bolt-action rifle. Another weapon employed by the department is the sage gun. This is a "less lethal" weapon used to apprehend or disable an aggressive suspect from a distance without killing him. Ours is specifically loaded with hard rubber sabot rounds that make a painfull impact. The gun can hold up to the 6 rounds and can be converted into a gas can launcher or a granade launcher.

The department also employs three vehicles. One is a cargo van that holds the basic equipment, one is a portble command post that I will cover under the hostage negotiation section and the third is called a Hummer Pig. This is a heavily armored British military vehicle that is used to recover injured personel or provide covered access that protects officers from small arms fire. It is powered by a standard unleaded gasoline engine (you'd think it would be diesel). The vehicle is resistant to all bullistics up to a high-powered rifle round. This vehicle is also very cumbersome, slow and hard to control.

At this point we were allowed to enter the Pig, handle the firearms, try on the gear, carry the anti-bullistics sheild and fire the sage gun.

The next session was about hostage negotioation and was taught by one of the 10 negotiators that service the 6 city area. The negotiations are always conducted with a primary and secondary negotiator. The primary builds a raport with the suspect, while the secondary gathers intelligence from family members, co-workers, ect. These personel work closely with the SWAT team to de-escalate situations. It was pointed out that many negotiation situations are suicide situations. Generally, if the person is willing to communicate and hasn't attempted suicide by the time the negotiators arrive, then they are usually looking for help or communication, not suicide. Although all situations are unique. The negotiators are not allowed to let the person talk to any requested others (family, girlfriend, ect.) due to the unpredictable effects of that contact. The vehicle used by the negotiators is a portable command post van/bus that is equipped with various communications and survailance equipment, but is also equipped to be deployed for long term operations (hours to days).

That's all I got, hope everyone enjoyed this.