{"id":8623,"date":"2015-03-18T02:11:27","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T02:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8623"},"modified":"2015-03-18T02:11:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T02:11:27","slug":"in-defense-of-police-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8623","title":{"rendered":"In defense of police work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Police officers are taking a beating these days.<\/p>\n

Not by everyone, mind you, but by some who at times seem to imply that they believe\u00a0police officers generally are a trigger-happy bunch too willing to pull their guns out and shoot someone.<\/p>\n

I feel compelled to revisit a course I once took courtesy of the Amarillo Police Department.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, APD officials invited some media folks to\u00a0its simulated training center for a little practical training on how and when to fire a pistol at someone committing a crime.<\/p>\n

Do you shoot or not shoot? That was the question we had to answer to ourselves in a split second while undergoing a simulated criminal act. In the dark. With little warning of what was about to happen.<\/p>\n

We were armed with guns that shot paint balls. If you got hit with one of these pellets, well, it smarted some.<\/p>\n

We were dressed with some protective gear, given the scenario we were about to visit, then turned loose into a room, or a hallway to confront someone — portrayed by an Amarillo police officer — who is committing a simulated “crime.”<\/p>\n

Shoot or don’t shoot?<\/p>\n

I have to admit something right here: I didn’t do well on all the scenarios with which I was presented. In once instance, I “shot” someone who was running away from me. I wasn’t supposed to shoot in that case. The training officers all laughed out loud at me; I laughed back … with considerable embarrassment.<\/p>\n

One of the things I learned from the training exercise, though, was how one’s adrenalin rushes through one’s body. My own body was trembling with anticipation as I entered\u00a0each scenario — and I knew I was shooting paint balls, not real bullets. <\/em><\/p>\n

When it was over, I tried to imagine how my adrenal glands would have reacted had I been an on-duty cop, packing a 9-mm pistol, confronting a bad guy and then having to decide in a split second whether to shoot him or let him go.<\/p>\n

My sweat-soaked body betrayed the nerves that got the better of me.<\/p>\n

Law enforcement does have bad police officers who make poor decisions. They usually are called out by witnesses, the media and even at times fellow officers. The rest of them — most of them — do their jobs well.<\/p>\n

Those are the men and women who deserve our thanks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Police officers are taking a beating these days. Not by everyone, mind you, but by some who at times seem to imply that they believe\u00a0police officers generally are a trigger-happy bunch too willing to pull their guns out and shoot someone. I feel compelled to revisit a course I once took courtesy of the Amarillo … Continue reading In defense of police work<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[325,1188,2038,3634,4264],"class_list":["post-8623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-national-news","tag-amarillo-police-department","tag-criminal-activity","tag-guns","tag-police-simulations","tag-shoot-or-dont-shoot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}