7 down, 11 to go
20 Sep 2008 
in the early morning 
Matt Winckler
EVOC week is over. Day two (Wednesday) saw us on the raceway again doing more of the same from Tuesday, plus a braking exercise. The braking exercise consisted of approaching a series of cones at varying speeds from 30 to 50mph (both with ABS and without) and employing “threshold” braking to stop as quickly as possible without locking up the tires, which was actually much easier than I expected. All told I had 11 laps around the track on Wednesday (counting both driving and a few simply riding with an instructor), and I passed the course easily. A couple of other students in my 4-person group had some troubles, but both eventually passed. One earned the “Cone Award” for this academy session by losing control and spinning off the road while trying to make the 50mph lane change–not once, not twice, but three times. The other didn’t do anything spectacular; she was just having general troubles implementing the fundamentals they taught us.
The course was fun, but there was a lot of standing around setting up cones as opposed to actual driving. Each lap took anywhere from 3:30 to 3:50 to complete, so my actual time on the course was only about 35-40 minutes out of the six hours on the course (two additional hours were spent on the braking exercise and low-speed skills course), and some of that was just riding with an instructor. All the rest of the time was spent standing at an assigned exercise somewhere on the course, setting up cones knocked over by other students. Overall it was a good experience, but it was very tiring. This week had no PT/DT scheduled, so it was my intention to keep some semblance of physical activity so that I won’t be killed come our next PT session on Monday. This past Monday I managed a solid run (including a murderous hill) and pushups, but I did almost nothing else the entire week. By the time we arrived home each day I was pretty much a spent force as far as physical activity was concerned. The coming Monday may not be pleasant. Actually, I know it won’t be pleasant, but more on that later.
Thursday was night driving. We started out on the course at 15:00 with a few more daytime laps (during which the last non-passing student managed to squeak by on the evaluations at the last hour), “lunch” at 18:30, then a nighttime pursuit. As soon as darkness fell and all the administrative details had been wrapped up (by which time it was about 19:45), each student got the opportunity to conduct a pursuit. After advising the dispatcher that I was in-service, he sent me to a particular location to look for a stolen vehicle. After I initiated a traffic stop, the suspect vehicle pulled over momentarily but then took off and the pursuit began. The suspect vehicle was allowed to drive wherever he wanted on the course, but we had to obey each exercise. We also had to communicate constantly with dispatch, advising our current location, direction, speed, traffic conditions, road conditions, and all observations of the suspect vehicle–from vehicle description to any traffic violations committed. The goal was to practice remaining calm and intelligible over the radio and maintain good driving habits despite the distractions of emergency lights, sirens, adrenaline, and the dispatcher. (Late in the pursuit: “Adam 112, how many rounds do you carry on your duty belt?” Dash it all… I had difficulty remembering how many rounds each of my magazines even carried. I think I guessed 17, but it’s actually 15. “17 times 3 plus 1!” So the evil dispatcher replied, “And how many is that?” *pause* You might be surprised at how difficult it is to complete simple math problems while swerving through cones and hairpin turns at night with the lights and sirens going. I lacked even sufficient presence of mind to reply, “Enough, that’s how many!” Or, more to the point at that particular moment, “None! My current duty weapon is made out of solid mold-injected plastic and fires phantasmic rounds, of which I have an unlimited supply!” The instructor riding in the passenger seat bailed me out, but he couldn’t do math either. “Fifty-three.” Then, after I’d told the dispatcher–who was probably laughing at me–my ride-along instructor apologized and corrected himself–”oh, sorry, fifty-two.” Whatever. Enough!)
After the pursuit was over (two laps of the course) I spent the next three and a half hours standing at an exercise setting cones. The pursuit was fun, but frankly I’m not sure it was really worth all the downtime. It was nice to have an opportunity to employ my new 40,000 candlepower flashlight, anyway.
Friday we were allowed to come in two hours late to class, not reporting until 10:00. Perhaps in exchange for this boon, we took four written tests over the next six hours: an EVOC written test (98%, hoorah), two Criminal Law quizzes, and finally a Criminal Law final. This last was exactly no fun at all, because it consisted of watching the movie Saw and answering 25 questions based upon it. (”In [whatever] scene, what four crimes were committed against Adam?”) We were paired with a partner and could use our books and even talk to other people, but it was very difficult nevertheless trying to keep up with the movie while simultaneously writing and analyzing the elements of various possible crimes–particularly for someone like me who’d never seen the film and had no clue about . In the end my partner and I ran out of time and had to scribble out a couple of final answers. I’m sure we passed, but perhaps not with flying colors.
One more week is behind us. On Monday we get back into the PT/DT routine, have some Criminal Procedures, and then the real fun begins: two hours of OC-10 classroom followed closely by two hours of OC-10 practical. KPD issued me my own little canister of fiery doom so that I could have the pleasure of being sprayed with the same stuff that we actually use rather than whatever they’ve got at the academy. I’ll start working up good similes for the pain this weekend and be ready to select the best one to communicate the sublime pain of being OC’d next week.