Short Friday

Finally another week done. This morning I only had one written test and enjoyed the rainy afternoon. In two weeks I will complete my last three scenario test.

Next week I have EVOC (emergency vehicle operator course), basically, I get to speed around and play in a patrol car! Also, I am the C.I.C (cadet in charge) this week. It should be a fun week. 

Happy Friday!

thursday: the real test

Scenario test today. Domestic Violence, Robbery, Use of Deadly Force, Pedestrian Stop and Suspicious Person.

Class started at 8am and we didn't get done testing till 6:30pm. It was a long quite day. All the cadets sat in a room unable to talk for 10 hours. 

The worst part of the day was waiting around to find out if you had to remediate a test. The saying "no news is good news" applied for the day. All the cadets anxiously waited hoping for no new. The bad thing about remediating is you only get one more shot. If you fail you're packing up your bags. 

I don't know how I got through all the test without having to remediate. Toward the end of the day the only thoughts going through my head were the mistakes I made. I was tired, anxious and the constant doubt and uncertainty laid on my mind all day long. 

Thank God, I passed all five scenarios on the first try. Only three more big scenarios to go!

tuesday: high risk vehicle pullover

It rained most the day today for testing and I forgot my camera.  I passed the test fine and felt pretty good about it. 

The highlight of the day for me was at the end of the day. One of the instructors I have a lot of respect for came up and talked to me. He said something along the lines of  "be more confident in the knowledge you know." He also wished me good luck in the field and mentioned a few other things to motivate me. It meant a lot when he talked to me, he is the type of person you want to impress. He saw my weakness and straight up told me to work on it. He did it in a way where it pushed my desire. I know I am confident, but there is a fear I have of whether or not I am right. I want to be right and I want to be good in what I do. I had an opportunity to do practice scenarios with this guy yesterday. I loved his style of teaching. He used to work in Huntington and he had a lot of personality traits that reminded me of some other people I admire most. He is an inspirational person and I will probably never forget the day he took me aside and said "good luck." 

monday:night time vehicle pull over

Four hours we spent practicing night time vehicle pull overs and high risk stops. It rained most the morning and was expected all day. Thankfully, by the afternoon the weather calmed and the sky's cleared. The wind was stormy and strong but it was nice not standing in the rain all day. Mid afternoon I saw a beautiful rainbow which put a smile on my face. It reminded me of my parents because they're enjoying hawaii this week. They have been kind enough to text me pictures of the beautiful island. In fact, when I got home this evening, I had FIVE text messages of pictures with my parents holding up snow cones and standing in front of waterfalls. I'm not sure if they're trying to hint that they're having a better time then me.  Or, maybe the envious pictures they're sending are ways of  encouragement, they're just reminding me of what my future will look like. It would be nice to be in Hawaii this week, but I'm here. Im here so in the future I can travel where ever I want. I just have to get through the testing. I did okay on my test this evening. We practiced for four hours doing vehicle stops. You would think I would be almost perfect with all the practice we had. I wish I could say it was so. I passed alright, but forgot some minor things. It was a bit stressful, all the evaluator wear bright yellow shirts, quietly take notes and stare at you. Before I started my test my instructor went over the patrol vehicle with me because I hadn't been in the one I was testing in. He showed me all the lights and explained that the spot light was on top of the car and not on the side of the doors. I thought it was so cool to have the spot light on the top and we talked about it for a little while. Guess what I forgot to turn on during my scenario... the spot light. Besides the light I felt okay about my performance.  It was a bit nerve racking because there were two other yellow shirts watching. At the end of my test I went back into the patrol unit and the yellow shirts all stood outside at the hood of the car looking down and writing. Sometimes they would look up at me and shake their head or smile. When they were done scoring one of the evaluators came back into the car and we drove back to the post in silence. The silence brought on the doubt and question of whether or not I passed. I waited two hours stressing.  Success...I passed. 

March Maiku

This blog entry is dedicated to my Uncle Mike. The haiku master. 

March Maiku

Testing all month long

No more Weekends to stay calm

Can't wait to be done

Chemical Agents

Thursday was the big day of Chemical Agents. I was exposed to CS Gas (a.k.a "Cough and Spit)  and OC (a.k.a "old chilly"). The day started at 7:40 am. My first exposer to OC was at 8:30 am. All the cadets lined up outside, we stuck out our right indexed finger, got a little spray to the finger and placed our finger to our cheek. I felt nothing... about 10 minutes went by and my check was on fire. The burning sensation stopped around 10 am. You can see below my red cheek. 

After the first exposure the cadets had a two hour lecture about different types of gases. 

We tried on gas masks for our afternoon outing to to the gas house. 

The gas house was at Point Sur. We all partnered up and stood in a circle in a medium sized room. In the middle of the room, was a small coffee like can, where the instructors dispersed the CS gas. Arm and arm with our partner we watched the instructor throw a small canister into the empty can on the floor. Smoke lifted, quickly filling up the ceiling and then the gas slowly floated back down. Once the whole room was darken by the CS gas we had to face our partner, take off our mask, say our name, agency and roster number.  When it was my turn I took my mask off and very quickly said, "Officer Bray, State Parks, 3307,"  cleared the gas out of my mask and walked out with my partner. The room below is the gas house before the CS was let out. 

Being in the gas house with the mask wasn't bad. The moment I took off my mask I felt my nose and lungs tingled only a little. The worst was walking through without the gas mask. My partner and I walked in, stood in front of an instructor and said aloud our name, agency and roster number. The moment my partner and I walked out of the gas house we started coughing. My lungs and eyes were on fire. I felt a little delusional and weak. It felt like someone reached down into my lungs and ripped the inside of them. My eyes watered up and I could hardly keep them open. It was awful, but lasted only for a short amount of time. All the cadets at the end stood in an empty field letting the wind blow away the CS gas. Below is my partner and I after being exposed without a mask.  

After walking through the gas house the instructors let us have some fun. They demonstrated a bunch of other forms of gas or "less-lethal" options we might see other agencies use. State Parks doesn't carry a lot of what they showed us. It was all shown to educate us . It was a lot of fun!

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The worst part of the day was the OC. All I have to say is it hurt. It hurt bad. I don't think I can even explain what it felt like. It was like someone cut up the hottest pepper and sprayed it in your eye, times 10. Or like a thousand pin needles puncturing your eye. It was a painful experience that gave me a sense of accomplishment when it was over. I wish I had some video footage for you all. This is how it all went down, briefly:

I stood with one hand over an eye, the instructor yelled out "gas, gas, gas" and sprayed me across the forehead. I grabbed my baton, hit a suit-patted guy three times yelling, "get on the ground, get on the ground." Ohhhhh, my whole face and eye burned and I had to keep going. I had to arrest someone. Barely being able to see, I ordered someone to the ground, and cuffed them. It felt like an eternity. As soon as I got him cuffed I went to decontaminate. During decontamination I was in my own world. Nothing around me matter, only the pain, I continued to breath and tell myself "it's not that bad," "there are worse things that could happen," "it's okay." I kept telling myself these things but the pain of the OC kept overruling my positive thoughts. My eyeball was swollen and I felt completely helpless. I could do nothing but wait out the pain. There were hoses set up and fans. I rinsed my face and eye and let the fan blow into my eye. The harsh burning sensation lasted for about 30 minutes. The first 30 minutes was the worst. Slowly it got better. Throughout the evening my face tingled and by the time I went to bed the pain was gone. I survived.  

Free Tuesday

I have the day off today because I had qualifications at the fire range Sunday and Monday. I am feeling a bit lazy so I'm going to keep this short. I wanted you all to know that I passed all my test with the handgun, shotgun and rifle. The two days of testing felt like a roller-coaster. There were a total of 10 test and I had many moments of unease. I started the tests shooting well, but, as the day went by my scores got worse and then they would get better. It was frustrating to go from good to bad. From feeling strong to weak. You would be amazed how one little round out of the barrel of the gun can change your whole attitude in a single moment. A bad shot can take your high into the depths of despair. I had moments when I was praising my gun and then cursing it. I have learned that you can't let that one bad shot ruin the rest of your shots. Once the trigger is pulled its over, let it go, the next one will be better (sometimes). I admit I love to shoot, but, I rather not be tested. 

Out on Patrol

Friday morning I patrolled Poppy Seed State Park. It is a fantastic park, it's right on the beach with overnight camping and beautiful trails to hike. This particular morning, while driving down the beach, a park visitor stopped me and told me about an aggressive dog in the camping area. I took down his number and got a description of the dog and the owners of the dog.

Before I approached the area I talked to another visitor regarding the aggressive dog and the dog owners. The man said the campers were up all night parting and the dog was snarling and running around freely. I thanked him and moved closer to the campsite.

Above, me on duty

You can see above, in the grassy area, a wild dog running around. The man I talked to earlier is the guy standing by the white R.V to the right. At a distance I watched the dog. The dog was clearly aggressive, so, I called up animal control and requested backup. When I pulled up to the campsite I didn't see the owners of the dog and figured they were asleep in the tent. I used my P.A to call out and a woman came out of the tent. I told her she needed to leash her dog or animal control will take the dog. Unfortunately, the woman didn't have a leash, so I offered up a rope I had in my unit. Below you can see the contact I made with the woman.

It's funny when you think everything is going well and it turns out bad. The woman ends up losing hold of the dog and it charges me. I drew my weapon and threatened to shoot the dog if she didn't take control. The dog kept charging, so I shot my gun, twice, and missed! The dog bites me in the torso and I shoot again only injuring the dog. I shot one more time and finally the dog lets go.

Eventually, my back up shows up. It turns out that there is another guy in the tent. My partner and I get him out of the tent and find he has a $50,000 warrant. My partner arrests him. Two other officers show up and an ambulance for me. I went off to the hospital and the other officers interviewed the woman and the arrested man. My partners end up finding 5 onces of marijuana and a bong in their campsite.

Above is the injured dog, the arrested man and my partners. Funny how a simple dog contact can turn out so outrageously wrong. I guess it was the luck of the dice on this crazy call. I hope the written report my partners and I put together will be efficient enough for our supervisor and the DA.

Practice Time

Hide and seek, guns, clowns, 

 larceny and deranged.

This week was rainy, interactive, challenging and a whole lot of fun. Monday was building searches at night. All I have to say about that is...creepy.  Just imagine what it would feel like searching for someone at night in these restrooms while it's pouring down rain...

 

SCARY

Tuesday we practiced a robbery in progress. Sorry, no pictures on that day. 

The scenarios practiced on Wednesday were, Ambush, Mentally Disabled, Use of Deadly Force and Suspicious person. The hardest one for me was the Mentally Disabled. My actor wanted to commit suicide and I had to carefully talk him out of it and handcuff him. I found it a bit difficult to gather the right words. Getting a person who wants to kill themselves to a point were I can cuff them is challenging. Out of all the scenarios, I thought the Mentally Disabled would be the easiest, mainly because I consider myself compassionate and a good communicator. The other scenarios weren't too bad and after three days of practice I feel confident that I will do fine when the real day of scenario testing comes up.

Here is my ambush

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Next couple of days... Report Writing! 

D.T's testing

This week I had more Defensive Tactics training. Friday was the final test! I passed it all. The pictures below are from testing day.

Hiding is The "Red Man" I got to fight 

Ready for a fight

Blocking a punch

striking

Blocking a kick

No compliance...pepper spray

Arrest

Critiquing