March 27, 2009

From TheKCGuy

This week brought another interesting class at the Prairie Village Citizen Police Academy.

Officer Robles spoke with us a bit about work as crime prevention officer. You may have read his column in the Prairie Village Voice, but that's not all he does. He is also a victims' advocate, so he meets with people who have been victims of recent crimes in Prairie Village to help them handle their recent incident and to help prevent something similar in the future. He also meets with business owners in Prairie Village to help reduce crime in the area. It was clear by his presentation that Officer Robles speaks in front of groups regularly.

Then, we had two classes that dealt with officer safety. Dan Sachen walked us through traffic stops and the steps that officers take to help ensure their safety during them. Then, Officer Brown led us through a more general class on officer safety. I heard several of my classmates indicating that performing a traffic stop and doing some of the other things that officers do would be completely terrifying. After watching a few videos of how things can quickly go wrong, I'd have to agree. Because of the danger involved, these officers go through tons of training to learn techniques that they can use to improve their chances of staying safe.

Some of the details of their training are so small they have probably gone unnoticed to you so far. For instance, have you ever noticed that as an officer approaches a car during a traffic stop they will often lay their hand on the back corner of the vehicle? That has caught my eye before, but I never put much thought into it. It turns out that they are often accomplishing two things. They press on the trunk to ensure that it's closed securely to eliminate unexpected surprises from it, and they're putting their fingerprints on the car in case they have to prove later that it was that particular car that the stopped. I guess every little bit helps.

The last class covered hostage negotiations. Seargent Hunter and officer Kuder spoke about their training and tools they use to deal with hostage negotiations. Fortunately, they don't get many opportunities to use these in the field in Prairie Village. They have had a few situations, though, and have successfully talked some people out of some pretty scary situations.

Next week, I think we learn about the shoot/no-shoot decision, which sounds like fun. If you're interested in reading about the previous classes, check out the Citizen Police Academy page.