Back in Blue

I'm happy to report that my class is back in agency uniforms. After spending Monday in our black and whites, the sergeant reinstated our privilege to wear our actual uniforms. My punishment for forgetting to bring my uniform on Friday was a trail run (1.5 miles through the mountains), 50 pushups, and 50 situps. I think I may have gotten off easy but I guess going 9 weeks without any uniform violations worked in my favor.

I forgot to mention the terrible video we watched last week. It was shown as part of the lesson we had on crimes against children. The video was from a hidden nanny-cam set up in the house of a woman who provided childcare in her home. One particular toddler (about 10 months old) had some mysterious bruises appear on his abdomen and the woman thought maybe he was hurting himself somehow during naptime. On this particular day, the woman ran an errand and left the children with her boyfriend. The video showed the boy in a playpen waking up from a nap when the door barges open and a twenty-something man enters and brutally punches the poor kid repeatedly in the stomach. He then leaves the room and the baby calms down but keeps looking at the closed door anticipating the return of the monster. The guy returns and proceeds to beat the little boy again. As I watched the horrible video, I felt my stomach turn and my blood pressure rise off the charts. I was sickened to think of the kind of brutal and savage things people do to each other (especially kids). I'm sure I'll be seeing this kind of behavior first hand in a few months and will have to learn to handle it.

On a brighter note, we had a great day of tactical fighting today. We learned various control holds, takedowns, and submissions (painful joint manipulations). We then had to fight two attackers at once for a full three minutes. Just when I think I've never been more exhausted, a new drill comes along to take the top spot. It's hard enough to fight one opponent but two at once drained every ounce of energy I had from my body.

The end of the day was supposed to be spend running but our sergeant decided we'd benefit from a grueling session of speed workouts with the resident physical fitness demon. This guy looks like the Incredible Hulk, used to play professional football, trains Olympic atheletes, and loves to physically torture people. The last hour of the day was spent doing a variety of pushups, jumping squats, v-ups (laying on your back and lifting your legs and arms into the shape of a 'v' with only your butt on the floor), jumprope, punching bag, grappling, and footwork drills. Again, "exhausting" is a word I am becoming quite familiar with. The hard work is paying off as I'm in the best shape I've ever been in with several more weeks of physical conditioning left.

Next week we start firearms training. This will be the first time I've handled a gun since I was a kid and may pose the biggest challenge for me. I'm currently ranked #1 academically and #3 physically in my class but proficiency in firearms accounts for 20% of the overall grade and I don't even know how to load a gun let alone shoot one.