Week 8 -- Recruit Fratto

I’m not kidding when I say these weeks are really starting to fly by, I literally don’t know what day it is anymore, with the exception that I know all tests are on Friday. However, the faster the days go, the more tired we all seem to be getting. 

On Monday we had our lecture about Pedestrian Contacts. This is going to be the biggest part of our job. We have to contact people within the community, some we gain knowledge from, others we might suspect of a crime. We put it all together on Wednesday with our practical. Our instructors put together multiple role players so that we could play out scenarios as realistically as possible. 

This was such an eye opener for all of us. It can be insanely difficult to talk with people not only who hate you and don’t want to talk with you, but even the ones who like to talk to you. This was the best learning experience I've had by far. We were far from perfect, but learned a lot regardless of the outcome. The instructors did a great job helping us understand the right way to do things, or helping tweak some things we did that were good to make them great

On Tuesday and Thursday we were back in Arrest Control and Firearms. A lot of the Arrest Control Tactics are really started to come together. Everyone is starting to look a lot more like cops and a little less like civilians. We also learned quite a few pressure points, which was extremely interesting. We were walking that fine line of hoping not to hurt our fellow recruits, but at the same time wanting that reaction of pain to know it will work. It was crazy that one pressure point dropped my partner like a ton of bricks yet another one wouldn't make him flinch. So it’s good to have that tool box full of pressure points, so when one doesn't work you hopefully have one that does!

In firearms. we continued learning new skills, and were even allowed to shoot at some steel targets! This is the greatest show on earth, the instant gratification of hearing the steel ping the instant you shoot. On the flip side, if you miss, everyone one around you knows! We are all truly improving a lot in the marksmanship category. Everyone is getting more confident handling their weapons, especially the people who have never shot before. If you were to come up to the range now, you would never know they've never shot before!

Friday we finished with another test, test 8 of 15! We all passed and are getting closer to that week where we don’t have a test at the end. 14 weeks to go, or 68 class days!