Crime Scene Investigation

Forget the TV shows, this was the real deal! This was the final part of the academy and helped us apply many things we learned throughout the academy. Lots of time and effort was put into this and it was really neat. We started off by learning everything about processing crime scenes. We learned how to secure crime scenes, take photographs, collect and package evidence, and process fingerprints among other things. Then we got into groups that each went to a made-up crime scene where we had to put all of this to use. We got to interview victims and witnesses during this time, write reports and other paperwork, and finally testify in a mock court in a real Jefferson County court room. It was as close to the real deal as we could get in the academy. It was awesome and very much appreciated. Sorry I did not get any pictures!

DUI Stops

The one thing that stuck out to me about DUI stops is that the roadside tests that law enforcement officers administer across this country are standardized. They are the same in every state and thus must me done correctly. It is so important that we get people who are driving drunk off of our roads for the safety of our society. The highlight of the DUI training was the "wet lab" in which many volunteers drank various amounts of alcohol and then we got to practice recognizing signs of alcohol use and administer the roadside tests to them. This allowed us to get real life experience so thanks to all of the volunteers who helped us!

Building Searches and RAID

A couple of weeks ago we learned how to search buildings, houses, and other structures. When criminals are hurting people or committing crimes, we must respond to stop them.

We began by learning about a technique called RAID. To preface, Jefferson County unfortunately has had several situations with active shooters in the recent past. In order to respond to these calls, specific training has been developed and implemented. This is part of the academy training we receive so we will have the necessary skills and abilities to combat these situations. Luckily, Deputy Joselyn is one of our academy directors and is currently on the Jefferson County Regional SWAT team. He and many of his comrades of SWAT shared their experience and knowledge with us over several days in an abandoned building that we were fortunate to use for training.

RAID is used when active shooters are known to be in buildings or other structures. We must stop these threats immediately to save lives. This technique consists of forming a group of four officers with a point officer, and left, right, and rear guards moving together. The officers in the RAID formation each have a specific task and also constantly protect one another as they search and clear rooms. Their guns are drawn as they search for bad guys. On the final day of this training we were able to carry guns with simunitions, which are basically bullets filled with paint. Some of the instructors were bad guys who had guns loaded with simunitions and we got to go through real potential scenarios. These included some situations in which we had to use lethal force with our simunitions. We also experienced getting shot with them and continuing in the gun fight.

The second part of this training was learning how to search buildings. Many times we will perform these in response to alarms and burglary calls and may be by ourselves or with just one other officer. These are done much slower because there is not an immediate threat.

Lots to be Grateful For

This seems like an appropriate topic since Thanksgiving is coming up next week. I am very thankful for the opportunity I have to be going through this academy right now. I had to wait almost two years, but it was well worth it. I am thankful for the wonderful men and women who are my instructors and my classmates. They have stood by my side for about 18 weeks now and have helped me, supported me, and yes, even laughed at me sometimes. I owe the success I have had in this academy and the success I will have in my career to them.

Veterans Day recently passed and I want to express my appreciation and respect to those who have fought, continue to fight, and will fight in the future for the the freedoms of our country. I want to thank the men and women who proudly put on the badge of law enforcement everyday and bravely walk the line of duty. I am grateful for those who have made the ultimate sacrafice for our society: those serving in the military, those working in law enforcement, and those doing other acts of goodness.

I want to thank my wife and daughter for standing by me as I embark on my journey as a cop. I am grateful that they love me and support me.

This academy has been a great experience for me. I encourage those of you who will be attending future Jeffco or other academies to take full advantage of this wonderful opportunity. It is an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills that will help us serve our communities everyday. We can also build character and acquire attributes that will help us serve beyond our jobs as cops.

Traffic Stops

Almost everyone has been pulled over for speeding or other violations. This is frustrating but we must realize it is for the safety of our roads. Stopping vehicles for traffic violations is a big responsibility we will have as law enforcement officers. Through this procedure, we can also find evidence of crimes to help us get criminals off of the streets.

In the academy, we have spent several days learning the proper way to stop vehicles for traffic violations. As cops, our first focus is our safety. This includes parking our patrol cars and approaching the other vehicles in a cautious manner. There is really much more than I realized that goes into a stop. I have often heard that there is no such thing as a routine traffic stop. In fact, it is one of the most dangerous things we will do as cops. We have watched many videos in the academy that show how quickly things can go down hill during these stops. Many officers have gotten into full-on fights or even gotten shot after pulling over a vehicle. It is critical that we be at our very best each and every time we pull someone over.

We worked on what we will say when we make contact with drivers. In essence, we have worked on coming up with a "spiel" that identifies who we are, why we made the stop, and the action we take. We also must give drivers specific instuctions regarding safety for them and us, and what they must do for their violation. We got to get in real cop cars and go through everything from notifying dispatch of the stop to writing tickets while pulling over real cars driven by our instructors. We also got to go through scenarios, which have really occurred before. This forced us to think on our toes and use the skills that we have learned so far in the academy.

Here I am speaking with a driver who was speeding

Officer D from Westmintster did a good job setting up this safe stop

Officer B is going to keep the roads safe in Lone Tree

This is a high-risk stop in which two patrol cars are needed because the driver is under arrest

Deputy H keeps her gun pointed at the suspect during this high-risk stop

Officer O safely clears this car of any other occupants

Tasing Day

One important piece of equipment that cops carry is a taser. We recently had a class where we learned about how tasers work and how to use them. As part of the training, we got to be tased if we wanted to. The purpose of this is to know what it feels like because we may have to tase people in our careers. We will also be able to tell a court of law that we know the effects of a taser firsthand.

I think those of us who wanted to be tased were ready to get it over with at the beginning of the class. Instead, we go to learn about tasers and their effects for about eight hours first. During this time, we got to sit and think about getting tased and how it would feel. We also had plenty of time to decide whether or not we wanted to be tased.

I decided that the experience of being tased would be invaluable for me as a law enforcement officer and went through with it. Although it only lasted for 5 seconds, it seemed much much much longer. It is difficult to explain how it felt but I definitely know I never want to get tased again. It is not fun, but I would definitely recommend doing it at least once for training purposes if you become a law enforcement officer. Apparently my class thinks I had one of the best reactions but I will just say that physical and verbal responses from a taser are entirely involutary!

Recruit H is ready to deploy her taser to this resisting individual who is padded up for this part of the training

Recruits E and S use their tasers simultaneously to get compliance from these fake bad guys

The following pictures illustrate the intensity and effectiveness of a taser:

Driving

Driving is a major part of law enforcement work. Of course we all see cop cars out driving around almost every day. For us Jeffco recruits, we will be working in the county jail initially so won't be out patrolling in cop cars. However, that opportunity may come soon enough and the majority of the other academy recruits will be going straight out to the road for police departments. Driving is something we do everyday, but learning to drive like cops in different situations was really cool.

We began by doing lots of parking and maneuvering between cones:

In this drill we had to decide at the last second which path to take based on the lights above:

Laying down some nice skid marks at 60 mph:

More fun with cones:

Taking some time to relax in between the high intensity driving:

I had never taken turns as fast and braked as fast as I got to do during this training. One night we got into some real cop cars and turned on the lights and sirens for a simulated high speed pursuit, which was a real rush! We had a wonderful time driving and all passed the timed qualification course that was required. A big thanks to all of the instructors who taught us and to the Colorado State Patrol for letting us drive fast on their track!

A Wonderful Day of OC Spray

We had the opportunity to learn about OC Spray in the academy. We learned about it's history, components, and how to use it. Oh yeah...then we got sprayed in the face with it to learn how it feels. The following pictures and captions will show what we had to accomplish after getting sprayed with OC.

The effects of OC vary from one person to the next and it does not even affect some people at all which seems incredible. I could hardly open my eye that was exposed for what seemed like 30 to 45 minutes even though I tried to open it as much as I could and blink as instructed. Part of my face felt like it was on fire for about the same amount of time. Water reactivates the effects of OC so when I showered later I experienced it again but to a lesser degree. I tried my hardest to avoid washing the OC onto to my body because it burns. By the same evening I was fine and it was completely gone by the next morning.

I don't tell you about this to scare you but to prepare you if you want to become a law enforcement officer. It is important to know what this is like as we will potentially be exposed to it by a criminal or even another officer who is deploying it near us. We must fight off our physical reactions and mentally continue regardless of our lack of vision and discomfort. I learned two things from this experience: One, getting sprayed is not fun and two, if I do get sprayed as a deputy while in a bad situation, I know I will overcome the negative effects and win the battle.

We got to cover one eye but couldn't stop the stream of OC Spray coming at us

The OC burned instantly but we had to go fight a dummy for about 20 seconds

Next we ran a short distance to give verbal commands to a mock criminal and handcuff him

Then we faced another mock criminal and had to decide to shoot him with simunitions or not

All of us had a partner for the entire time to direct and help us

Finally we got to rinse our eyes and face with a hose for some relief

Home on the Firearms Range

Firearms training has been a great part of the academy so far and will continue to be. For many of the past weeks we have gotten to go to the range and shoot our guns twice a week. I am one of the few without much experience but I have definietly improved from the first day of shooting. It is awesome to think that we are actually getting paid to shoot for 4 hours at a time. We also get to shoot lots and lots of ammunition that is provided to us in the academy.

The foundation of firearms is safety, which has been engrained into us. Before we shoot each time, we recite the four basic firearms safety rules out loud as a group. This helps us to always be mindful of the potentially deadly weapons we are handling. Another basic concept we have learned about guns is to keep them clean. We are required to clean them after every time we shoot so they will be ready to go for the next time. We are held accountable to this by an inspection of our guns each day we shoot them. I was guilty of having a gun that was not as clean as it should be a few times, but I have now learned how to properly clean it.

We have learned and practiced shooting standing up, kneeling, and lying down. We have gotten to shoot at targets as well as other metal objects that fall when hit. We have done timed shooting in which we have to shoot a certain number of rounds within a specified amount of time. Moving in different directions while shooting, positioning ourselves behind cover while shooting, and making quick decisions while shooting have also been essential to our firearms training. We have even gotten to shoot during the light of the day and the dark of the night. We have great instructors who put in lots of time and work to help us be prepared to use deadly force if necessary during our careers as cops.

Thanks to Deputy Ackerman for the pictures.

On the line getting ready to shoot


This recruit shows good technique as he locks on target

Shooting below cover while lying down

Traffic Control

We had the opportunity to learn how to direct traffic and then actually do it in real intersections. We divided into two groups and went to different intersections where we turned off the traffic lights to practice. On a side note, it was cool to me that the Sheriff's Office has the power to literally control the traffic in the county. Many of us will get the chance to direct traffic during accidents and community events throughout our careers. It is an important skill to have as a law enforcement officers. So we put on the yellow and orange vests that we have all seen and got to work (in the heat of the afternoon). We were told that there would be drivers who would ignore our signals but the good citizens and workers of Golden, Colorado were very respectful and obedient to my group of rookies.

The Town of Ward may not have many or any traffic lights but their Marshal Recruit did awesome!

Be sure to obey all signals from Officer H. if you live in Arvada


It was nice to have Deputy Joselyn out on the pavement to help us

Cheering on the other recruits while waiting for our turns

I did not let the close vehicles passing by or the sun faze me

Learning and Working Hard

Everything is going really well! We get to do arrest control and firearms training twice a week now, which is helping us develop hands-on skills we need. Arrest control is really interesting and fun too. We have been learning lots of holds and takedowns to use if necessary. Last week we got out our handcuffs for the first time and learned how to "hook" someone up as they say in the law enforcement world. This was neat because handcuffs will be one of our most frequently used tools as cops. One thing we have learned is that it is good to break in your cuffs before using them. The ones issued to most of us are very stiff and unkind to our wrists.

Shooting at the range is a blast (no pun intended). Our instructors are very experienced and are there to give us good advice and teach us new techniques during each range session. A benefit of this academy is that we have instructors from many departments within the county rather than from just one department. This means that we get some of the best from the entire Denver metro area. I definitely have some of the least experience in my range group but I am quickly learning and will continue to improve. I will try to post some pictures from the range soon.

Things are definitely continuing to pick up. The written tests have been more frequent and challenging and PT has definitely been increasing in intensity. Today, we did a modified (quite modified) version of a Navy SEALs workout but it was still very tough. We were told afterwards by Deputy Joselyn that this workout gives us a good idea of where we are at physically and what we need to work on. Boy is he right and I have lots of work to do. We will eventually work up to this full workout or at least close to it I think. In PT we have been working on improving both our cardio and strength. We continue to be challenged every single day both mentally and physically. We need to be tough in both categories.

Dealing with Bad Guys

A few weeks ago we began what is called arrest control. It is defined as the degree of influence you have to exert over a subject to take him or her safely into custody. We have learned about the levels of control, which range from showing up to a situation to using lethal force if necessary. We have also learned about the different types of resistance exhibited by people we will come across. As law enforcement officers we can expect to quickly go from a professional stance to a combat stance in order to defend ourselves or take action. The best way to learn this is of course is to practice, which is exactly what we get to do.

We have learned different strikes, holds, and take-downs to use in order to gain control over suspects and we get to perform all of these on each other. Essentially we take turns being the good guys and bad guys. It is amazing how many new muscles are used and abused. I think we were all sore for a little while. We didn't have any arrest control classes last week and I think all of our muscles, arms, and legs are healed.....just in time to do it again this week. This is very physical training and contributes to the top-notch shape we need to obtain and maintain. This training is critical to our survival and is taken very seriously by all of the instructors and recruits.

Being who I Want to Be

For this entry I want to share some of my feelings about who I want to be during my career as a law enforcement officer in the state of Colorado. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to attend this academy. I know we are receiving more training than is actually required by the state. I want to be sure not to take this or future training for granted.

I want to be teachable in the academy and throughout my career. There are many experienced individuals employed by Jefferson County and its cities, and I can already see that they want me to be sucessful. For example, I have less experience with firearms than almost everyone else in my class, but my fellow recruits constantly ask me how I am doing with shooting and the instructors constantly keep an eye on me to make sure I improve. With learning I must be open to feedback and constructive criticism. One day I hope to be in a position where I can share my knowledge with others.

As a deputy sheriff, I also want to set a good example for those around me including fellow deputies and officers, and citizens of this county. I will be honest in my dealings with them and hold myself to the highest standards. Hopefully I can encourage those around me to do the same, which will help maintain a great place to work and live for everyone.

I pledge to be reliable in my career. I want to be there for others no matter the situation or time of day. Others will know they can count on me for help. I will keep my word and follow through on my commitments. I know this will require constant attention and work but will be worth it. The biggest thing for me to remember is to do the right thing all of the time and I will be the deputy and I intend to be.

Physical Improvement

An important part of the academy is physical training (PT), which we do 2-3 times per week. It has gradually increased in difficulty. Last Monday we ran the longest distance yet, which tested our endurance. This past Friday we had the wonderful experience of working out at the Red Rocks Amphitheater. Luckily I was somewhat prepared for this from reading about it on previous academy blogs. There are lots and lots of stairs that were used for running, jumping, and push-ups. Then there are planters, which are made from brick walls several feet high. And yes, we did have to go over the top of them. For me, this work-out was challenging and helped me feel new parts of my body. The best part about it is that it will get even tougher in the future. Yes, we will be back. We are always reminded that the physical training is also mental training. Even if our bodies want to quit, our minds have the power to push us and keep us going.

The calm before the storm

Ready to march in

We didn't have to go over this red rock, yet

I think we all enjoy the physical training because it allows us to get outside and move around. Also, I think we all feel better after we get the blood flowing for awhile. I never thought I would say this, but I am sad that we are not doing any PT tomorrow morning because we have extra classroom training to do. PT gives us an opportunity to encourage and support one another. It also allows us to bond and practice teamwork. Another thing I am trying to do is eat and sleep better as I know this will help improve my health. When we get out on duty, we must be ready for a call at anytime, and we must be able to outlast our opposition in order to win.

Skills Training

The first part of this week has been great as we have gotten to get out of our chairs in the classroom more. On Tuesday and Thursday we received firearms training. Some of it included lectures, but lots of it allowed us to get out our guns and learn how to properly draw, re-load, and fix them when they malfunction. The most fun part was that we got to have competitions to see who could perform the fastest with their guns.

Lined up and ready to draw

Two of the best going one on one

Two of the recruits, Tyler and Mark, from Wheat Ridge did awesome in the competitions. Their department will get some very skilled officers soon. The importance of firearm safety has been driven in to us from the beginning of this training and we have learned many rules that apply whenever handling a gun. I am one of a few who has little or no experience with guns. Almost all of us have no law enforcement experience, but many have grown up shooting. Don't worry if you come to the academy without experience with guns though because there are many knowledgeable instructors here to help. I had to rely on them a lot and appreciate the feedback and help they gave to me.

We received training in CPR and First Aid on Wednesday. We were able to practice CPR on dummies of both adults and babies. We learned how to use AED devices as well.

Proper form is necessary

Teamwork is helpful with two rescuers

For the First Aid portion of the class, we got to go outside and participate in some real life scenarios that were given to us by the instructors. We learned that, as law enforcement officers, we will often be first on a scene that requires immediate medical attention such as a car accident. We will have to assess each situation and prioritize the treatment we begin if there is more than one person injured. During this time, we need to constantly be aware of safety at the scene and manage any distractions. We also learned how to treat different injuries on our classmates.

Recruit Todd got a pen in his eye

Head injury and arm injury

We had an officer from the area that was involved in a shoot-out come in and speak to us and answer questions. He had been out of his academy for less than a year when it happened. He is truly a hero and I want to thank him for talking to us about it. What I ultimately take away from these classes is that we must always be prepared to save lives.....of members of society, fellow officers, and ourselves.

Starting to look like cops

Last week the day we have long awaited finally arrived. We got to take off our coats and ties, and become superheroes much like Superman.....well not entirely. We were able to wear our uniforms. Because there are eight agencies represented in this academy, there was a variety of shirt colors and patches, which was cool to see. In fact, just today a Sergeant that taught one of our classes referred to Jeffco deputies as green shirts.

Getting used to wearing our uniforms in class

Everyone at full attention in uniform during class

Along with receiving the privilege of wearing our uniforms comes the responsibility of caring for our uniforms and making sure they look good on us. We have talked a lot about command presence, which basically means that our presence including the way we look will have a huge effect on how society perceives us. Sgt. B brought up the example that if a cop looks sloppy, people are going to think that he or she does a sloppy job. Because of this, it is very likely that this cop will not be relied upon by the public or respected. We were told how to clean and iron our uniforms and keep them looking sharp so that we will have command presence right out of the gate. With this, we had our first uniform inspection and will continue to do it periodically.

After our uniform inspection, we could finally breathe sighs of relief

We completed another exciting week of training that included a class about using effective verbal techniques while enforcing laws. The awesome instructor who took time away from her job with the Colorado State Patrol taught us that our goal is to gain voluntary compliance from people we will come in contact with and she showed us how to do this. We also had a cool class about arrest control and the different techniques and levels of force to use during an arrest. I think we all look forward to getting cuffs on our classmates once we get into the hands-on training of this. We have also received some firearms classroom training and are itching to get out on the range. We continue to build foundations in the classroom and will soon develop our skills to add to them. Together these will prepare us for the real world.