In-Service

Every year I am required by my department to take 
40 hours of in-service training. When I joined the department, eight to sixteen of the 40 hours were mandatory classes that every classified employee in the department had to take. The remaining hours were up to the officer. Electives were offered in a variety of topics. However, for the past few years all 40 hours have been mandatory classes. I am not sure why the change. TCLEOSE, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, sets forth a class or two every year that every officer in the state must take. Lately, most of these classes have been dealing with terrorism, and our response to terrorism. This year, the TCLEOSE mandatory class for me was a 16 hour class called Active Shooter. I will talk about that class a little later.

The first class that I took this year was the CIT update. CIT stands for Crisis Intervention Team. All officers have to take CIT training in order to be better prepared to deal with people that are in a mental health crisis. It is excellent training and I have fallen back on it many times, at work and at home. :^D I thought that the CIT portion would take up the entire 8 hours, but I was wrong. For the first 90 minutes of the day, the speaker talked to us about hospice care. Yup, hospice care. I have no idea why. I do remember that according to her, you have to be diagnosed to have 6 months or less to live in order to receive hospice care. They do not kick you out if you live longer, but they will not let you in unless you will die soon. Strange topic for police in-service.

The rest of the day was the CIT update. It focused on dealing with individuals with autism or dementia. It was interesting. I did not expect them to go into the entire autism spectrum. But they did, covering Autism, Asperger syndrome, and Pervasive Development Disorder. The second class on my schedule this year was Decision Making. The day was started with a video. The head of the department's legal division talked to us about recent Supreme Court decisions that have a bearing on police work. During the video, he stated that nothing good ever comes out of California. The 9th Circuit of the US Court of Appeals is based in California. That court typically hands down very liberal decisions which restrict police action. Then a few minutes later he says "my wife came from California, so not everything is bad". What? If it was a one time class for a 30 man department and you say that off the cuff, ok. But to say that in a police training video that over 5,000 officers will see over the course of a year and you wife is not even an officer? Should have edited that out of the video. I also thought it was interesting that he mentioned the Bible, some scripture specifically, and the Golden Rule. I am all for it, it just surprised me that the Command Staff approved the video with those references.

Then an investigator from the Robbery division came in and told us all about running a proper line-up and making a photo spread. I found this topic strange as well. Patrol officers are not going to do line ups or photo spreads and investigators have already been trained how to do them, I would think. Day two was finished off by an Assistant chief talking about decision making in stressful situations. He played an audio clip of a radio transmission from an officer involved shooting. The officer had been shot multiple times and a female ride-along that was with him got on the police radio and started yelling for help. It was a tough thing to listen to. The female did a great job under the

circumstances.

Day three's topic was a Penal Code update. The morning was spent being re-trained on CPR. Definitely a topic that that needs to be refreshed every few years. You never know when you might need it. After lunch was the penal code update. Every two years after the Legislature meets and changes Texas law, a lawyer comes and teaches us the changes, good and bad. This year, a former district attorney who is also a former State Judge gave the presentation. She was a good speaker and kept things interesting. I thought she looked very young to be a "former" State District Judge.

There you have it, 24 hours of in-service. Some of it was useful and interesting, and some of it was just bizarre. At least the best was still to come for me, Active Shooter.