Week Eleven - Recruit Sebastian

What can I say other than that we made it to the halfway point of the Academy. This week we were only in the classroom for a single day on Friday. While the first few weeks seemed to last forever, time is really  starting to fly by right now and I have no idea where the time went. Most of the time, I have no idea what date it is or what is going on in the world aka the news; however, I know that in the end it will be all worth it.

On Monday, my squad went to Creighton Middle School and utilized their facility to conduct building searches. During the morning hours, we learned the basics and found out that in most instances, speed kills in these types of situations. For the most part, we did really well.







When it was all said and done, it took about two hours to search about a quarter of the school. Should you ever be dispatched to a burglar alarm at a school, you can imagine that you would spent about half your shift thoroughly searching the building.

Tuesday marked our first night/dim lighting shoot. We had a late start in the afternoon with ground fighting, and it did not feel right since we had all gotten into a routine. The night shoot was fun and we were taught how to manipulate our firearms with a flashlight.

Furthermore, we shot in complete darkness and since I did not have night sights, I missed the target quite often despite the muscle memory. I would say a little investment in night sights is in order.

Wednesday, we were dispatched to the Heritage Center in Lakewood for in-progress calls. It is all starting to come together and we are all well versed in how to handle a variety of calls. Although we are by no means perfect, we can see it all come together. There were still some screw-ups, but that is to be expected and overall we were all happy with our performance.

On Thursday afternoon, my group went to Sheriff's Office headquarters where we trained with a simulator (If anyone has a few grand lying around I now would know what to invest it in) and went back to basics when we trained with dummy rounds. The simulator has several different programs including several shoot or no shoot scenarios. Based on your responses, the program can choose from a variety of outcomes and reacts to your commands. It was fun and did not feel anything like work. At night, we wrapped up ground fighting and got to put our skills to the test when we wrestled with the instructors.

Friday ended with test number 10 (everyone passed) and our first workout at Red Rocks (while I am writing this on a Sunday morning, I still cannot stand upright). The workout was great and everybody did extremely well. We have come a long way since the start of the Academy and everybody is getting in great shape. Friday afternoon ended with a four hour block on crimes against children. It was a difficult class to sit through, especially now that I am a parent myself. The pictures made your blood boil, even for those of us who do not yet have kids. It gave us something to think about over the weekend and the first thing I did when I came home that night was hug my new baby boy. On to the second half of the Academy.