10-80 Pursuit in Progress!!!

10-41

I've been getting a little busy so it's getting harder to keep this updated. School has started so in a sense with POST and with part time school I'm a "full-time-and-a-half" student.

A little while back we had our first night shoot. Was pretty interesting. My gun has night sights on it that glow in the dark so you can see where you're aiming. We did a 50 round prep course to get us ready for the night qualification. Half with a flashlight and half without. The furthest back you shoot from during the night qual. is 15 yards. Each shot within the center mass on the target is worth 5 points and each shot still on the target but outside the center mass range is 4 points. One needs 200 points to qualify. I scored 221. So if it had been the real night qual. I would have passed with no problems.

For a week we've been out at the Emergency Vehicle Operations range (EVO). We've been learning how to drive like a cop. Believe it or not there is a lot of things you have to know when driving in a police car. It isn't as simple as drivers ed. We went through an evasive action course where driving between the speeds of 35-60 mph you make multiple maneuver's through an obstacle course of cones. For the qualification you can't hit a single one. The cool part was making three high speed lane changes, popping off the curb and back on again and then coming to an abrupt complete stop at the skid ramp at the end all while doing 60mph. Pretty awesome. Then there is a skills course where you have to do several backing maneuver's, more lane changes, four quick back and forth turns (kinda like skiing), more parking...then do the whole thing again backwards. The cones are only spread out about the width of the car plus two or three inches so there is VERY little room for error. That course you had to complete in 2 min 3 sec without hitting a single cone.

There was also a skid pad. We weren't tested on it. We did it just to get use to the feeling of spinning out of control and how to recover from it. They had a big parking lot with sprinklers all around to keep it wet. We had to approach a line of cones with an opening on each side at 35 mph. At the last minute the instructor in the passenger seat would tell you right or left and as you turned he stomps on the breaks he has on his side of the drivers ed car and away you go. It was pretty fun doing 360's and even a 720 while trying to recover from the spin.

Today we learned how to maneuver turns quicker so we can actually gain time and speed while going around corners during a pursuit. The whole thing is getting us ready for a mock night pursuit each of us will do. An instructor takes off and you have to chase him down in a squad car. However, the course has random obstacles through it like wild life, construction and intersections which other instructors will be driving through. I'll have to maneuver safely around everything while using the radio to let "others" know the direction the suspect is heading etc. Sounds like its going to be pretty cool.

So far so good. Off to homework.

Yates 10-42