If this were real life and not a police training scenario, I would have been shot three times in three hours. As I was thrust into high-pressure situations with a lifelike handgun loaded with blanks, my hesitation in pulling the trigger when faced with a man holding a firearm likely leaves me dead on the ground. In another sobering situation, I shoot a man who was pulling a cellphone from his back pocket.
The day-long, reality-based training offered by the Victoria Police Department offers a glimpse into the mind of police officers who are forced to make split-second decisions that can, in the best-case scenario, keep people safe, and in the worst, shatter families.
Much attention has been paid to the restraint showed by the Toronto police officer who didn’t shoot a suspect after numerous pedestrians were struck by a van on April 23, even though the man claimed to have a gun and made quick-draw motions as if getting ready to fire.
B.C.’s civilian police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, is looking into the actions of RCMP officers who fatally shot a man at Departure Bay ferry terminal in Nanaimo on May 8. The man was wanted in connection with a shooting and a violent carjacking in the Okanagan. As an RCMP tactical team tried to stop his car as it exited the ferry, police say the man got out of the vehicle with what was believed to be a firearm. There’s still no confirmation on whether the man was in fact armed.
Victoria police Staff Sgt. Jamie McRae, who heads the department’s human resources section, said if one factor was changed in either of those situations, the outcome would have been completely different. That’s why training is key to making split-second decisions, he said.
The training takes place in an eerie former dormitory called Greenwood, which is owned by the University of Victoria. It’s led by Const. Kris Greffard, the department’s control tactics instructor and a mother of two who has close-cropped platinum blond hair and a sleeve tattoo.
Six reporters attending the session are first trained in hand-to-hand combat, thrusting an open palm, an elbow and then a knee into a police officer holding a padded mat. We flick out a baton and swing it as hard as possible toward an assailant’s upper thigh.
It might look like a significant amount of force but Greffard said if someone is combative, officers want to gain compliance with one hard strike rather than repeated blows.
The longer it takes to get a person under control, the more likely either that person or the officer will be injured, she said.
We’re taught standard firearm safety, how to unholster and load the replica firearms and where on the target to aim your shot.
Some people ask why police can’t shoot at the legs or arms to limit serious injury, but Greffard points out that it’s hard enough to hit a person’s torso while they’re moving let alone their limbs.
I learn this when I take aim and shoot and my paint ball rounds barely make the target sheet.
Next, we’re sent into a room one by one, firearm in hand, and told to react to whatever situation presents itself. I turn around and a man dressed in black has a gun at his side. I tell him to drop the weapon and he raises it. I hesitate a split second and he shoots me. I’m dead.
The next time I go into the room, the man has his back to me and I ask him to turn around. I notice something black in his hand and tell him to put it down. It’s a coffee cup. I breathe a sigh of relief. In the third scenario, a man pulls something from his back pocket.
With the first encounter fresh in my mind, I shoot. The thing in his back pocket was a cellphone. My heart is beating and now I’m second-guessing what I saw.
Greffard said the exercise is as much emotional as it is physical.
“You can see what it feels like to point a gun at someone who has a mother, who has children. I want you to feel the emotional aspect as well.
“As police, we don’t go to work everyday to beat people; we’re trying to keep the public safe, but sometimes we find ourselves in tough situations,” said Greffard.
Only one per cent of the department’s interactions result in a use of force above handcuffing, she said.
Victoria police deploy a Taser between five and 12 times annually, Greffard said. Last year, VicPD used pepper spray 13 times and only twice was it not effective. The baton is rarely deployed — typically less than five times annually.
While Canada has not seen the same scale of mass casualty shootings as the U.S., police still train to deal with an active shooter, said Const. Dylan Bruce, a member of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team and the department’s firearms instructor.
In the scenario, an armed man has shot people inside a school. I and another reporter flank Bruce as we search a dim hallway, popping into open rooms in a methodical search for the shooter. A witness begs us to tend to someone injured and bleeding on the ground but we have to step around them, as our first task is to find the shooter before more people are killed.
I slip into a room on the right and am face to face with the shooter. He fires. In this game, I’m dead again.
Vehicles were used as deadly weapons in the Toronto attack and in terrorist attacks in Europe, which McRae said underscores why police departments have to adapt their training to new threats.
Recently, Victoria police tracked down a man armed with a field hockey stick who attacked people at random all over downtown.
“This guy was not stopping, so how do you deal with that?” McRae asked. “Fortunately, we got him with a Taser.”
It took about nine police and correctional officers to get the violent man into a cell at Wilkinson Road jail, McRae said.
McRae and a team of officers are looking into why 2018 has seen a spike in assaults that left at least seven on-duty officers injured in April and May. The team is looking into whether drugs or mental illness were factors or whether it was a training issue.
“We’re trying to determine what is the common thread because it hasn’t been a good year for us,” McRae said. “We need officers to go home healthy at the end of their shift.”
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
Canadians have camping mastered.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/02/08/oshawa-dancing-cop_n_14639838.html
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/dead-dead-again-police-scenario-tough-training-for-real-life-1.23322845
If this were real life and not a police training scenario, I would have been shot three times in three hours. As I was thrust into high-pressure situations with a lifelike handgun loaded with blanks, my hesitation in pulling the trigger when faced with a man holding a firearm likely leaves me dead on the ground. In another sobering situation, I shoot a man who was pulling a cellphone from his back pocket.
The day-long, reality-based training offered by the Victoria Police Department offers a glimpse into the mind of police officers who are forced to make split-second decisions that can, in the best-case scenario, keep people safe, and in the worst, shatter families.
Much attention has been paid to the restraint showed by the Toronto police officer who didn’t shoot a suspect after numerous pedestrians were struck by a van on April 23, even though the man claimed to have a gun and made quick-draw motions as if getting ready to fire.
B.C.’s civilian police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, is looking into the actions of RCMP officers who fatally shot a man at Departure Bay ferry terminal in Nanaimo on May 8. The man was wanted in connection with a shooting and a violent carjacking in the Okanagan. As an RCMP tactical team tried to stop his car as it exited the ferry, police say the man got out of the vehicle with what was believed to be a firearm. There’s still no confirmation on whether the man was in fact armed.
Victoria police Staff Sgt. Jamie McRae, who heads the department’s human resources section, said if one factor was changed in either of those situations, the outcome would have been completely different. That’s why training is key to making split-second decisions, he said.
The training takes place in an eerie former dormitory called Greenwood, which is owned by the University of Victoria. It’s led by Const. Kris Greffard, the department’s control tactics instructor and a mother of two who has close-cropped platinum blond hair and a sleeve tattoo.
Six reporters attending the session are first trained in hand-to-hand combat, thrusting an open palm, an elbow and then a knee into a police officer holding a padded mat. We flick out a baton and swing it as hard as possible toward an assailant’s upper thigh.
It might look like a significant amount of force but Greffard said if someone is combative, officers want to gain compliance with one hard strike rather than repeated blows.
The longer it takes to get a person under control, the more likely either that person or the officer will be injured, she said.
We’re taught standard firearm safety, how to unholster and load the replica firearms and where on the target to aim your shot.
Some people ask why police can’t shoot at the legs or arms to limit serious injury, but Greffard points out that it’s hard enough to hit a person’s torso while they’re moving let alone their limbs.
I learn this when I take aim and shoot and my paint ball rounds barely make the target sheet.
Next, we’re sent into a room one by one, firearm in hand, and told to react to whatever situation presents itself. I turn around and a man dressed in black has a gun at his side. I tell him to drop the weapon and he raises it. I hesitate a split second and he shoots me. I’m dead.
The next time I go into the room, the man has his back to me and I ask him to turn around. I notice something black in his hand and tell him to put it down. It’s a coffee cup. I breathe a sigh of relief. In the third scenario, a man pulls something from his back pocket.
With the first encounter fresh in my mind, I shoot. The thing in his back pocket was a cellphone. My heart is beating and now I’m second-guessing what I saw.
Greffard said the exercise is as much emotional as it is physical.
“You can see what it feels like to point a gun at someone who has a mother, who has children. I want you to feel the emotional aspect as well.
“As police, we don’t go to work everyday to beat people; we’re trying to keep the public safe, but sometimes we find ourselves in tough situations,” said Greffard.
Only one per cent of the department’s interactions result in a use of force above handcuffing, she said.
Victoria police deploy a Taser between five and 12 times annually, Greffard said. Last year, VicPD used pepper spray 13 times and only twice was it not effective. The baton is rarely deployed — typically less than five times annually.
While Canada has not seen the same scale of mass casualty shootings as the U.S., police still train to deal with an active shooter, said Const. Dylan Bruce, a member of the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team and the department’s firearms instructor.
In the scenario, an armed man has shot people inside a school. I and another reporter flank Bruce as we search a dim hallway, popping into open rooms in a methodical search for the shooter. A witness begs us to tend to someone injured and bleeding on the ground but we have to step around them, as our first task is to find the shooter before more people are killed.
I slip into a room on the right and am face to face with the shooter. He fires. In this game, I’m dead again.
Vehicles were used as deadly weapons in the Toronto attack and in terrorist attacks in Europe, which McRae said underscores why police departments have to adapt their training to new threats.
Recently, Victoria police tracked down a man armed with a field hockey stick who attacked people at random all over downtown.
“This guy was not stopping, so how do you deal with that?” McRae asked. “Fortunately, we got him with a Taser.”
It took about nine police and correctional officers to get the violent man into a cell at Wilkinson Road jail, McRae said.
McRae and a team of officers are looking into why 2018 has seen a spike in assaults that left at least seven on-duty officers injured in April and May. The team is looking into whether drugs or mental illness were factors or whether it was a training issue.
“We’re trying to determine what is the common thread because it hasn’t been a good year for us,” McRae said. “We need officers to go home healthy at the end of their shift.”
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/08/31/manitoba-police-officers-dig-deep-to-rescue-5-puppies-buried-in-tunnels_a_23513820/?utm_hp_ref=ca-homepage
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/police-officer-throws-9-year-old-boy-party-after-no-one-showed-up-to-his-birthday/ar-BBVTa09?ocid=spartanntp
A state trooper pulled a man from his car seconds before it was hit by a train
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/us/utah-state-trooper-saves-driver-from-train-trnd/index.html
Real close.