Today's lesson was given by one of the academy's instructors, a grizzled-but-pleasant fellow who bragged that he had just become a grandfather a few days before. He opened with a short video he'd made of the previous class through the academy, Session 54. It looked like essentially what you'd expect: the instructors get in your face if you're not on your game, but everyone's there to learn, and as long as you're trying they'll help you along. Most of the candidates seemed like they were having fun. MCPD has a pretty great training facility, complete with indoor range and driving course (they also train firefighters and, interestingly enough, schoolbus drivers on the same course). Of the 16 candidates, two dropped out, both of their own volition, which I guess is more encouraging than if they'd been kicked out. After that, we split into two groups. The first went to tazer demonstration, the second to the PRISM Simulator (technically, I was in the second group, but it makes more sense to talk about the tazer first).
For the tazer demonstration, I GOT TAZED AND IT WAS AWESOME! Erm, anyway... But yeah, we were given the option to get tazed, and I figured it's not something everyone gets to do, so I might as well. For the record, it feels pretty much like you'd expect, only moreso. It doesn't really hurt, per se, so much as all your muscles tighten up, you can't do anything, and you shout "whoa!". The looks of pain on the faces of people being tazed are mainly the result of this contraction, as opposed to actual discomfort. We only got about a half-second burst; the normal shot is five seconds long, to allow the suspect to be detained while still incapacitated.
There are actually two schools of thought on tazer deployment: West Coast and East Coast. The East Coast style involves incapacitating the suspect immediately after tazing them, and goes something like this:
Cop: Freeze or you're getting tazed!
Crim: Thug 4 Life, beotch--aragahrha!
Cop:
The West Coast style (used in, you guessed it, California and the West Coast) involves tazing them until they submit on their own, and goes like this:
Cop: Hands up, or I'll taze you!
Crim: Make me, motherfu---araraghahah!
Cop (to now-prone Crim): Hands behind your back!
Crim (lying on ground): Go to hell, you fascist pi--araagagahgha!
Cop (to still-prone Crim): Hands behind your back!
It's probably just because I live here, but East Coast seems more efficient. After all, why give someone a choice when it just allows them to make the wrong one?
Anyway, the other activity was PRISM Training. The PRISM Simulator consists of a wall-sized screen (projected from an overhead projector), two Glock-frame laser pointers, a pair of barricades, and a giant airsoft turret (it shoots beads the size of gumballs). Basically, you and your partner stand at the barricades and watch a scene on the projector, reacting as you would if the scene were real. You can shoot the people in the projections with your laser-pointers, and if they shoot back, the airsoft turret fires in your general direction. Afterwards, the projection can be replayed in slow motion, showing the locations of every shot fired, and the instructor gives feedback on your use of cover and application of force.
We went two at a time. My partner was a cute Asian girl (talk about stressful) who worked as an auxillary down in College Park last year. The scenario was a basic Harris'n'Klebold: two shooters and a lot of innocent students between them and you. Fortunately, the kids in the scenario acted like reasonable human beings, and ran out of the way, giving us a clear window to take the two advancing gunmen down in the classic police hail of bullets.
Sadly, it didn't work out that way. After unsucessfully ordering the guys to drop their weapons (as well as one other student, who was holding a stapler very suspiciously...), we opened fire. I shot ten times, my partner twice. We hit nothing.
Now, look. I consider myself a pretty competent shooter (granted, of rifles rather than handguns). Video games are all well and good, but actual moving targets (especially ones that at least sort of shoot back) are a lot trickier. Of our twelve shots, I may have nicked one guy's elbow, and the instructor credited me with a graze on the same guy's head. My partner might have shot the other one in the leg through a thing wall, though the program doesn't count that.
The instructor pointed out that we probably used too much cover, and that my partner conserved her shots a little too well. Thus, we didn't get ourselves killed, but we probably let a few more students die than if we'd stood in the open, drawn some fire, and stopped to aim. The police are supposed to look out for themselves (the oft-repeated first rule of policework: "Go home at the end of your shift."), but at the same time they have to intentionally put themselves in danger to protect others. That's going to take some practice.
Compared to other groups that went, we were definitely the least trigger-happy; the pair after us fired 39 shots (more than both guns together could actually carry), the ones after them at least 30. One group accidentally hit a student. That said, both pairs took down their targets (and the Moscow-born BAU-wannabe chick sitting next to me scored two(!) headshots).
The reason officers carry guns is not to take other people's lives, but to protect their own. In last time's discussion, Lisa gave an example of how a gun accidentally going off and killing her brother would be serving its purpose, but having a negative effect. I would have to argue differently: that by going off accidentally, the gun has in fact failed to fulfill it's purpose. All firearms are required (by law, at least) to have a 'safety', which must be intentionally disarmed in order for the weapon to fire. If the gun goes off on accident, this safety mechanism as not fulfilled its purpose. Neither has the gun, for that matter: a weapon's purpose is to destroy only what you want destroyed.
The discrepency between what something is made for and what it is used for can complicate the discussion of a thing's purpose. In Greek philosophy, the purpose of a thing is what defines its arete (literally, virtue). The arete of a knife, for instance, is sharpness, or the ability to cut. The arete of a screwdriver is its ability to drive screws, regardless of whether it can also be used as a prybar or a can opener or anything else.
These devices are both man-made, so it is easy to define their purpose. However, the Greeks also extended the concept of arete to natural things: The arete of a horse is its speed, and thus its purpose is to run. The arete of a dog is its skill in finding game, thus the purpose of the dog is the hunt. The purpose of human beings, before you ask, is to be happy, though which virtue this is associated with is kind of up in the air.
Next Time: Being Exhausted from Otakon, Probably (plus responding to others)
Next CopWednesday: Postponed until next Sunday, after my Ridealong(!)
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