In this blog I want to briefly touch on a few things that stood out for me this week. Firstly was PT at Red Rocks.
Anyone who knows Red Rocks will be familiar with the lay out, but basically at the top of the auditorium is a staging area where a number of concession stands are set up. We ordered into formation and told to march to this area. We were almost there when we told to stop and wait while Deputy Johnson went on ahead to prepare our activities for the morning.
So here we are in a two line formation, standing at attention, when a family walks by. As the father passed us he said, and I quote; "this must be the doughnut line." The few of us who were privilliaged enough to hear it could not help but laugh, his timing was perfect. This was just another example of how some members of community view us as law enforcement officers, too much Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons if you ask me!
We also had our second test this week. One hundred questions, seventy five right to pass. I found this test a little harder than the first one. My weakness I believe was the Bill of Rights questions. I know this information but I sometimes get the amendments confused with each other. I didn't do horribly in the exam but I know I could have improved; we have another eight tests before our final POST exam, so my ship hasn't sank yet. For the record I got 79%, test one I got 87%, congrats to our representative from Vail PD with a nice 95%.
This afternoon we had two members from the Jeffco SWAT team give us a lecture on their procedures and equipment. This was an awesome class! Let me say that these two guys were built like brick outhouses! Not the kind of guys you want to meet in a dark alley way.
They had a lot of interesting stories to tell from their experience, and were more than happy to share them with us. The last hour of the day they took us out and showed us some there equipment, talk about a kid in a candy shop, this was the highlight of the week for me.
They showed us there guns, ballistics shields, tactical vests, command bus. We got to handle them all (everything was safe) and get an idea of what these guys do. Their tactical vest for example, weighs in at about thirty pounds empty! Can you imagine wearing that for four to six hours at a time! Id lose weight if I just wore it in class all day.
The best thing by far, however, was the flash sound diversionary device, or 'flash bang.' If don’t know what a flash bang is I'll tell you. Basically it is a non-lethal grenade, that when detonated produces a deafening bang, and a blinding light. The idea is to temporally disable a subject by taking away vision and hearing, which buys an officer a few extra seconds to take control of hostile situation. Well, we got to experience it first hand. I was excited. I've heard a lot about flash bangs and have always wanted to be on the receiving end of one just for the experience. Let me tell you, if you had fight in you before this thing goes off, you will soon lose it. We were outside in broad daylight when we did this and it was still disorienting! I can only imagine what it would be like inside a building! Awesome, that’s one more thing scratched off my bucket list.
P.S Riles wants to say hi to his brother, an avid reader from what I understand. "Hi!"
Anyone who knows Red Rocks will be familiar with the lay out, but basically at the top of the auditorium is a staging area where a number of concession stands are set up. We ordered into formation and told to march to this area. We were almost there when we told to stop and wait while Deputy Johnson went on ahead to prepare our activities for the morning.
So here we are in a two line formation, standing at attention, when a family walks by. As the father passed us he said, and I quote; "this must be the doughnut line." The few of us who were privilliaged enough to hear it could not help but laugh, his timing was perfect. This was just another example of how some members of community view us as law enforcement officers, too much Chief Wiggum from The Simpsons if you ask me!
We also had our second test this week. One hundred questions, seventy five right to pass. I found this test a little harder than the first one. My weakness I believe was the Bill of Rights questions. I know this information but I sometimes get the amendments confused with each other. I didn't do horribly in the exam but I know I could have improved; we have another eight tests before our final POST exam, so my ship hasn't sank yet. For the record I got 79%, test one I got 87%, congrats to our representative from Vail PD with a nice 95%.
This afternoon we had two members from the Jeffco SWAT team give us a lecture on their procedures and equipment. This was an awesome class! Let me say that these two guys were built like brick outhouses! Not the kind of guys you want to meet in a dark alley way.
They had a lot of interesting stories to tell from their experience, and were more than happy to share them with us. The last hour of the day they took us out and showed us some there equipment, talk about a kid in a candy shop, this was the highlight of the week for me.
They showed us there guns, ballistics shields, tactical vests, command bus. We got to handle them all (everything was safe) and get an idea of what these guys do. Their tactical vest for example, weighs in at about thirty pounds empty! Can you imagine wearing that for four to six hours at a time! Id lose weight if I just wore it in class all day.
The best thing by far, however, was the flash sound diversionary device, or 'flash bang.' If don’t know what a flash bang is I'll tell you. Basically it is a non-lethal grenade, that when detonated produces a deafening bang, and a blinding light. The idea is to temporally disable a subject by taking away vision and hearing, which buys an officer a few extra seconds to take control of hostile situation. Well, we got to experience it first hand. I was excited. I've heard a lot about flash bangs and have always wanted to be on the receiving end of one just for the experience. Let me tell you, if you had fight in you before this thing goes off, you will soon lose it. We were outside in broad daylight when we did this and it was still disorienting! I can only imagine what it would be like inside a building! Awesome, that’s one more thing scratched off my bucket list.
P.S Riles wants to say hi to his brother, an avid reader from what I understand. "Hi!"
