Out on the police training field it was vehicle operations.  They can describe it all in advance but nothing prepares you for this experience. We were passengers in the cars for all the demonstrations. The first is called J-Turns.  In this scenario a bad guy just pulled a gun and is pointing it you in the car. The officers puts the car in reverse and hits it to a speed of 40+ then spins the car into a 180 turns and drives off at top speed. OMG I though he was going to flip the car!!! For REAL!! In the P.I.T (Pursuit Intervention Technique)  we had the chance to be both the good and bad guys. At a high speed the officers hits the rear or front of the bad car sending it into a spin.  At the Tampa police training facility there is actually a curvy, up and down course complete with blind spots and hidden surprises. Just to drive the course would be hard for anybody. Out Tampa Officers not only do it in high pursuit but at the same time run the cars tags on their computer while keeping in constant radio connection. Talk about multi tasking. After seeing just some of the driving training that Tampa officers go thru… I don’t know how anybody could ever think that could “Out Run a Officer!!!”

    Back inside to the training class room. Here we watched video on hand to hand training. The videos were a cross between wrestling, kick fighting and dirty street fighting. The average take down is under 2 minutes. Here in these videos the officers fighting other officers in a classroom, the fights went on for over 10 minutes. You could just see the determination on their faces.

Next week we have “District Ride Along” and then Graduation Ceremony