Police Academy Memory...

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Michael Tinker Pearce

Michael Tinker Pearce

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I went through the county's police academy in 1987 when I was an officer in a small town in the mountains.

Going through Hogan's Alley-type training course, where you move through the course and are confronted with a series of shoot/no-shoot targets. Sometimes knocking down a target triggers another target to swing out. This happened mid course- a woman with a knife ten feet away...

*BLAM BLAM!*

This caused a second target to swing out about twenty yards away. I hesitated a split second, then...

*BLAM BLAM!*

I continued through the course, got to the end, unloaded and showed clear, then said, "How did I do?"

The instructor said, "Well. Pretty good overall, but--"

"But you think I shot the cameraman."

He nodded. "Yep. You shot the cameraman."

"Let's see," I said.

We got back to the target that swung out after the woman with the knife- it was a man in a vest with a mini-cam on his shoulder. The were no holes on the cameraman- but there were two holes through the lens of the minicam. The instructor looked at me sideways.

"You didn't do that on purpose."

I shrugged.

"That would've been some damned impressive shooting"

I shrugged.

The instructor shook his head. "Goddammit Pearce!"

Again, neither the first nor last time I heard that at the Academy...
 
My most outstanding memory of the Academy was my introduction to the babbitt.
I had a Smith 66 & was having problems with sight alignment.
Our grizzled old range instructor took pity on me during a break, hauled his tools out on a bench, took a short heavy round bar out that looked kinda like lead, and told me "Gimme your gun and don't look."

At the first metallic kachunk, I turned my head in horror to watch him whacking the bejabbers out of my own personal prized .357 Magnum.
Ignoring the look on my face, he called out "Fire in the hole!", loaded a couple rounds, fired one, adjusted the sights, fired again, adjusted again, and the problem was solved.

Took me several days to get over the emotional trauma, but I went on to graduate first overall in my class and second in firearms.
And there were rumors (NOT started by me) that the guy who came in first in shooting scores did it with a .38-caliber pencil..... :)

Had a HELLUVA time with the PT running, though.
Never been a runner.

Wish we'd had a live-fire Hogan's Alley, we did our Shoot/Don't Shoot with the old Motorola videos in class.
I'm envious.
Denis
 
When I started in '69, we also used videos for shoot-don't shoot scenarios. Hearing protection? They told us to use cigarette filters stuffed in our ears. This was before you sued somebody if they looked at you wrong.

My fear at the qualification range was sometimes I wound up with extra holes in my target. Someone on the range would completely miss their target and hit mine. You'd occasionally get the look, you stabbed it with a pencil?

It was interesting, during qualifying we had to jog in place, then they'd put the the lights low or off and have flashing lights to simulate a police car and a very loud police siren blasting while you shot to shake you up. Sometimes the only light was muzzle flash.

When we transitioned to Glocks, much later, first thing they did was install a NY++ trigger in your gun, 12 lb. pull. Now long retired, I still retain that trigger because I'm used to it.
 
Wow!

I thought my academy range days were bad! Lets just say I'm glad that range is over!!

We had instructors contradicting one another and changing drills without people acknowledging it was change and when you fired too many or too less you were a stupid MF and go do pushups in the cold, wet mud! I actually despised going to range days! Call out a safety issue or try and correct someone leaning backwards while shooting the shotgun and your told **** your not the instructor. When you attempt to explain what was wrong it was **** or your doing pushups or the whole class was doing pushups!

Our top shot consisted of how many pushups in a minute, run, jump jacks, etc. I took first and was told because i didn't take 3 min to shoot, run, shoot, run, shoot i sucked and didn't deserve it. I had one complete miss and 2 rounds in the arms and shoulders after a 400ft run, 100 jumping jacks in 20 degree weather all shots at 50ft. I did the course the fastest with the most hits but someone else had more precision. I fight like I train and train like i fight. Anyone can put rounds on target slowly but can they break a level 3 holster and put 2 in the chest and one in the head in under 5 seconds at 20-25ft? The person they wanted to get the spot would take about 8-12 seconds to complete that drill. Very good shooter but wasn't fast enough on reloads and getting out of the holster.

Surprisingly we did no move and shoot or lights and sirens. It was stand in place and fire.
 
In 1991 my final ‘pass you graduate/fail you’re out’ range qual consisted of six rounds on the mag (or cylinder), sitting and writing a report in the classroom.

The tac staff would call your call sign on the radio and you would run out of the classroom, jump in a car and drive code three around the academy to the range, then you bail out and run into the range.

The range was nearly dark, and a light bar was flashing and siren was blaring. As you ran in and took a position behind a barrel three targets swung flat with one a “shoot” and two no shoots at 20 yds. Once the target was engaged and turned away you would run to the center of the range and took cover behind a mail box at about 12 yards. The RO would touch off a shotgun blank when you ran behind the mailbox and scream “shots fired!” Same thing, three targets turn with one a shoot. After the targets flipped back you ran to the last barrel at about 5 yards, engaged the last three turning targets again and then it was done.

You needed a 6 out of 6 to pass.

At the mailbox, my issued POS 5906 decided to leave the fired casing in the chamber and proceeded to try and double feed the next round. This was stuck half in-half out of the mag. Soooo racking the slide did nothing, trying to drop the mag did nothing, I was stuck. I recall looking at the RO, who stood behind me with his arms folded and an unimpressed look on his face.

I wanted to break that damn gun, so I smashed it against the mailbox as hard as I could. That popped the jammed round out of the mag, allowing me to drop the slide, clear the fired cartridge case and rack a new round into the chamber. I then finished the course, with 5 good hits on the 3 targets. I still scored 100%, even with the dropped round, as the RO gave me the extra marks because I cleared the jam and got back in the fight.

I didn’t have the heart to say I was trying to break the gun.

I did get it fixed after that event, but I never had faith in it again and went to a Sig 226 as soon as they were authorized.

Ahh, the memories.

Stay safe!
 
Class Sgt did the eye dominance test, and when I came up left eye dominant, he said I was going to shoot left handed. I said no, and I will qualify top in the class. Graduation day I got my honor for top in academics and firearms. One thing I did NOT do so well was the run. Two pack a day smoker, (yeah, not smart), and we were gathered around the ashtray right before the final run, puffing away. Instructor yelled, "Think that's smart?" I said "At this point, does it matter?" Testament to his sense of humor he did NOT drop me one the spot. I finished the run with 7 seconds left...but I finished.
 
ohihunter2014 said:
When you attempt to explain what was wrong it was **** or your doing pushups or the whole class was doing pushups!
Click to expand...
Trying to "explain" would have been a major Faux Pas in our academy...if we'd have had to do pushup because of your inability to keep quite, we would have had a "group discussion" after class
 
Our final range qual shoot...typical May weather two days before 65 and sunny, that evening while on our final round...33 degrees and blowing snow sideways so bad that we could barley see our targets at 10 yards much less 25 when we got out that far.
Just as we lined up all bitc*%$ and whining, one of our crusty old instructors yelled out "we're not fair weather shooters and neither are the bad guys....FIIIIIRE" and so quals started;)
 
At the time, my state did not require the Academy BEFORE you hit the streets.
We had several months after hiring on somewhere to get a spot at an Academy class, so I went through mine with 6 other guys from my PD I'd worked with for something over a year by then.

I had a very tough time with the running.
At the final PT testing to graduate, one of my co-workers who was disgustingly good at running paced me, side by side, doing a very good "You can make it" routine all the way.
I made it by a full 20 seconds.

I came from a brand new department in my state's second largest city, with 43 other guys & one gal, in 1980. (By the time I left, it had grown to approx 120.)
It was a special incorporation election that involved a hastily thrown-together city government, fire & police.

We qualified initially with guns borrowed from a larger department next door, because ours weren't in yet.
We were told to pick a gun out of a couple plastic buckets of surplus revolvers, I just grabbed a Smith 15 on top of one.
In line with previous mention of extra holes, out of a 60-round qualifier I ended up with 61 holes in my target, a higher-than-possible total score, and the guy on my left barely squeaked through.
Only having 59 holes in his target didn't help him any. :)
Denis
 
DPris said:
I ended up with 61 holes in my target, a higher-than-possible total score, and the guy on my left barely squeaked through.
Only having 59 holes in his target didn't help him any
Click to expand...
I can neither confirm nor deny that a particularly obnoxious loud-mouth in my academy class mysteriously failed his first pistol qual course when, despite about a three-inch hole in the center of the 10-ring, he had quite a number of holes in the three-ring and off the silhouette completely. No one liked the guy (he, like many of us, was just out of the military), but was just an asshat know-it-all … so he got much needed "help" on the range by the shooters in the lanes on either side of him. Strangely, he had an even worse off-day on the first carbine qual as well.

We used to have to do push-ups whenever we dropped live rounds during reloads, especially during shotgun quals … We can't make folks do push-ups anymore on the range (it'd hurt their feelings, plus we don't seem to recruit folks with upper-body strength these days).
 
Our state Academy was not a pseudo-military deal at the time.
We didn't wear uniforms, those of us who lived nearby went home after "school" every day, there was no Boot Camp mentality, no pushups beyond the normal PT. None of that BS.

Bubbles & I watched about a half hour of The Recrut when it debuted on TV recently with Nathan Fillion in the lead.
Full-blown Boot Camp crap, I couldn't watch any more, especially after he graduated.
The FTOs were carrying it on full tilt, treating the newbies like they were trash.

I WAS an FTO at my PD, and our approach with newbies out of the Academy was to treat 'em like human beings & help them succeed, not do our damndest to wash 'em out.
I spent extra personal time at the range helping a couple newbies work on their shooting skills.
We'd paid salaries while they were in the Academy, and all that money & effort was wasted if they managed to get through that program to be failed by a pointless continuation of the same when we got 'em on the streets.

In recent years that Academy has gone to requiring some sort of cadet uniform, but I don't know how far the imitation military mindset has infiltrated.

Having gone through a real military Basic, I would not have had much patience doing it again to get into civilian LE.
Denis
 
In my academy class in '99 (yeah I was a wee bit over the hill) I was the only officer carrying a wheel gun - a Colt Python. Got a lot of laughs and ribs until we shot for night fire. Seems every time I touched one off the entire line could see their targets clear as a bell. Yes I qualified but then so did the other 5 officers on the line most with scores higher than mine.
 
Academy was a long time ago for me (winter of 1974... ) in what was then called Dade county (south Florida...). Here in Florida, back then and now... all of the academies around the state were linked into junior colleges - and an academy class would have folks from different agencies in the same county all lumped in together. The "Miami area" , Dade county, actually had 27 different sworn agencies in it back then (and Miami was not the largest -not by a long shot..). That was then - today there are even more agencies under what is now called Miami Dade county.... go figure... When I finally retired out every outfit in the county was looking for good candidates that not only met various diversity needs (imagined or real...) but also had serious practical needs for anyone with good second or third language skills... I doubt that has changed one bit - we needed French, Spanish, Portuguese, Creole (kreol for those from Haiti..), plus every Euoropean language and Russian... I shouldn't forget, any Chinese dialect along with Vietnamese as well... Yep, quite a party...

The full academy was over four months long - but all you needed to meet state requirements was 10 weeks - and that's what most of the smaller agencies used - so maybe 1/4 of the class came out at the completion of the 10 week mark - and went to their departments... and all of those (me included) were exceedingly green (serious understatement...). I may have been the worst rookie my small city (100 sworn officers budgeted) actually kept. Back then, our FTO's were simply the most senior (and usually not very motivated) officers on a given shift. Thank heavens I had a sergeant that actually looked for himself when he received more than a few negative reports with my name attached to them... In short, my agency was one that had a reputation back then - of being the outfit that would hire a certified officer -after he'd been fired from somewhere else (who knew ?..). Supervision was almost non-existent (unless some controversy arose..) , training little better... and we ended up pretty much making it up as we went along... Years later we were a completely different, very squared away professional outfit - and in fact were the first nationally accredited police agency in the Miami area.... quite a change...

Looking back on it I was pretty lucky to have survived those early years and actually thought the job was supposed to be exciting...
Glad I'm long out of that world - even if I did last long enough to be a "retired police captain"... although the highest rank I held was only a police lieutenant on the job (my last eight years...).
 
The academy I attended was multi-agency so various counties and municipalities from about a 50 mile radius were represented. At 30 I was about five years older than the average student although there were a couple of guys and one female older than me. Everyone wore the uniform of their sponsoring agency but we were all issued the S&W Model 66 for the duration of the training cycle. Just finishing a ten year hitch in the Army (MP/K9) I was pretty much prepared mentally and physically.
One of the best memories I have was when we headed out to the old airport for vehicle training. As a somewhat "gearhead" driving the the Plymouth Fury III with the big 440 CI engine was a blast. I couldn't get enough of it.
Worst memory was the loud mouth jerk that claimed to be a Navy Seal. Although I wasn't well versed on what being a Seal was all about 38 years ago I am now and as we found out later he wasn't. I had come across loudmouths braggers before but this guy was like fingernails on a chalk board. Just irritating, One of the instructors did a little digging and found he was in the Navy but as a Yeoman or clerk. Nothing wrong with that but he would have fared much better if he told the truth. He failed the first six week exam, 2x, and was shown the door. Funny part is a few years later I saw a photo of him in the local paper accepting some car salesman award. A Navy Seal banner was hanging on the wall behind his desk.
 
Our Academy took in every agency in the state, except for the HP who did their own thing.
Denis
 
After 4 years in the Marines as an LEO, I went to a 2 year tech school for Police Science, the last semester of the second year the major city nearby piloted a recruit school. I was working part time as sworn deputy for arena functions, finishing up my Associate degree and going through recruit school. I wonder when I slept?
 
That was the same year for me. On one of our "drop and draw" drills (drop your donut and draw your sidearm) using the same types of targets, we had been told that, of three images with which we'd be presented, one would be armed with a "primary" weapon (firearm), one with a "secondary" weapon (knife, crowbar, or anything that required contact distance), and one would be an innocent.

We had been told to fire two shots, and take out the "primary" first, but I misunderstood and thought we were to fire both shots at the "primary" and not that one was to be delivered to each armed target.

As my three images were presented, almost simultaneously, I noted that one was a woman with shopping bags, one was a man with an unfolded newspaper, and one was a man with one empty hand and a set of car keys in the other. I hesitated for a split second, then drilled the paper-reader with two shots about two inches apart in his left chest. The whistle blew, I re-holstered my sixgun, and my instructor came over yelling "why'd you shoot him..!?

I answered that I was aware that at least one of the people on this scene was known to be armed, and I could not see one of the paper-reader's hands. Eyes were rolled, and it came out that a mistake had been made in planting the rotating target stands; it was not the intention that I be shown three innocents. I was the only recruit in the class of 44 representing my department, and others were cautioned not to be caught reading a newspaper in my town.

I was given the target to take home for framing. Had it for many years after that. :D
 
Kendahl said:
George C Scott and Stacy Keach did a police movie with the title The New Centurions back in the early 1970s.
Click to expand...
I knew right after I posted that I was mistaken. The New Centurions was out first and the Choirboys with Charles Dunning and Randy Quaid followed up a few years later. I read a lot of Wambaugh back in the day so please forgive.
 
Re-reading the opener reminded me of another drill I attended, about six months after completing the academy. A traveling training institution was hosting an exercise using an actual wooden structure equipped with the same type of pop-up/pop-out paper target images. The scenario was a "shots fired" call in an apartment, with no backup.

I arrived at the location straight from shift, so I was still in full uniform. As I met the instructor, I asked him how many rounds of ammunition I would need for the drill (so I could switch out my duty ammo for training stuff.) He replied "load up what you carry on the street." Made sense to me.

Long story made short, there were three or four "innocents" mixed in with what ended up being four "hostiles." The last target presented was a hostile and, adrenaline pumping, I had not been counting rounds. When that female appeared in the last window wielding a snub revolver, I snapped off two rapid clicks of my now-empty sixgun. I quickly ducked behind a wall while re-holstering, drew my backup "fivegun", and lit off two rounds, both of which struck the target in the hand holding the gun (one hit the gun itself.) The whistle blew, and the exercise ended.

I got the same "you didn't do that on purpose" observation, with the instructor commenting that he had actually wanted to see a rapid reload.

I responded with "you told me to carry what I carry on the street." He admitted that the hits would have likely ended the threat by causing the woman to drop the gun.
 
After going thru the USMC basic training, and then about 4 years later after Vietnam, going thru what was considered by Depris as a BS Academy I went thru it on a breeze. I still remember that really good looking female drill instructor, when we were having our morning inspection, as when she came eye to eye with me, and asked what I was looking at, and I told her, "your beautiful eyes sir, I mean Mam". I already new what the next command would be, get down and do me 25 good ones. BTW myself and one other Marine always ran right next to the Tac Officer, and I still remember him saying if you guys think you can pass me up, go ahead and when we get back to the classroom, I'll have a surprise for ya. So naturally we did and when we got back we both got 50 pushups. Just couldn't win for losing. As far as shooting was concerned I never had a problem, In fact I shot "Distinguished Expert" throughout my career. Incidentally out of 56 Cadets starting the academy only 26 of us ended up graduating. Back in those days there weren't any questionable shootings.
 
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