Police training should be tough. But, if it’s too tough, recruits are lost to resignations, injuries or even death.
A story from Ohio in January 2018 illustrates the potential of the problem. During a dynamic training exercise where recruits were supposed to fight off an instructor who attacks them, six cadets sustained injuries that required transport to a hospital. One had a shoulder dislocation, while the others suffered concussions. Two others reportedly suffered concussions but were not treated at the hospital.
This incident is not all that different from one at a Virginia police academy in 2011. There, recruit John Kohn was hit in the head repeatedly by an instructor as he lay on his back during a ground-fighting exercise. Kohn stumbled off the mat before he collapsed. He died at a Norfolk hospital nine days later.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD was fined $7,000 by the North Carolina Labor Department after a 2016 incident where a recruit collapsed from heat stress during physical training. The recruit was required to exercise vigorously in July, when temperatures and humidity were high, and while wearing body armor. No water was provided, and breaks were discouraged. Jeremy Moseley, age 29, died from heat injuries.
In 2012, an Oklahoma City PD recruit died after hitting his head on a mat during a simulated combat exercise. Since then, recruits engaged in similar training wear protective headgear.
In 2005, a Kennesaw (GA) police recruit was shot and killed by an instructor who brought a loaded firearm into a classroom where loaded guns were strictly forbidden.
And, in another 2005 incident, no fewer than 43 Massachusetts State Police academy cadets from a single class were hospitalized after suffering multiple types of injuries. In some cases, the training regimen all but forced the injuries. Recruits were forced to drink large amounts of water, and then required to run for extended periods without bathroom breaks. The same recruit class experienced hazing in the form of one cadet being forced to wear another’s soiled underwear. Several others were seized by instructors and dunked headfirst into toilets, a process known as a “swirly.”
Inadequate police instructor training
Most police academies are modeled in some way on military basic training. The methodology varies considerably from one academy, and even academy session, to another. In the more rigorous academies, there is a lot of yelling, push-up punishments for the smallest infraction, and other strenuous treatment under the guise of “stress inoculation.”
To be sure, some stress inoculation is valuable. Police officers have to be able to keep their heads when everything is going to hell around them, and they will often be baited by people who are hoping fervently that the cop will lose his or her temper and lash out violently.
Where police academies overshoot the objective is usually tied to poor preparation of instructors. The military basic training model is often extended to the police academy by tactical officers who wear the wide-brimmed “Smokey Bear” hats that are the badge of the military drill instructor. The tac officer may have had some formal training in the care and feeding of the police recruit, but just as often, his training has come from watching R. Lee Ermey in “Full Metal Jacket” a few dozen times, just to make sure he gets it right.
What they miss is that military drill instructors must first be non-commissioned officers with years of exemplary service, who then complete months of specialized rigorous training that not everyone passes. After graduation, they usually work as assistant drill instructors for several class cycles before they get a recruit class of their own. They are charged with the safety and welfare of everyone in their recruit class, and they take this charge very seriously. Those who don’t, cease being drill instructors, and may even bring about a premature end to their careers. They’re tough, but they also understand compassion.
The U.S. Marine Corps depicted in “Full Metal Jacket” was the one of the mid-1960s. They do things a little differently now. The military processes far more trainees than do police academies, under mostly more rigorous and dangerous conditions, and manages to kill very few of them in doing it. When running a police academy, “don’t kill anybody” should be a minimum standard.
Back in my day…
Police training tends to suffer from chronic nostalgia. Some police academy instructors take it upon themselves to make the training at least as difficult as it was for them, not wanting to have the newbie get a better deal than they had. Not factored into this mandate is whether the harsh treatment produced better results or if it served only to make the recruit glad the experience was over and behind them.
There is, of course, also the problem where the academy instructor is just a sadistic jerk who exploits the power he has over the victim recruits. The recruit knows that complaining or failing to do what he is told can mean dismissal from the academy, so he is at the instructor’s mercy.
Not the best way to go
Rigid, high-stress police academies may be counterproductive. In the late 1960s, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department conducted a study that measured the career performance of deputies who had completed academies under both stress and non-stress models. The finding was that “non-stress trained subjects performed at a significantly higher level in the areas of field performance, job satisfaction, and performance acceptability by persons served.” That this seminal research has been mostly ignored is nothing new in law enforcement.
More why, less how
Most rookie cops, me included, heard at least one of their field training officers say, “Okay, kid, forget that academy stuff. I’m going to show you how to do police work” (mine didn’t say “stuff”). Field training is where cops learn the trade, building on the basics taught at the academy. For most, it’s the most crucial part of the transformation to law enforcement officer.
Some basic skills need to be taught in the police academy, as there isn’t anywhere else to pick them up. Defensive tactics skills are probably more important than ever before, as the current cohort of police recruits may have gotten all the way through school without ever having been in a fight. You don’t want your first experience with this to be against an adversary who is going to kill you if he can.
Still, these skills can be taught with minimal risk of injury using protective gear, simulated weapons and careful adherence to a carefully crafted lesson plan. Instructors who first look around to see if anyone is watching, then freelance on their own, should be sent back to wherever they came from.
There also needs to be a greater emphasis on the why of the police work. Officers who understand the history of policing and how we got to do things a certain way are going to make better decisions in ambiguous situations. They should understand the rationale behind every procedure and policy, so they can apply that reasoning when they encounter something they have never experienced before. If nothing else, experienced cops know to never say, “Well, now I’ve seen everything.” The world is full of innovators.
