Week Six - Guest Blog Recruit Martin

Good Evening!

I’m Recruit Martin, and I’m filling out the blog for week 6 of our Academy. I’ll give you some quick background on myself. I grew up here in the foothills of Colorado and just recently graduated from CSU. I was hired by Jefferson County Sheriff on my last day of college. Before this, I was a wildland firefighter in Colorado.

This is our first week of true excitement! We got to be out of the classroom and use our skills!

We started out by finishing up our criminal code classes (but don't get confused, we'll be studying that until we graduate in June). Agent Collett taught us about what narcotics look like once we get to the field. He is a great teacher and a perfect role model for us for traffic stops.

We got to start our firearms and arrest control classroom material. We went over some technicalities from our classroom chairs, but with our belts on; one more step towards feeling more professional! Then on Wednesday we headed to the Fairgrounds to practice our Arrest Control. We went through stretching and warm ups as well as techniques to get subjects to cooperate and sit down. The hands-on material gives us a little sneak peek into dealing with difficult individuals and I can’t wait to learn more techniques!!

We got out our weapons on Thursday and started to do a lot of dry fires. We went through a bunch of skills on drawing from holsters and safety precautions. We were given our dummy rounds and we're all ecstatic to get some real lead through our weapons - (next week is going to be even better with days on the range!). The practical exercises teach us so many different things (lucky me, that's the way I learn best, by watching and doing).

We have had several physical training opportunities for forgotten uniform items and speaking out of turn. This is a key thing to learn in the academy for our future careers. It is important to know when to speak, but it is also important to know when to just listen. Paying attention to the little details is very important. In the academy, it may seem like a nonchalant task, but in our careers it could be the difference between life and death.

PT is becoming more difficult because with all the new added activities, we are having fewer wellness labs at the Academy and we need to do more work on our own. This is where all that time management we've been working on comes in handy! There are a handful of us with injuries, but we’re all focused and ready to keep moving forward.

Here’s to another week of excitement,

Strength in Unity!