Polk County News
2A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • November 9, 2016
‘Real-life’ training helps prepare officers
By Jolene Guzman
The Itemizer-Observer
DALLAS — A Polk County
Sheriff’s deputy notices a tail
light out on a passing vehi-
cle.
He decides to pull the car
over to address the issue
with the driver. Sounds sim-
ple — and many times the
routine stop is just that —
but not today.
The deputy doesn’t know
it, but the driver is contem-
plating suicide, and when
the deputy approaches the
car, the driver jumps out. He
charges the deputy, appear-
ing to reach in his pocket.
The terrified passenger
jumps out of the car and
yells, “He’s just depressed.
Don’t shoot him. He’s un-
armed!”
Not knowing what to be-
lieve, the deputy treats both
men like a threat.
“You don’t want to do
this,” he yelled as the driver
approaches and taunts him.
The deputy steps around
the back of his cruiser, still
confronting the driver who
doesn’t stop. Within sec-
onds, the deputy has circled
around to the opposite side
of the cruiser, with his back
to the passenger, who has
his hands in the air.
Gregg Caudill, the train-
ing officer for Polk County
Sheriff’s Office, has been ob-
serving the scene. He steps
forward, “OK,” he says.
All three men relax.
This is training, but for
about 30 seconds, it felt like
real-life.
Looking at the deputy,
Thomas Hutchinson,
Caudill asks, “Why didn’t
you shoot him?”
“I didn’t see anything in
his hand,” Hutchinson re-
sponded.
Caudill pointed out that
he ended up having his back
turned to the passenger,
who he should have been
watching.
JOLENE GUZMAN/ Itemizer-Observer
Jonathan Jones, left, plays the part of a subject trying to threaten Thomas Hutchinson in a
Polk County Sheriff’s Office training session. The program uses real-life events for training.
“That’s how fast stuff hap-
pens,” Caudill said. “That’s
how fast we have to recog-
nize things and deal with
them.”
Hutchinson said the sce-
nario got complicated fast
and, while the passenger ap-
peared to be trying to help,
he couldn’t trust what he
was saying.
“I don’t know him,”
Hutchinson said. “I don’t
know who to trust. There are
really just a lot of un-
knowns.”
Still, he didn’t feel the
need to fire a shot.
“Good job,” Caudill said,
sending Hutchinson back to
his car to begin another
training scenario involving a
traffic stop.
Called CONSIM, the offi-
cer training program is
meant to re-create incidents
with a high degree of real-
ism, including providing
non-lethal versions of the
same weapons officers have
in the field.
JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer
Jonathan Jones and Matt Garrett pose in a hostage sit-
uation as trainer Gregg Caudill consults with a deputy.
Caudill set up the training
session at the county shops
on a warm September after-
noon. He has firearms simi-
lar to those assigned to offi-
cers, except that they shoot
paint “bullets.”
“They hurt, kind of like a
paint ball,” Caudill said
Next to the guns are bot-
tles of neutralized mace.
Most important, he has a
binder of incidents to put
deputies through.
“We train on everything,
vehicle stops, mental health
calls, everything we deal
with,” Caudill said.
Most of the scenarios are
based on real incidents, he
said.
“Then they (deputies)
react based on our training,”
Caudill said. “We will talk
about the good things and
the things we could do bet-
ter.”
Deputies swing by the
shops one by one and trade
their guns and mace for the
harmless versions. They put
on protective head gear and
sweatshirts over their uni-
forms, just in case paint bul-
lets are fired.
Two sheriff’s reserves vol-
unteer to play the role of
subjects or suspects in the
scenarios. Caudill depends
on them to be good actors.
Role players are given a
script to follow, and officers
are only given the amount of
detail they would get from
dispatch on a call. The point
is to have officers walk into a
situation where they don’t
know what they will en-
counter, Caudill said.
“With each scenario,
there are objectives that you
are trying to get the officer
to meet,” he said.
The reserves, Jonathan
Jones and Matt Garrett, take
their jobs seriously. They
don’t even wait until training
begins to give the deputies a
hard time.
“Come back for more?”
Jones yells over to Hutchin-
son as he hops out of his
cruiser.
Caudill smiles and picks
up his CONSIM book.
“Don’t go to your book
Caudill. Give me something
easy,” Hutchinson said.
“That’s not going to hap-
pen,” Caudill shot back.
He wasn’t kidding.
Caudill ran Hutchinson
through the suicidal driver
incident and another that
has a passenger jump out
and pull a gun on him. That
time Hutchinson was forced
to shoot.
Caudill said the sheriff’s
office wants officers to go
through the lifelike training
Boutique style bazaar on
WOU campus in Monmouth!
Filled Wall to Wall with holiday
and home decor, gifts, food,
and so much more!
Nov 10th - 12th • Thursday & Friday 10 - 6
Saturday 10 - 5
Bring your friends you WILL be glad you came!
Windermere’s 2016 “Share the Warmth” Coat & Blanket Drive is coming
up soon and this year we would like to get an early start on it! This year’s
donation drive will start on Monday, November 7 and go until Friday,
December 9. Seven Locations; Windermere – Monmouth; Windermere –
Dallas; Monmouth Fitness; Les Schwab – Monmouth; Independence Library
Les Schwab – Dallas; World Gym
FREE gift bags
to the first
50 shoppers!
Prize
drawings
and
Refreshments!
at least twice a year. He said
CONSIM is realistic enough
to get adrenaline pumping.
“When you watch, you
see their breathing amps up,
their voice changes. It’s real-
life to them,” Caudill said.
“That’s how we have to
train.”
Deputy Mike Smith is
given a similar scenario, but
this time it was the driver
with the gun. The subject
rushes him and Smith had
to fire. The driver falls to the
ground.
Smith calls in “shots fired”
to simulated dispatch.
The passenger screams
from inside the car. Smith
moves around to the oppo-
site side of his cruiser, put-
ting more space between
him and the driver, while
keeping an eye on the pas-
senger.
Smith wants to pull the
passenger out and cuff him
to make sure he doesn’t be-
come a threat. He’s worried
about the driver and
whether he should help him
if he is bleeding.
“What’s our more safe op-
tion?” Caudill said, giving in-
struction without stopping
the scenario.
“ Waiting,” Smith re-
sponded.
“You can bet your ass
everybody going to be fly-
ing,” Caudill said referring to
back up. “Don’t be quick to
divide your attention until
the scene is safe.”
During a few scenarios,
Caudill let the role players
have fun in situation he calls
“mouthy passenger.”
Jones took advantage of
the opportunity, using a
steady stream of loud com-
plaints and less-than-flatter-
ing names throughout each
of those scenarios.
Caudill eggs him on, at-
tempting to fluster the
deputies. In one case, the
deputy ignored him. Anoth-
er took the driver out of the
car to talk and another con-
fronted the passenger.
All responses were fine in
Caudill’s estimation. There is
no one right move, so long
as the safety objective for
the officers and civilians is
met.
“That happens all the
time — you get that mouthy
passenger,” he said. “This is
real.”
Smith said the scenarios
are a reminder of what could
happen in the field.
“It keeps the skills sharp,”
he said. “These situations
aren’t something that we
deal with every day, but they
could happen at any time.”
Caudill agreed, saying
that officers always need to
be on their game, even in
what seems to be common
situations.
“Every traffic stop could
be your last,” he said. “That’s
why we train.”
Shop for festive home decorations, floral
arrangements, blooming & green plants, Christmas
tree ornaments, cards, candy, gifts and more!