Category: Tales from the Barking Muse

Archives: Stories, insights and ruminations of a traffic officer from Petaluma PD. Gerry Goldshine’s unique perspective offers many a glimpse of what goes on in the mind of a good cop.

Categories
More Street Stories Tales from the Barking Muse

And We’re Off and Running, part 2 of 3

And We’re Off and Running

part 2 of 3

By Gerry Goldshine

My Motorola radio crackled loudly, only just audible over the siren and engine noise, “Tom-36, be advised, I have no units 10-8 (in service) to assist and no one in the area of the north end of town. We’ll notify CHP and SCSO. Also, we’ve had reports of patches of heavy fog in that area.”

Swell, Murphy – of “Murphy’s Law” infamy – was now definitely riding shotgun with me. Moreover, Petaluma Boulevard North, as it led out of town, was a divided roadway, with two lanes in each direction. It was not especially well lit and was lined with large oak trees that regularly claimed errant drunk drivers. I let dispatch know that the tan Toyota’s speed reached about seventy-five miles per hour and was weaving from one lane to the other. That was until we came upon the first patch of what is fondly known as “Tule Fog” – or by its more proper nomenclature, “Radiation Fog”. This bundle of condensation was about a hundred feet or so across and my lead-footed prey braked hard once more, quickly dumping off his speed like a fighter jet from Top Gun pulling up in a dog fight, only to increase velocity once out of the fog. Continuing on towards the north end of town, we encountered at least two more of the fog banks and each time, my fleeing driver would dutifully reduce his speed, albeit locking his brakes again on several occasions.

Petaluma Blvd. North at Old Redwood Highway
Petaluma Blvd. North at Old Redwood Highway

For those unfamiliar with Petaluma, at the far north end of town, Petaluma Boulevard turns to the east where it crosses over US Highway 101 and eventually becomes Old Redwood Highway. Just before the Boulevard crosses Hwy 101, it is intersected by another northbound street, Stony Point Road. In this area, Stony Point was an even more poorly lit, as well as a poorly paved, “country” road surrounded by large fields and very few residences. Why this is important, is that upon reaching this intersection, the suspect ran the red light and turned left onto Stony Point Road to continue heading north. We encountered several more patches of thick dense fog spilling out of the fields, crossing the roadway before closing on a long driveway that led up to an old farmhouse on the west side of the road. As we approached, the suspect turned on his left signal and began slowing as if they were going to turn into the driveway.

Still without any backup, I’ll admit to imagining all sorts of nightmare scenarios, each of which had me being lured into some type of ambush but almost the same time, I began formulating response strategies just in case. Reflecting back on my training, I knew about the best thing I could do was to gain more distance from them. Tactically, more distance means more time to react to any danger. Fortunately, all my threat assessments were for naught because they passed by that driveway and several others, continuing to signal for a left turn. Then, perhaps a mile or two ahead, I saw a set of flashing red and blue emergency lights speeding towards us. The suspect apparently saw the same thing and abruptly stopped his car right in the middle of the single northbound lane. About a half mile from us, the oncoming police unit stopped and proceeded to close off the southbound lane to any traffic. It was with palpable sense of relief that I finally heard, still off in the distance but converging on my position, the welcome sounds of multiple sirens meaning the cavalry was nearly there.

Unlike what is frequently depicted on the news, officers in my department did not rush up to the driver at the conclusion of a pursuit, screw a gun in his ear and/or yank him through a window. If doing so didn’t get you killed, it would probably get you fired and rightly so. Consequently, I had positioned my car a good five to seven car lengths from the tan Toyota, angled in such a way so that the engine would act as cover should they open fire on me. I got down low, behind the driver’s side front window frame, with my pistol pointed at the driver.

A felony car stop looks like this during the daytime.
A felony car stop looks like this during the daytime.

Using my patrol car’s public address system, I ordered the suspect driver to first turn off his car, then both occupants to put their hands on top of their heads and finally not to move. Naturally, neither of them complied and both made what is not so fondly referred to as “furtive movements”. Even after I repeated the commands two more times, they acted as if having a police officer point a loaded gun at them was all a perfectly natural happenstance.

As the sounds of the responding backup units grew closer, I tried repeating the commands in Spanish but to no avail. So, I turned my attention to directing the arriving units into what I felt were the best tactical positions. When at last I was joined by Sgt. Dave, down behind the door of my car, he patted me on the shoulder and said, “Nice job.”

I shook my head, looked at him and replied, “Go get him, Ger? Seriously? Go get him?”

Read the final installment of Gerry’s pursuit tomorrow, May 9th, 2013

Categories
Tales from the Barking Muse

And We’re Off And Running

And We’re Off And Running

(part 1 of 3)

By Gerry Goldshine

 

To coin the venerable Sergeant Joe Friday, “It was Saturday night. I was working the Swing Swift out of Traffic Division. My boss was Sgt. Dave. It was approximately 0145 hours, near the end of watch. It had been a quiet night.” Okay, enough of the homage but that’s what happens when it’s been an unusually boring watch and you can see the finish line; you get a little loopy. Sgt. Dave had just gone out with a possibly intoxicated male subject in the parking lot of a business on the fringe of the main downtown area. I was nearby and responded for backup, knowing the unpredictable nature of drunks, especially at that hour. As it turned out, he was an amicable inebriant who had a much soberer friend willing to take him home. Standing there talking, we all suddenly heard the sound of tires squealing and unmistakable roar of an engine under heavy acceleration. We no sooner turned in the direction of where the sound was coming when a tan car went flying by us, doing 45-50 miles per hour – in a 25 mile per hour zone. Sgt. Dave gave me a wry grin and simply said, “Go get him, Ger!”

I climbed into my patrol car, rather unenthused about the prospects of ever being able to catch the tan car, never mind the fact my brain had so recently shifted into the “I want to go home on time” mode. I pulled out onto Petaluma Boulevard North and traffic was very light which made it easy to spot the ne’er-do-well. My doubts were confirmed; they had well over a half mile lead on me which was increasing by the second. My foot pushed the accelerator to the floor and the sound of the big Ford V-8 police package engine roaring to life got my predatory juices flowing. Just as the rational part of my brain was starting to tell me that I was embarking on a futile quest, I looked on in astonishment up ahead as the tan car suddenly braked hard for a red light.

Burning rubber
Burning rubber

Now, by “braking hard”, I mean his brakes locked the wheels up so that his vehicle, with its back end shimmying side to side, was quickly shrouded in churning blue clouds of burnt rubber. My internal “DWI” detector immediately went off; from my training and experience, I knew that anyone operating a car in the reckless manner that this yutz had, was more than likely under the influence of some intoxicant. No longer was this just about a speeding ticket. Stopping this person from driving as soon as I could, before they crashed and possibly caused injury to themselves or others, was now a priority. Fortune favored the bold that night for the traffic light stayed red long enough for me to catch up to and pull in right behind my target vehicle.

I notified dispatch that I was going to be making a traffic stop on a tan Toyota Whatyacallit. I hadn’t yet turned on my emergency lights when the driver finally noticed me in his rear view mirror. I watched as he shifted position, sitting straighter in his seat; all his attention was now intently focused on my reflected visage. At the same time, his passenger turned in his seat to look intently at me. The driver apparently said something to his rider, who violently shook his head. Then the signal turned green but the tan car didn’t move an inch. As Princess Leia said to Han Solo, I had a bad feeling about this. I didn’t need to be a Jedi Knight to know what was going to happen next. I snugged up my seatbelt, closed my windows and turned up the radio, mentally cursing Sgt. Dave’s “Go get him, Ger”.

A second later, I shook my head in resignation as the car ahead abruptly took off, its back tires squealing as they sought the proper coefficient of friction against the asphalt roadway throwing up a blue haze of burnt rubber while the back end fish-tailed crazily. The driver rapidly accelerated through the intersection. A surge of adrenaline shot through me and I flipped on all the emergency lights along with the siren; we were off and running. As we sped past the police station, I notified dispatch that I was northbound, now in pursuit of a possible DWI.

So much for me going home on time.

Check out part 2 tomorrow right here!

Categories
Tales from the Barking Muse

The Fairer Sex? A Lesson Learned

The Fairer Sex? A Lesson Learned

By Gerry Goldshine

 

As a Baby Boomer, I came of age in the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies, fully cognizant of the upheaval in traditional roles, as women fought anew for equal rights. All too often, I found myself disgusted at the misogynistic response by members of my gender. Though in full agreement with feminist ideals and equality for women, my thinking was none-the-less colored by a touch of traditional male chivalry. By that I mean, I stood when a woman entered a room, I held the car door open for my dates and above all, I firmly abided by the coda that a man never physically assaults or harms a woman. However, I was rather quickly and quite pointedly disabused of that last notion during my first month of field training as a Deputy with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office that.

My FTO (Field Training Officer) and I were working Swing Shift and assigned to the Roseland beat area. Roseland is an unincorporated part of Sonoma County, southwest of the City of Santa Rosa. It is considered an “active” beat, just the sort of locale for a rookie to gain a wealth of experience. On a lovely spring night, while driving by a school, we spotted a disheveled woman, staggering haphazardly along on the sidewalk. She was clearly under the influence of some type of intoxicating substance. As I was in the very early part of the Field Training program, my FTO was handling most of the tasks and my job was to learn from his example. By the time we notified dispatch that we were going to contact this person and stopped our patrol car, the fair maiden had fallen upon her fundament, spilling the contents of her threadbare purse in the process. There, amongst her wallet, empty pill bottles, used Kleenex, miscellaneous feminine hygiene products and keys were several hypodermic syringes, a dirty blackened spoon and a wad of cotton. That partially explained the reason for her inebriated condition. Above the mix of “quaint” odors emanating from her person, I could easily smell the odor of many consumed alcoholic beverages. Drugs AND alcohol; swell. Then, much to my surprise, my FTO gestured to her and told me, “Go hook her up.”

Drunk woman
Drunk woman

This would be my first arrest as a Deputy. I dutifully explained to her that she was under arrest for public intoxication and illegal possession of hypodermic syringes. I told her to put her hands behind her, moved in smartly and took one of her arms to place her in a control hold. Though quite pickled, she quickly made it obvious that she had other ideas; none of them included complying with a rookie sheriff’s deputy and going to jail. Responding to me with a hail and hearty, “Fuck you, asshole!” she swung her free arm in a wide arc, just missing my head. From that point, as they say, the fight was on. So, with my FTO looking on rather bemusedly, I went through a repertoire of control holds, none of which worked as they did in the academy – big surprise there, right? Then I tried bringing her down to the ground. Considering her indelicate state of balance, that shouldn’t have been a problem, except when she realized what I was trying to do, she became possessed of stability rivaling that of the Flying Wallendas. After about five of these fun filled minutes had passed, I grew weary of this dance; after dodging loads of wildly swung haymakers, well aimed furious kicks towards my groin and the occasional attempt at a bite, I looked at my FTO, expecting some type of help or suggestions.

He merely cocked an eyebrow and said, “You know, we do have other things to do tonight. Stop playing around and arrest her.”

I can’t imagine why that response would tend piss me off but anger led to one of those defining moments of clarity; I suddenly focused in on the knot of her pony-tail. With little tactical forethought, I quickly grabbed it and holding it tightly, I pulled her down to the ground. Once there, I immediately put a knee in her back to hold her still and quickly completed handcuffing her. Well before Kevin Costner said it to Al Pacino in the “Untouchables”, my FTO reacted to my triumph by slowly clapping his hands and saying, “Here endeth the lesson.” Now deigning to help me, my FTO and I “delicately” placed her squirming, struggling form into the backseat of our car; as we headed to the jail, I considered what I had learned.

Rather stupidly, on some now unfathomable level, I had expected this drug-addled, intoxicated flower of feminity to behave in a genteel, lady-like manner when faced with the prospect of going to jail rather than reacting like one of the mythical Furies. The most extreme hazardous point of any police-suspect encounter are those very first few seconds when an officer is effecting an arrest and moving in to handcuff a suspect. No one wants to be denied their freedom. Fear brings out adrenaline which brings about unpredictable responses. The meek can explode like hellions possessed while brawny behemoths fold like a house of cards. In not taking decisive, forthright action the moment I went to handcuff this woman, I placed myself into serious jeopardy.

While there may still be a time and place for chivalry, arresting a drunk drug addled woman is inarguably not one of them.  Had she been an obnoxious, slovenly drunken man, I would not have hesitated in applying escalating force, resorting to perhaps CS spray (a tearing agent) or if necessary, my baton the second I met physical resistance and other less “forceful” tactics were not working. Equal opportunity applies to arrest situations. Over the ensuing years, I have been kicked, slapped and spat upon during the course of arresting combative members of the so-called “fairer sex”. One demure, 54 year old grandmother, drunk and resisting arrest while squabbling with another patron on the floor of a local tavern, grabbed one of my legs and sank her teeth into my calf. It took three other officers assisting me to pry her loose.

At the start of each of these encounters, I always recalled the lesson I learned in Roseland that spring day, now so many years ago. The ancient Greek poet, Homer, perhaps put it better when he wrote, “Oh, woman, woman! When to ill thy mind is bent, all Hell contains no fouler fiend.”

As they say in these contemporary times, “Word”.

Traffic Officer Gerry Goldshine circa 1985
Traffic Officer Gerry Goldshine circa 1985

Gerry was born in Providence, Rhode Island but raised in Southern California. 

Upon graduating from California State University, Los Angeles, Gerry enlisted in

the Army and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. After leaving active duty

in 1979, he worked for Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. From 1980 until his retirement

Categories
Tales from the Barking Muse

Murphy Was an Optimist

As They Say, Murphy Was an Optimist

By Gerry Goldshine

Practically all of us have heard of Murphy’s Law, which basically says that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. What most people don’t realize is that there are endless permutations to Mr. Murphy’s original coda. In police work, you can always tell when Mr. Murphy has decided to enforce his rule as soon as you’ve heard at least one officer exclaim, “Oh shit!”

It was 1981, before cell phones and computers. I was working Graveyard shift (9:30 PM to 7:00 AM) and it had been a very quiet night. It was about 3:00 AM and I was about ready to see if I could take break for my first cup of coffee to see me through to the end of shift. Here is where I encountered one of those subsections of Murphy’s Law. This particular one went, “If it’s been a quiet night and you are about to ask for your break, that’s when you get the dramatic call.”

“1-Lincoln-36.”

“Lincoln-36”

“Lincoln-36, respond to 1634 Redacted Street for a possible man down. Just received a call from a payphone in front of Long’s Drugs. The juvenile reporting party stated that their father collapsed inside the residence. Unknown if any drugs or alcohol involved. No further information. I’ll be sending you backup from the station, Code-Three. Ambulance is also being dispatched.”

“Lincoln-36, copy.”

I was only about a quarter mile away and was at the house in just a couple of minutes. Standing clustered around the front door of the house was a woman and about six or so children, ranging from toddler to teen in age. Some of the kids were crying or had been crying. The woman was crying, shaking and on the verge of complete hysteria.

“My husband! My husband just had a quadruple bypass. He fell in the bathroom and he won’t move. Please!”

When confronted with a situation such as this, your training kicks in and it is amazing how the mind automatically prioritizes things for you. No sooner had I thought “Oh shit!”, than I was also advising dispatch that this was a possible heart attack while at the same time visualizing the steps to perform single person Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation. However, on this morning, Mr. Murphy was running this show. I was sadly mistaken in the belief that I had passed through my “Oh shit!” moment.

A Georgia man owes his life to the quick actions of his mother and the heroics of a Forest Park Police officer.
A Georgia man owes his life to the quick actions of his mother and the heroics of a Forest Park Police officer.

There, lying face down in the doorway, between the master bedroom and bathroom, was a man well over six feet tall and weighing-in at considerably more than 300 pounds; I was all of 5’7” weighing just 140 pounds. I felt for a carotid pulse and sadly there was none. He wasn’t breathing and his complexion had taken on a gray pallor. I knew from the EMT training I had received while in the Army, this was a good indication that he had been “down” for a significant amount of time. That spoke badly for his survival chances. I let dispatch know I had a “Code Blue” – which is medic speak for cardiac arrest. By then, the entire family had crowded into the bedroom and all were looking at me expectantly. Mr. Murphy was not finished with me; I asked if any of them knew CPR and was met with blank, unknowing stares. I was on my own. Adrenaline can be a wonderful thing because I somehow got this man out of the doorway and onto his back while the family continued to sit and stare anxiously at me. I could then see the fresh red surgical scar running down the center of his chest. I let dispatch know that I was starting CPR and asked how long before the Paramedics would be on scene. They were still several minutes away, as was my back-up.

As I mentally ran down the checklist to start performing CPR, for the first time in my career, I recalled what my EMT instructor had told us; when CPR is necessary, only 1 in 10 survive. Usually there has been far too much “down” time for CPR to be of any use. While impossible to describe with written words, I will always remember the sounds this man made each time the air I blew into his lungs came back out. Though it was probably less than five minutes when I heard the wailing sirens announcing the arrival of the Fire Department, it seemed like hours had passed as I labored away with chest compressions and rescue breathing. When the Paramedics finally relieved me, my uniform was drenched with sweat. My muscles were screaming from an overload of lactic acid. I felt a bit light headed. My legs were shaky when I finally stood back up.

I made my way out of the bedroom, which felt like it had become a sauna and met up with my Sergeant who had just arrived along with the officer who was my back-up. I filled him in on the situation. I suppose for the family’s sake, the Paramedics continued CPR and transported the man to the local hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Petaluma Fire Department ambulance
Petaluma Fire Department ambulance

When I stepped outside to take in some of the cool early morning, I reflected on Murphy’s law and all the little details that led to its harsh application in that family’s small house. Had anyone in there learned CPR after the deceased’s heart operation, would that have stymied Mr. Murphy? Had there been a working phone, would I have been there sooner? This being the first time I had tried to save someone’s life, even with what I knew, I still didn’t take the failure easily. I can still see the look of hope and expectation that was on those kid’s faces. However, as I look back after all this time, I can see that Mr. Murphy had me beat even before I had started my shift that night.

I didn’t stand a chance.

Traffic Officer Gerry Goldshine circa 1985
Traffic Officer Gerry Goldshine circa 1985

Gerry was born in Providence, Rhode Island but raised in Southern California. 

Upon graduating from California State University, Los Angeles, Gerry enlisted in

the Army and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. After leaving active duty

in 1979, he worked for Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. From 1980 until his retirement

in 1996, he was a patrol officer, traffic officer, and a trainer at Petaluma Police Department.

Gerry is married, has a daughter and lives in Sonoma County, California.

Categories
Tales from the Barking Muse

Police Academy part 3

This is the last of 3 guest posts from Gerry Goldshine

 More firearms training

I’m really not sure what I was expecting from a relatively small regional academy, but it wasn’t firearms training from someone who split his time between firefighting and police work in the South Bay. I’m not saying he was not a decent instructor; it just was not what I was expecting. While I had qualified “Expert” with an M-16A1 rifle in the Army, I was only shooting just slightly above average with that .357 pistol. It wasn’t until several years later, that a new range-master discovered while right-handed, I was left eye dominant, which had a great effect on my pistol shooting accuracy. In addition to the firing range, we also received training in what was called “Shoot-Don’t Shoot”. The idea was to develop situational awareness and judgment when employing deadly force. Our “state of the art” technology back then for the practical portion of this training consisted of a video projector, a butcher paper screen and a pistol that fired wax bullets. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that felt a bit foolish yelling “Freeze!” at that butcher paper.

Emergency Vehicle operation

Stanford, Ca Police Community Academy 2007

While firearm training was a bit of an ongoing process, emergency vehicle operation training was done over a three day period. All of us were excited because we were going to be the first class to receive training through the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving at what would become Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma. Boy, were we disappointed. First of all, the vehicles we were to train with were compact cars, nothing like the big high powered beasts we would be driving with our various departments. None of the vehicles had any emergency equipment installed. There were no flashing lights, no sirens or radios; none of the distractions that would drive our adrenaline sky high under actual emergency conditions. Then there were the instructors; they may have been excellent race car drivers but none had any law enforcement background or experience driving emergency vehicles that they could share with us. I suppose the final frustration was that we were not permitted to drive over 35 miles per hour during any phase of our training. I got very proficient at avoiding cones that day and not much more. Among the first supplemental training that I received upon graduation, was eight hours of training with their driving instructor using retired patrol cars from the Sheriff’s Office. I’m here to tell you there is no quicker learning experience than losing one of those vehicles in turn at 65 miles an hour because you didn’t set up properly entering a corner.  As a result of that training, I had confidence in my driving abilities the night I pursued a suspect who had just committed an assault with a deadly weapon and who had tried to run me off the road, down Highway 101 at over 120 miles per hour, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding the microphone to communicate with dispatch–the siren, radio and scanner blaring away. At the same time, I had to be aware of my location, that of other responding units, other traffic ahead and around me, changing weather and road conditions. I had to constantly evaluate whether any of those variables would make the safety of the public outweigh the need to continue the pursuit. All of that was something the Bondurant experience failed to provide in their block of training.

Tear Gas

St Paul, Mn. tear gas at demonstration Sept. 2008

As the weeks went by, our sponge-like minds tried desperately to absorb still more data in yet additional subject areas. There were classes on how to write police reports, criminalistics (that whole CSI thing) and everyone’s favorite, accident investigation. Then came training in non-lethal defense methods, which meant some form of CN or CS or what is more commonly known as tear gas. Our practical exercise involved a group of us going inside a closed plywood shed accompanied by an instructor where they would expose us to some form of that blessed substance. Unbeknownst to our instructor was the fact that I had been an instructor of essentially the same type of training for many years when I was in the Army. As my group nervously entered the shed, I found a corner, leaned back and steadied my breathing. As the effects of the gas hit them, my fellow recruits hit the door to get out like a stampede of water buffalos. It wasn’t long before it was just the instructor and I staring at each other, him with a very surprised expression. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” he asked after about five minutes had passed and I still hadn’t gone running for the exit. I nodded my head and then explained my background. He asked if I wouldn’t mind leaving before him as it would damage his mystique if I came out after him. Still, for about a day or so, I was quite the sensation having stayed as long as I did.

 

Felony Vehicle Stops

Suffolk County felony car stop training

As we neared graduation, we were all looking forward towards finally getting instruction on making vehicles stops. Vehicles stops are perhaps the most common, one of the most complex as well as most dangerous activities for a patrol officer. As an officer, you have no idea what the intentions are of the driver of the vehicle you are stopping. Have they just committed a crime? Are they armed with a weapon? Are they intoxicated? Are they going to flee when you turn on your emergency lights? In addition, you have to exercise proper radio procedure in notifying dispatch of your stop. You have to know something as basic as the location where you are making the stop. You have to be aware of traffic around you, how you park your patrol vehicle and how you walk up to the car you’ve stopped. You also have to pick a good spot to stand when you make contact with the driver. While no means the last thing that goes into a traffic stop, how you talk to the driver can calm a tense situation or escalate a calm one. Though I had already made several hundred vehicle stops while in the Military Police, I was painfully aware that what little I knew about vehicle stops came from a class on patrol procedure in college and some on the job instruction I got from one the soldiers who worked for me. Not exactly something to inspire confidence in my abilities.

As was the case with my firearms training, I’m still not sure what my expectations were as to training when it came to vehicle stops, both low risk or “routine” and high risk or “felony” stops. I know I was anticipating more than about twelve hours of both classroom and practical instruction. Many of us felt the scenarios devised by our instructors for the high risk stop exercises were ridiculously complex and bordered on the impossible.

The geekier side of me recalled the Star Trek “Koboyasi Maru” test; for those non-Trekkies, it was a final exam scenario at the Starfleet Academy that was designed to be impossible to survive. I can vaguely recall my own “Koboyashi Maru” test; it was night in a poorly lit area and another recruit and I were to make a car stop on a vehicle that contained four “armed” suspects. As the vehicle came to a stop, all four bailed out of the car and ran off into the darkness. Our “backup” was many minutes away leaving us to decide on a course of action. If both of us went after the suspect, the bad guys would have been lying in wait and “shot” us both. If one stayed and one pursued the suspect, the chase would have ended with either the recruit officer being “shot” or taken hostage. If both officers stayed, then they would be ambushed because the suspects had doubled backed to launch an attack against them as they waited for back-up help to arrive. It was a designed to be a no win scenario.

Graduation

Academy Graduation Certificate

Finally, the big day arrived; graduation. I had finished fourth out of our graduating class of twenty-four. I walked up to the auditorium stage in my spiffy new uniform literally almost ready to bust my buttons with pride. Alongside my two fellow deputies, we received our graduation certificates from the Sheriff. Unlike Mahoney and his bunch of misfits from the Police Academy movies, we weren’t about to be turned loose upon an unsuspecting public. Ahead of us lay nearly another twelve weeks of training in the field under the watch eyes of our Field Training Officers. This was by no means a complete detailed accounting of not only just the academy I attended but of the many other law enforcement academies throughout the country, both then and now. Each recruit or cadet comes away with their own unique litany of successes, failures, achievements and disappointments and what I have written about are those experiences that I considered still note worthy enough to share after all these years.

 

Petaluma Police T-36 Gerry Goldshine 1987
photo by Mike Kerns

Gerry Goldshine is the author of this guest post.  Born in Providence, Rhode Island but raised in Southern California. Upon graduating California State University, Los Angeles, Gerry enlisted in the Army and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. After leaving active duty in 1979, he worked for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. From 1980 until his retirement in 1996, he was a patrol officer, traffic officer, gang officer, field training officer and criminal resource officer at Petaluma Police Department. He has received training from Northwestern University Traffic Institute, California Highway Patrol, Institute of Police Technology and Management, Texas A&M Engineering Extension, College of the Redwoods and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Operation Safe Streets. He’s been married to his wife Linda for 33 years, has a daughter and lives in Sonoma County, California.

Categories
Tales from the Barking Muse

Police Academy (no, not that one), Part 2

Police Academy

Part 2

Physical Training

Tampa, Fla cadets PT

It was my understanding that the faculty was in the process of revamping the physical fitness training, though what my class was presented with I found to be less than challenging. Unlike virtually all the other subject areas, such as criminal law, criminalistics, and firearms, our class did not have an instructor dedicated to physical conditioning. To be sure, we had someone to teach weaponless or hand to hand tactics but no one was assigned for every day physical training (PT) something which I had practically lived by over the prior four years in the Army. More often than not, our PT consisted of volleyball or disorganized workouts in the weight room. We did do some running, usually no more than two miles and generally less, during which time nearly everyone complained. For me at that time, a mile run was a warm up as I had been used to running up to five miles in full combat gear in under 40 minutes. I cannot recall if we had to pass a PT test to graduate beyond completing an obstacle course within a specified time frame. I thought then as I do now that we rendered a disservice with such lackadaisical physical conditioning. Aside from the obvious health benefits, maintaining a high state of physical conditioning is essential in surviving street encounters from fist fights to foot pursuits to the use of deadly force. I do know this all eventually changed for the better.

Academics: Codes

Police Cadets

Contrary to Zed’s bit of wisdom my academy class spent a great deal of time in the classroom receiving instruction on subjects ranging from the obvious like criminal law to the not so obvious such as report writing. However, looking back, the first place to which my Field Training Officer took me when I was with the Sheriff’s Office was a Winchell’s Donut shop. I guess there was a bit of truth to what Zed had to say. Be that as it may, with my education, I came to the academy with a pretty thorough knowledge of most of the subject areas we upon which we were to receive training.  However, unlike the laid back university setting where I earned that degree over four years of study, I was going to receive much of that same information, updated of course, and more distilled and concentrated into a 12 week time frame. Hours were spent on learning the fundamentals of California Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure.  Things that now still seem so basic were new to many of us back then such as the differences between statutory and case law–both of which we needed to know. What were felony, misdemeanor and infraction type of crimes? We committed to memory the elements of the more commonly used sections of the Penal Code, such as 211 P.C. which is robbery or 459 P.C. which is burglary. We had to know the applicable sections of the Business and Professions Code, particularly those parts dealing with Alcoholic Beverages. There were the parts of the Health and Safety Code about drugs, legal and illicit. We had to know the sections of the Welfare and Institutions Code some of which dealt with children and psychiatric cases. Then there was the California Vehicle Code, which covered everything from Driving Under the Influence to what color the front turn signals on a particular year car have to be.

All those various codes and laws were just really a foundation and a starting point. Knowing what constituted a violation of a particular law was just part of the process. There followed training on complex the laws governing arrest, probable to detain versus probable cause to arrest. We had to know the most up to date court decisions and laws governing Search and Seizure. Then there were the courts; traffic, municipal and superior. As a peace officer, you had to know the differences between them and what type of case went to what court. Beyond that we had to have a working knowledge of how the criminal justice system functioned from the filing of a criminal complaint to an arraignment to a court or jury trial. If that wasn’t complex enough, there were separate systems for adult and juveniles.

Weapons: Firearms Training

Witchita, Kansas Police Recruit shooting training

I was not the only one with a college background in Criminal Justice. Though we were familiar with much of the material, some of it was new and it was coming at us fast and furious. Fortunately, there was plenty of practical, hands-on training that got us out of the classroom. Naturally, we all looked forward to firearms training. Levels of experience with firearms varied greatly among us. Many grew up around guns through hunting and other sporting activities. As a result of my Army training, I had a familiarity with a very wide assortment of firearms, though it seemed highly unlikely I would have need of an anti-tank missile system as a deputy sheriff. The duty weapon I was to carry as a deputy was a .357 magnum revolver, which took some getting used to as my sidearm while in the Military Police was the classic military .45 semi-automatic pistol. In the late seventies and early eighties, firearm training was on the cusp of a revolution, both in technology and theory. While I hate to keep beating the proverbial dead cavalry horse about my Army experience, I had been exposed to some of this new training. While in the Army, I experienced interactive training with lasers giving immediate feedback under simulated combat conditions; automated targets made to look like human silhouettes; and shooting in a variety of conditions both in lighting and weather. Our firearms instructors were some of the best, most knowledgeable people in the world.

Gone were the days of simply plinking away at a stationary target.

Check in Sunday for part 3 and conclusion of Gerry Goldshine’s incisive and vivid glimpse into 1980’s police academy.

Categories
Tales from the Barking Muse

Guest Post: Police Academy

Zed McGlunk

 

Police Academy (No, Not That One)

“Cadets, I’d now like to discuss something that’ll be vital for you to know when your, like, out here, on the job, as a police officer. And, that’s the correct way on how to eat a doughnut.”

—Zed McGlunk, “Police Academy 2”

 

Police Academy

Part 1 of 3

For most people, those words immediately bring to mind a series of allegedly comedic and increasingly farcical films that first surfaced in the eighties. While far-fetched, one of the few aspects of police work those movies got right was that first critical training virtually every police officer, deputy sheriff, highway patrol officer, constable or even FBI agent has to accomplish is to complete some type of basic training course otherwise known as “The Academy”.  Most all law enforcement academies generally have a two-fold purpose. The first is most obviously to prepare a cadet or recruit both academically and physically for the demands that will be place upon them upon graduation. The second function of the academy is to identify and screen out those unsuitable for a career in law enforcement because of academic deficiencies, inability to meet the physical demands or psychological issues. How both are accomplished varies widely usually due to state training mandates, departmental training philosophies or a combination of both. Some are near-military in their training approach with high stress and intense discipline as one might find in a “boot” camp. Others take a more relaxed, college campus type approach to training.  Upon graduation, if they are hired, most “rookies” will face additional training and screening through some type of field training program. Despite the plethora of books, movies or television shows of the police genre, few if any ever touch upon this essential basic training experience in anyway other than in a cursory manner. As every recruit is an individual, they bring to this formative training, differing levels of life experience, work experience, academics, physical capabilities and emotional maturity. Consequently, while there are common training goals each recruit must meet, each one comes away with a differing perspective of their overall academy experience.

My Academy

My academy training took place in late 1979. While what I encountered was unique to me given my background, it does provide a framework for what someone going into the profession and attending a smaller, regional police academy in the early 1980’s might encounter. I was hired by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office who sent me to the Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC) Police Academy in Santa Rosa, California. I had a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice from California State University, Los Angeles and had just spent almost four years on active duty as a commissioned officer in the Army. I had been through some of the most stressful, physically demanding and mentally challenging training that the military offered at that time. I had in fact actually begun my law enforcement career almost two years earlier when I received a transfer from the Infantry to the Military Police. Still, I savvy enough to know I had much to learn as there are vast differences between the missions of military law enforcement and civilian. Then, what were my overall expectations and goals as I embarked upon this training? I knew that I was not going to be one of those insufferable people who boasted that I was going to finish at the head of my class leaving all others in the dust. I had my fill of those types in the Army. I set out to learn all the tools I would need to build a foundation for my law enforcement career. There was also a much simpler, straightforward objective; gain the knowledge necessary to make it through the Field Training program back at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Personalities aside…

Beside myself, there were two other recruits from the Sheriff’s Office. The largest contingent of recruits was from a Silicon Valley Department of Public Safety. I found it a bit startling when I learned that there were several people in the class who had not been hired by any particular department; in essence, they were “civilians” putting themselves through the training in the hopes that successful completion would make them a more attractive employment prospect.  I was also surprised at how small our class was; while I don’t recall the exact number of people who started training, I do know that 24 of us graduated and there was not an especially high attrition rate. I say this because at that time, SRJC ran a low stress, college-like training program that was twelve weeks long. Having a small class was not necessarily a bad thing because it meant much more one and one interaction with the various instructors. For me, the relaxed training atmosphere took some getting used to and as I was the only recruit with any military training, I often found the lack of discipline disconcerting.  

Police Academy 3

As it was still the dawn of women moving from administrative and non-sworn positions to becoming street officers and though they numbered less than a half dozen at the start–one of whom was a fellow SCSO recruit. I did not find it particularly upsetting to have women among my class mates; they had been moving into “non-traditional” occupational specialties in the Army for some time, so I was quite used to training alongside and working with women. Some of the less enlightened male recruits felt differently and made no effort to hide their opinion that women did not belong, behaving like stereotypical misogynists. One of these “gentlemen” almost a perfect match to the “Police Academy” character “Mahoney” but with all the negative traits and none of the positive. Like Mahoney, somehow this person managed to make it all the way through training and graduated with the other recruits from his department.

There were other members of the class that could also have come straight out of that movie, though many of the personality types seemed endemic to every training course I had been through, both in the military and then law enforcement. There always seemed to be a “Tackleberry” type; the guy who carried a virtual arsenal in the trunk of his car, always wore camouflage fatigues, often reckless and always overeager. With the co-ed integration of women into training classes in the military and then the academy, there was usually some variation of the character “Hooks”; a female trainee soft of voice, uncertain of her abilities, and often deferring to men. Invariably there was someone like “Hightower”, the huge muscular guy who was smarter that he appeared, gentler than he seemed and loyal as a puppy dog to his friends. Finally there invariably seemed to be someone like the characters “Sweetchuck” and “Fackler”; this was the guy who tripped over his own feet, walked into closed doors, had a voice that cracked when under stress, lacked a scintilla of common sense and invariably either shot himself in the foot or a fellow classmate in the arse.

Looking back, each in their own way made the training far more “interesting” though at the time I’m sure many of us considered them with less kindly thoughts.

Part 2 is coming soon.

Petaluma Police T-36 Gerry Goldshine 1987
photo by Mike Kerns

Gerry Goldshine is the author of this guest post.  Born in Providence, Rhode Island but raised in Southern California. Upon graduating California State University, Los Angeles, Gerry enlisted in the Army and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. After leaving active duty in 1979, he worked for the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. From 1980 until his retirement in 1996, he was a patrol officer, traffic officer, gang officer, field training officer and criminal resource officer at Petaluma Police Department. He has received training from Northwestern University Traffic Institute, California Highway Patrol, Institute of Police Technology and Management, Texas A&M Engineering Extension, College of the Redwoods and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Operation Safe Streets. He’s been married to his wife Linda for 33 years, has a daughter and lives in Sonoma County, California.