Seems like a military man would make a better officer than a cop. Why is the US police system so trashy? Its like a dollar store version of a mafia.
I keep hearing that in US police gets very rushed and shallow training while getting admitted into the school has low as fuck bar. All around bad combo. Keep in mind I'm not from US and just parroting what I have kept hearing.
Seems like police officers in US are either extremely scared all the time for their lives which in itself is very bad OR it's just pathetic excuse to get away free from shooting someone 10+ times in moment of random panic.
John Oliver should do episode about police training in US.
Also I imagine career MP is more experienced and better trained in policing than even few year "veteran" of X police department.
I can't really comment on how things are done in other states, but here in South Carolina, the academy for Basic Law is 13 weeks. When I went in 2000, it was 9 weeks. We learned, well, basic law, firearms training for a week, driver driving for a week, specific areas like domestic violence, constitutional law (4th Amendment was a LONG few days), crisis training, FATS, hazmat response, basic detective skills, stress response, PPCT, PR24, ground fighting/defense, handcuffing, levels of force/force continuum, and maybe more that slipped my mind.
If you have any questions about something I didn't mention, please ask, maybe that'll help jog my memory lol.
I'll try and break some of it down.
Basic Law
That was our first two weeks at the SCCJA. That was labeled as "Legals". We couldn't leave the academy for the first two weeks, except for the weekends. We could leave after our last class on Friday, and be in formation by whatever time our class leader designated for us to be back by on Sunday.
It would take a really long post to go over how in depth it was, but to keep it simple, it was mainly about going over our state laws and learning how different situations that seem like the same, can fall under different statutes. Essentially, it was a quick two weeks of exactly what it is, basic law education. It's up to our departments, or ourselves for that matter, to keep updated on our state laws. There is always a legal, and criminal domestic violence, class we had to take ever year. Just two hours of each subject. It went over cases, case law, precedence, and any updates to the previous laws we enforced.
Criminal Domestic Violence
We went through a week of specifically CDV laws. That covered our state laws, past cases, rulings on cases, and role playing with stand in "actors" that we had to learn about deescalating, different ways to keep things from getting out of hand, quick.
Hazmat/Detective
This week we learned about hazardous materials, how to identify them, first responses, state response teams, and dealing with contaminated areas. This was something that was a good learning experience and we had to use this in Granitville, SC. There was a huge chlorine chemical spill. We had to walk through there suited up, going house to house and find people that were alive, dead, missing, etc. Using the training we had in the academy helped tremendously.
The detective part of it was really basic. VERY basic. Fingerprinting, learning to identify prints, different methods for lifting prints and securing latent pulls. How to detail the procedure we used and diagram where and how we lifted the prints.
Water rescue and survival
I know I didn't mention this above, but it came to mind as I was going through the weeks by number. We had a week of pool training, in full uniform, for water rescue and how to survive if we were somehow in a body of water needing help. We had to tread water in full uniform for 20 minutes, then swim the length of the pool twice. We also learned how to assist others that were in need of help in the water. The hardest thing was pulling dead weight bodies out of submerged vehicles. Grown men sized, women, teenage size and infants. Then perform CPR, and learning different coping strategies if we ever were in an situation where someone didn't survive. This too was paramount when we had a teenager locked in a truck drown in a lake. Heartbreaking, and something we can never forget.
The Crisis House
This was where the stress weeks started. We were going into a mock neighborhood, basically a few houses. This was supposed to show how we can apply what we've been learning over the past few weeks. We were briefed on a situation where police were called, and we were the officers to respond. We were always with a partner. The role playing in this was, I wanna say, not staged at all. My partner and I were told a pastor was letting a parolee live in his house as a halfway house. The Pastor complained that the gentleman was letting friends come over without asking, playing loud music, and just cause commotion, and he wanted him out. Well, my partner and I told him we'll talk with him and see if we can come to a mutual agreement on calming things down and getting him to leave.
We walk in, and it's a group of guys playing poker at a table, with LOUD music. We asked them to turn it down, they refused. Well, we were trying to be really nice and polite, and they still wouldn't let us talk, and they wouldn't turn the music down. I turned the music down and one of the guys, who were all Mr. Olympia looking mother fuckers, jumped at and started coming right at me. He put his arms up like he was going to grab me, and all the "pretend" feelings were gone in an instant. I grabbed him and did a judo him throw and planted his ass on the ground. I started handcuffing him, and all hell broke loose. Four other guys jumped up, one pulled a knife, and one pulled a gun while he grabbed my partner and put the gun to his head. He told me to drop my gun. I was out of the holster just as quick as they were out of their chairs.
We stood there for it seemed like forever, and in reality it was less than a minute. We were using simunition weapons (Glock 22). My partner, Bobby, turned around quickly and tried to wrestle the gun from that guy. I put two rounds in the knife man, and the other two guys dropped to the floor because they knew I wasn't playing. The gun guy shot my partner and when Bobby went down, I put three rounds right on his forehead. One round stuck in pretty good. Didn't penetrate the skill, but it was right on it and he was bleeding decent from the one round that decided to make that forehead home.
The main instructor ran in their calling FREEEEEZE out so loud. Freeze was the safe word.
After about an hour, we were all brought into the watcher room. It's a room where you can see inside the house, and there's video players so we can watch what happened. The instructor said there were a few questions we should have asked before going in, and it would have prevented everything that happened, from happening at all. We were supposed to find out of the ex-con fella had established residency. Did he pay any bills there, provide money for food, or do work in the house, did he get mail there, and how long did has he been there? Asked those questions, we would have told the Pastor that he would need to go to the magistrate and file for an eviction notice. Then we could turn and leave. Yeah, we fucked that up bad.
Second incident. I got to play a bad guy. I was a criminal that was holding up in a house. I had barricaded myself in the kitchen, fridge turned over for cover. The officers were to come in. See the dead body on the bed in the first room past the living room. When I hear that door open, I start firing my gun. They were supposed to back away and call for SWAT.
They eventually know where I am and move to get to me in the kitchen. I killed two, but ran out of bullets. After about a half our of swearing and yelling, I agreed to give myself up. We get to the den, and they are doing a good job giving me orders to do this, and that, etc., to get in a position to be cuffed. Well, they didn't search me good and I had a small pistol in my sock. I went for it. Bad idea. They were so stressed, they were fighting me like crazy. These are guys that are in my class lol. Guys that sleep the next door down from me and across the hall. lol. Again, bad idea. My nose was busted to hell, two of them had black eyes and a busted nose. The cuffs were tight as fuck too. Then they carried me outside and threw me on the ground lol. Fun as all can be, but damn it hurt. They were told, if they had just pulled out, called swat to respond. SWAT would have been able to search and find me with more capabilities than they had. All of them would have went home alive, and I wouldn't have had my ass beat by my classmates.
FATS
Fire Arms Training System
This is what it is. This isn't the exact same scenarios we did, but you get the idea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy8CK8q_AtQ
It was pretty cool, and stressful; even though you know it's not real, etc. Still, it was really nice to do.
Driver Training
We did some really hard driving courses. The SKID pad was cool as hell, but scary as fuck. Basically a concrete slab, with a course plotted with cones. We ride through it, no biggie. Easy stuff. Then the slab was flooded with water. You could barely tell it was wet other than the change of color on the cement. Driving on that was like driving on ice. Period. The instructor had controls in the door panel, passenger side, to lock our brakes up, and control some other things. We had other classmates in the back. They were scared as can be lol.
We also did what they categorized as precision driving. Courses plotted with cones that we had to do maneuvers through. The cones were only a couple inches wider than the car on each side. The reverse serpentine was the hardest and a few failed at it. You had to complete it in a certain time. Any cones you hit were 15 seconds added.
The EVOC course was probably the best part of the entire academy lol. Night time, driving through a fake city, lights, sirens, and a course we had to go through in a certain time. Cones again were adding to our time if we hit one. EVOC - emergency vehicle operation course
We did have to do off road corrections and a scenario that we were in a vehicle chase. He gets out in a group of people and denies everything. We literally couldn't tell who he was because of the distance so we basically were being taught when to not escalate confrontations.. damn good lesson.
Firearms
The last week of the academy...
Lots of shooting. Learning how to use the weapon. There were some people there that hadn't ever held a gun before. We did handgun and shotgun. Learned to clean them, safety measures, when to use it, and classes all week on when not to use it. We did three qualifications. Day time, night time, and stress line. The stress line was exactly that... STRESSFUL. Basically we drive up balls to the wall, blue lights, sirens, jump of car, and go through a series of different types of shooting situations. The sirens weren't turned off. We also had two instructors on our asses, screaming, yelling, swearing, telling us we are failures, bumping us, swatting around us (not literally hitting us). The end of that, while still being harassed, was a moving target that was going left and away, then right and away... very hard from the start to finish on that firing line.
I think that covers most of it. I tried to be as detailed as possible. We had a LOT of on the job training as well. Department policies, procedures, sity ordinances, blood born pathogen classes. We had building clearing, hostage events, active shooter training. Every year we also had to qualify with our firearms and drivers training. I also did training in Internet Crimes Against Children, Adult and Child protective services, radar instructor, traffic enforcement, accident reconstruction training, instructor certification, and I was about to qualify a firearms instructor before I was medically retired.
Any questions, feel free to ask away...
