Reposting here in case it gets deleted
I’m at a college in Alabama currently, and enrolled in a Law Enforcement class. The program also has a Firefighter and EMT program as well. Law enforcement consists of around 20 people, we usually meet a couple times of week. It’s decently well funded. We have a couple body rigs (aka vest and belt) a driving simulator which is at least 10K, and a simulation screen with rifles, pistols, and some shotguns. We even have our own building on campus, which we share with the Firefighters. The course is mainly for those going to the police academy.
I’m writing this because I’m not a cop, no one in my family has ever been a cop, but I feel like this is a perspective that needs to be told. Anyway, we currently have a LEO instructor who comes over and teaches us. He’s old, he became a cop in 1985, and is retiring soon. He has multiple medals, and was generally considered the best one to train up college kids for the police.
Anyway, he’s told us some stuff. Like how he refuses to carry Narcan, because he thinks all drug addicts got it coming. He’s described people dying of fentanyl as “ferret looking” with their hands up. In one horrific story, he found a guy dying of a drug overdose in the street. He kicked the guy in the ribs, and left him to die. Another cop came by and tried to use Narcan on him, and thankfully succeeded. Another is where he locked a guy in a room, wrote down a rape confession, and got the guy to sign it. He thought it was funny because the guy couldn’t read. Needless to say, he even complained about cameras.
All in all, just a mean ass of a man, even outside of the stories he tells. I also find it telling that even this guy thinks that corrections officers (aka prison guards) are cruel and assholes. The other part of it is the training.
In short, you stand in front of a giant screen, which plays out a scenario, pre-recorded. It can be everything from a traffic stop to a domestic dispute. You have on your vest, belt and gun. The gun is physical, the pepper spray and taser you have to call out to use. All well and good. Only problem is that there’s zero interaction. The people never respond to you trying to de-escalate the situation, it’s mostly a matter of waiting to see a weapon so you can blow them away.
I have done dozens of these so far, only 2 times has there not been a weapon. AND, it’s rigged. “How?” you ask? Frames. Every video you see is made of still images going through each other fast. Like a super speed PowerPoint. Well, bad guys in the simulation pull and fire with 0.5 seconds or less. It means you will NEVER win unless you either have done it before, or pull and shoot when a sudden movement is made.
I only got a clean kill once. Pulled over a guy, pulled gun from dashboard, and I got him. The only issue is that I shot him when he made a sudden movement for the dashboard. The simulation was making me so twitchy that the only way I could pass blind was to fire at the slightest hint of him going for a gun.
And lastly, the people trying to become cops. Many of the guys there are aggressive, trigger happy, and frankly I wouldn’t trust them with a real gun, much less becoming a cop. They also have…questionable views. Like, when I said people weren’t robots, one of the head guys said that if he can be perfect, there’s no reason others can’t. And that’s not even talking about the “judged by 12, not carried by 6” stuff. The other one wants to become a Fed, and he seems decent. The people who should be cops aren’t trying to be cops.
I think I’m gonna drop it. Even seeing the inside just a little makes me sick.
