EVOC video

23 Sep 2008  around evening time  Matt Winckler

One of the students in my class taped his camera to the dashboard and took some videos of the EVOC driving course, including this one. Look for me in my cameo appearance at the very end of the clip; I’m the dealer in the car on the right earning some filthy lucre by selling a big ol’ wad of dope to the instructor and student in the maroon Crown Vic.

The budding moviemaker also took some footage of the night pursuit, but it’s a massive file. I’m working on getting that hammered out and online.

Oh, and one more word on OC spray that I forgot to mention yesterday: it absolutely makes you belch like crazy while you’re recovering. *shrug*

It burns us!

22 Sep 2008  around evening time  Matt Winckler

Yes, it burrnnsss, precious. Today was OC-10 day, and a solid burst of oleoresin capsicum in the face has imparted unto me these wise words, which I now pass on to you: stay the hell away from OC spray, for verily it is of the devil. Alternatively, next time you consider active resistance against a police officer, just pay close attention to whether he draws his Taser or his OC canister.

The day started off in a typical fashion, with PT/DT and some Criminal Procedures. Then after lunch we began a two-hour classroom session on OC-10, during which we learned that “98% of the OC experience is mental, but that is in no way denying that the other 2% really sucks.” Evidently you can, through sheer force of will, overcome the effects of OC and fight through it. I believe this, but having now experienced the thing, I also believe that actually doing so is outrageously difficult.

We learned about the way in which OC spray “hotness” is measured–using Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). For reference, your typical green bell pepper has 0 SHU–not hot at all. A jalapeño pepper has about 5,000 SHU. The spray that most agencies use is rated at 320,000 SHU. The fogger spray that KPD uses, and which I was sprayed with, is rated at two million SHU. Not fun times! The instructor pointed out that really, at some point “hot” is “hot” and the additional SHU just make decontamination more difficult and the effects last longer. I believe this, as me and the other KPD officer who got the fogger took considerably longer to recover than most other officers.

Our procedure went like this:

1. An instructor and your student partner take up position about 7-10 feet away and prepare to spray you. (Two canisters are used simultaneously to ensure that if one fails or runs dry, sufficient spray is administered so that you don’t have to go through and do it again later.)
2. The instructor counts down from 3. When he reaches zero, you open your eyes and both people give you a 1-2 second burst in the face/eyes.
3. Proceed to a “bad guy” holding a punching bag and deliver 5 palm strikes.
4. Proceed to bad guy #2 and deliver 5 elbow strikes.
5. Proceed to bad guy #3 and deliver 5 knee strikes.
6. Approach a compliant suspect and, using verbal commands, get him into prone cuffing position and cuff him.

There are two main types of OC spray delivery systems, stream and fog. Most people got the stream, which is a solid stream of liquid you can aim. I got the fog, which deploys a burst of fog/mist full of OC nastiness in the general direction you’re pointing. I’m not sure which is worse (and I don’t plan on going back to see what the stream is like). I’m told that some people experience a delay before the burning begins (up to 5-10 seconds in some cases), but not so with me. The first sensation of the liquid landing on my face/eyes was that someone had tossed a blanket full of needles into my face. The next sensation was somebody lighting the blanket on fire and starting to pound on it with a blunt object. If you’re not prepared for it (which hopefully I now am, having experienced it, but wasn’t at the start of today), it literally takes your breath away as your airways try to constrict to keep it out of your lungs. Or rather that’s what it feels like–apparently medical studies have been done on a bunch of idiots who volunteered to get sprayed, and they determined that you get the same amount of oxygen after being sprayed no matter how it feels.

I didn’t have trouble delivering the necessary strikes, but by the time I got to prone cuffing the flames were roaring, I could barely get my eyes open, and my voice was almost totally gone. I did my best to squeak/retch out the commands to get the bad guy onto the ground and managed to cuff him, after which I proceeded to the real pain: decontamination with baby shampoo and a very cold garden hose. Things aren’t too bad while you’ve got water running over you, but the problem is that the OC solution is actually activated by water, so as soon as you stop rinsing the burning sensation returns in full force. The only way to get past it is to tough it out for 5-10 minutes, which I began doing, but then someone pointed out that I failed to rinse off the spray completely (the fog spray was helpfully marked with orange dye), so I had to go back and do another rinsing session (which felt great) and another burn session (which felt awful). Throughout the decon process I saw more snot come out of my nose and mouth than I think I’ve ever seen before in one place.

The closest thing I can think of to describe the feeling while standing waiting for the OC to wear off is one that I’ve read elsewhere: imagine holding your face over a gas grill with the burners turned up. This is a fairly accurate description, provided you put your face down close to the meat and not up high away from the heat. We’re talking serious, foot-stomping, mental-cursing pain here.

After about half an hour I could walk around with my eyes pretty much always open, and the burn had subsided to feel merely like the worst sunburn I’ve ever had. And then we had to go inside, out of the nice cool wind, at which point the gas grill sensation returned. (68 degrees never felt to freakishly hot!)

Over time the burning subsided further to the point that even indoors it only felt like the world’s worst sunburn. And then I got home and had to wash out my hair, head, and neck more thoroughly, at which time the water re-activated the spray and I enjoyed another (albeit slightly less potent) burn phase. One more shower after that and I got most of it out; I now only feel mild burning in my eyes and on my wrists when they get wet.

The bottom line is that while I intend to carry OC-10 on my belt, I’m sure not going to be eager to use it, particularly since the fogger goes all over the dang place. That is some nasty stuff.

Hopefully this was the most unpleasant part of academy, and now it’s over. Certainly this experience has become my new benchmark for all things extremely painful. Also, I think a glamour shot may be forthcoming; I know that at least one or two were taken of me during decontamination.

Transience

20 Sep 2008  just before lunchtime  Matt Winckler

Spokane evidently doesn’t have laws prohibiting panhandling, and in certain places it shows. It is particularly bothersome in the area of the Wal-Mart that I patronize on occasion for various little items. There are always beggars on the freeway off-ramps, and always the same beggar at the entrance to Wal-Mart itself. The other day I was in the parking lot opening up my car door to leave when one of the blighters hailed me. This fellow was your typical transient, with unkempt hair, beard/mustache, and dirty cap and clothes, but he lacked a cardboard sign. When he asked for cash “to pay for gas”, I suggested that he contact the local police, since they sometimes administer funds donated by charity for just such purposes. He claimed that he’d already tried them and they were out of money because it was the middle of the month. (Riiiigght.) I then suggested contacting a church. He avoided that topic altogether and began talking about how he’d bought this old camper/RV sort of thing for $2,000 and was “giving it a try” but it cost enormous amounts of money to fill with gas because it had a “thirty-gallon gas tank and a fifty-gallon reserve tank. Figure that one out!” Indeed.

The conversation became more interesting. According to Stanley (as his name turned out to be), he was from Pennsylvania and had just finished serving a 60-month prison sentence. (He didn’t tell me what for.) He continued on to proclaim that “if he wanted to” he could make plenty of money working because he was a railroad worker. But his wife wanted to go to Arizona, see. This stellar piece of logic was apparently supposed to convince people that he deserved to get their money for free instead of becoming a productive member of society and earning his own keep.

But if this wasn’t enough to convince you to give the worthy man all of your available cash and bless his noble journey, I’ll tell you the real kicker, the first thing I noticed as soon as he began talking: his eyes were glassy, he reeked of alcohol, and he was actually holding a coffee mug full of beer in his hand the entire time he was talking to me. But I’m sure if I’d given him cash, he would have used it to buy gas and get his wife to Arizona.

This all happened on Monday after classes and I hadn’t yet been back to the apartment, so the car was still full of my stuff–including my uniform and a hat emblazoned with a police emblem sitting in plain view. (We don’t wear any “identifiable” parts of the uniform when we’re out in public; though anyone who’s mildly attentive could certainly pick up clues from the “unidentifiable” parts that are acceptable to wear–including boots and navy BDU pants.) I kept waiting with great anticipation for the moment when he realized that he was drunkenly babbling and begging for cash from a police officer, but to my disappointment he never did, and we parted ways–he none the wiser (and none the richer), me edified by his stirring story.

It boggles my mind that some people actually hand out money to these parasites.

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.

6 down, 12 to go, and time to drive

16 Sep 2008  around evening time  Matt Winckler

One-third of the way through, and time can’t fly fast enough.

Yesterday we began the practical portion of our EVOC training with the skid car and some post-PIT maneuvers. The post-pit procedures are designed to prevent things like this from happening. In that video (at 01:50 or so), it seems to me that the suspect should not have been able to get away if the police had executed good post-PIT maneuvers. As we were taught yesterday, the second police vehicle (the one that comes after the actual PIT vehicle, which correctly drove on past) should have swept around left and come in on the suspect’s right rear bumper at a 45-degree angle while the third car should have done the same thing on the right front bumper, thereby pinning the suspect vehicle in place. Another fine example of a good PIT but horrible follow-up is this video, where the second vehicle does hit the front right bumper correctly (and spins his tires trying to pin him!), but nobody else comes in on the front left–so the suspect just drives away.

As you might imagine, this post-PIT stuff was great fun to practice, since it involved both driving fast and ramming a vehicle (albeit at very low speeds). We were not taught the actual PIT technique, since some agencies do not permit it–we were only taught post-PIT procedures because the State Patrol utilizes PIT. Even so, it was fun–moreso than the skid car, since I’ve already driven on ice and snow before.

Today we spent the entire day at the Spokane Raceway Park doing more EVOC–a low-speed skills course involving precision maneuvering (including a lot of backing up), an “observation drive” where we followed a suspect vehicle and communicated various details to dispatch. All the while we were trying not to let the suspect dictate our driving patterns–the suspect driver was a Spokane officer with a stellar sense of humor and managed several times to actually get behind and follow the recruits instead of vice versa (but not me!). I did make the instructor riding with me a little nervous about the mechanical condition of the training car when I took it off-road a little fast.

However, I later saw that my off-road maneuvers were nothing compared to the standard exercises set up on the raceway. One instructor indicated that most cars would probably burn through one full set of tires by the end of our three-day course, and I’m starting to believe him. There are a variety of exercises, ranging from lower-speed tight corners to high-speed lane changes and obstacle avoidance. Many exercises involve sudden movements at 40-50mph followed by hard (as in gas-pedal-to-the-floor) acceleration immediately thereafter, interspersed with periods of braking. Today alone we put two cars out of commission (though I don’t know why; they just stopped running). By the end of the day the cars had begun reeking of various burning or overheated components–transmission fluid, brakes, rubber, exhaust. Many of them sounded pretty bad, too. (Of course, none of these were in stellar condition to begin with.) This course is probably as hard and brutal as I’ll ever drive any vehicle–certainly I’d never drive any of my vehicles this way, but then I don’t plan on responding to emergencies in my vehicle either. The actual track time was a little disappointing; apart from the low-speed skills stuff and observation drive I probably only spent 30-40 minutes in the car. The rest of the day was spent resetting cones knocked over by other student drivers.

We’ve got one more full day of this tomorrow, and then night driving starting late Thursday afternoon and running until about 23:30. Following that we’ve got a horde of testing on Friday–between EVOC and Criminal Law, two major tests and two quizzes, plus we must have a speech ready–some cheesiness on “what law enforcement means to me”. The idea is to be good but not too good because evidently the top three have to give their speeches again at graduation. It is a fine art, writing a speech good enough to convince the instructor that you’re not “throwing” your speech while not sufficiently good to garner any student votes.