Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Larimer County Sheriff's Citizens Patrol Class

Today's Blog Post


I recently completed a 14 week Larimer County Sheriff's training program.  The highlight of the program was field day.  

Field day offers four training stations.  All stations were educational and challenging.  One station is called force-on-force, and it was significantly more challenging than the others.  With loaded gun in hand, I had to make life or death, split second decisions.  Seen in second photo is me shooting.  The shot (kill) was legal, and innocent lives were saved.

 
Force-on-force training was an eye opening-heart pounding experience, filled with many high stress situations (i.e., think mentally ill/unstable person(s), perhaps suicidal, violent, hostage, high on drugs, and now add guns, knives, or other lethal objects).  

Despite our training, in less than a second, things did go wrong.  Innocent people were accidentally shot that day.  Luckily,  we used plastic bullets, protective gear, and no one was hurt.  Overall, the experience felt very physically and emotionally real -- helps you truly understand what trained officers do every day to protect our community!  

Take Away Messages:

- Law enforcement is not an easy job!

- Education and training for all community members is highly recommended

- Excellent community safety and wellness is a dynamic, effortful, shared process (get involved)

- Combining mental health services with all professions (e.g., fire, police, etc) is a must   
A Call Could Save Lives
Call 911 or 24 Hour Crisis Center

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