One down, 17.5 to go
09 Aug 2008 
in the early morning 
Matt Winckler
Week one of Basic Law Enforcement Academy (BLEA) is in the books. Here are some highlights.
Living conditions are excellent. They have put us into some ritzy apartments that are nicer than my house. The drawback is that they are a good 20 minutes away from the training center, which is evidently more than is typical. However, as I expected some sort of roach motel or barracks, I’ll take that tradeoff in a heartbeat.
The food is provided by a local small restaurant whose proprietor somehow knows how to cook food that doesn’t have that “restaurant” taste. It’s not the same as true home cooking, but it’s a lot better than typical restaurant cooking. No complaints.
My academy class (#635) consists of 30 people, 3 of which are Kennewick, a bunch of which are Spokane or Pullman, and the rest of which are from various agencies in central and eastern Washington. Almost all of them are married, and most of them have kids, which I think has increased the general level of maturity and kept general stupidity to a minimum (which is not to say that it is entirely absent).
The most surprising thing is that the academy has been far more lax than I ever expected. Literally no one has done any sort of punitive work yet at all–no pushups, no “student memorandums” (”I have learned that it is important to keep my boots highly shined because…”), nothing. One of the other Kennewick officers I’m there with was in the Coast Guard and indicates that this is typical; that the first week is more relaxed and casual and that the real fun will begin next week or the week after, particularly as people get comfortable and start making stupid mistakes. I can already see it happening; I have several people picked out mentally for the “first to be seriously punished” award. There are certainly things going on that, per academy rules and regs, could be disciplined for (talking to other students in class, playing around with your holster/mock firearm, which is to be treated as a real firearm at all times, sloppy drill/marching, etc.) To be honest, I’ll welcome some crackdown and discipline. This past week has been made a few degrees more surreal by the fact that instructors and the TAC Officer (the officer in charge of coordinating students/instructors/general academy stuff, but below the actual academy commander) have not been hostile or even intimidating. With perhaps the sole exception of the PT/DT instructors, they have all had an excellent sense of humor and are not hesitant whatsoever to share it with the students. This has been pretty bizarre and not at all what I expected.
Classes this week included:
- Harassment in the workplace: This was undoubtedly the most interesting sexual harassment class that I’ve ever been to. I think police officers inevitably have more interesting stories to tell than anyone else in the general public. One example: the instructor once was working on a squad focused on cleaning up prostitution in an area of town, and had a couple of female officers that would dress up as prostitutes to catch men who would try to solicit them. So one evening the instructor was walking through the station and ran into one of the female officers who appeared to be in her garb–tight short leather skirt, revealing top, etc. As he walked past, he commented: “Oh, are you running the hooker beat tonight?” Her response: “No, I’m just here to pick up my paycheck.” Ah. Er. He indicated that the only response (and his chosen response) was to just keep on walking. To us, he waved his hands and shrugged his shoulders: “What can I say? I thought she looked like a hooker!”
- Blood-borne Pathogens: Learning about the diseases you can contract from coming into contact with bodily fluids and what to do about it. Also included a segment on tuberculosis. I learned that even in the case of direct blood-to-blood contact with someone HIV positive, you only have something like a 0.04% chance of actually contracting the virus.
- Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: Evidently this is a stressful job, and you need to be well-grounded to survive it.
- Criminal Law: This class is fantastic. I could have been a lawyer. I enjoy learning to read the RCW and understanding the meanings and definitions of crimes, as well as the nuances of language and the case law interpretations that have clarified various aspects of the law. I’ve already learned a lot, and I can tell this is going to be an excellent class. Time permitting, I’m thinking of starting a series of criminal law posts here to reiterate what I’m learning in the class, thus both teaching you and also reinforcing my own knowledge.
- Traffic Law: Somewhat less interesting, but no less important than criminal law. As the title suggests, this class covers the traffic violations I’ll be stopping people for. A fair amount of time was spent trying to figure out, from the RCW, whether or not it is legal for a golf cart to be driven on a public street. (This was a question raised by a student, and the instructor actually didn’t know the answer. The general consensus was to treat the golf cart as an off-road vehicle, meaning that it would be illegal to drive it on the street unless it was properly licensed. This has the flaw in the fact that you cannot license a golf cart–the DMV won’t issue it. No final answer has been reached.)
- Report Writing: One of the most important aspects of policing is report writing, because “if it’s not in the report, it didn’t happen.” This is not the most glamorous class of all, but it’s probably one of the most important. I also picked up another excellent quote from it concerning field interviews: “If they’re talking, you’re winning.” As long as people are talking, eventually some bits of the truth will slip out, or they’ll slip up and contradict themselves if they’re trying to lie to you.
- Physical Training/Defensive Tactics (DT): This didn’t happen until Friday, though from now on it will be conducted three days a week. It felt really good to get out and finally exercise as part of academy, though some folks are going to have a rough time. I am glad to say that the run we went on (said to be 2 miles, but I can scarcely believe it was that long) didn’t even wind me, but several other folks had to fall out of formation a few times. Following that we did 30 pushups, 50 crunches, 20 more pushups, some sort of exercise where you lie on your back with your legs straight up in the air and then touch one ankle with the opposite hand, then the other ankle with the opposite hand, and repeat–about 30 of those, then held the pushup position halfway down for what seemed like an interminable amount of time (but was probably only 20-30 seconds). Following that we began learning how to fall and get up properly.
- Health and Wellness: Nutrition class for cops. The typical “don’t eat Big Macs for lunch” talk.
- Professional Ethics: Pretty much exactly what you’d expect from the title.
And that’s week one. Next week’s highlights include more Criminal Law, some Bombs & Explosives, Collision Investigation, and Use of Force. Sprinkled in among that is DT, “Cultural Awareness”, Liquor Laws, and some other miscellaneous classes. Homework hasn’t been too bad yet, but I’m spending pretty much every evening doing uniform maintenance. I left for academy so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to break in my boots before polishing them up, so as new creases appear, the polish cracks and falls off. Hopefully this will stop happening as I get them good and broken in.
Highlights in the more distant future include (subject to change):
- Aug 18: Block test 1
- Sep 11, 16-18: Emergency Vehicles Operations Course (EVOC)
- Sep 22: OC-10 practical
Fun times.