I have been taught to yell “stop resisting” and “drop your weapon” after firing a gun, because bystanders will remember you said it and their memory will automatically reverse the order of the events to make it make sense. Their testimony will support yours, because of this.
I have been told to “loosen up and have fun, it’s fun! Why are you so serious?” When doing a shoot/don’t shoot scenario training.
I have been told that deescalation techniques will get me and other officers killed and as a smaller LEO, I was justified escalating my use of force faster than my colleagues because I was always in danger so I should use it.
I’ve been told my only job is to go home at night.
I’ve been told all of these things in formal, controlled and regulated Police Academies. I have gone through 3. I have heard some of these things more than once.
When I questioned these things in my third academy, and stated that they were inconsistent with the ethics of policing, I was kicked out of the academy on my last day. I had completed and excelled at all the graded tasks, but was told “you aren’t what we want in our force.”
I loved my job. I gave a lot to do it for 5 years. In that time, I never broke leather on my holster. I never fired my taser. I put my hands on an individual twice, both times a simple arm bar hold that immediately caused both individuals to comply. Neither individual was hurt.
I have been in many sticky situations in that time. Faced several armed individuals. I worked in a National Park, yes, but in a high crime area. Being a park ranger, means working alone most of the time. I could not afford to escalate a situation, and I didn’t.
In 4 words, a police academy commander ended my career. “You done belong here.” After 16 years of federal service without a single complaint or write up, I lost any chance of working the final 4 years I needed for retirement.
With student loan debt, living in a new city, with a teenager, I lost my job, my insurance, and the ability to use the education and experience I had worked so hard to achieve.
I don’t regret it.
I still believe in resource protection, it matters, but I no longer believe the system of policing we have is the way to achieve it.
During my campaign for the HoD I got lambasted by my Republican opponent for saying, “I know cops, I’ve worked with them, trained with them, and some of them are my friends, some are not, and some of them are murderers.” I know it’s not politically expedient, but…
Some. Of. Them. Are. Murderers.
@OfficialCLM @deray FLETC is we’re all federal LE agencies train with the exception of the FBI. Although we are required different courses by our agencies, all firearms and “street survival” courses are taught by the same instructors
@OfficialCLM @deray As an agency the NPS typically trains its officers better in terms of deescalation in my opinion. We work alone, we have a positive public image, our bosses are not LE usually, and frequently we encounter armed individuals who are permitted and expected to be armed.
@OfficialCLM @deray That said, we still have massive issues and we are required to train at federal facilities with folks who have a more traditional mindset around policing. I was able to do my job the way I thought it should be done within my park and within my agency. Training was where I was…
@OfficialCLM @deray Considered problematic. It was at FLETC after 5 years doing the work that I found it impossible to “just deal with it then go home and work the way I always had” as my peers and family urged me to do, because I kept telling myself that they were teaching 83 other federal agencies
@OfficialCLM @deray That same BS and I couldn’t live with myself if I let it go. I knew I was on track to lose my job if I questioned them anymore, but, my little ND brain just wasn’t able to stop when I thought about the harm. Simply put I wasn’t what I signed up for.
@generic4532 The city cops either couldn’t provide backup due to jurisdictional boundaries, or didn’t know how to find me. We worked with 4 Rangers to cover that space 24/7. Many days no other ranger was on duty. In addition to that, I was responsible for the whole body of law.
@generic4532 I enforced resource crimes, traffic, archeological crimes, drugs, sex crimes, theft. Park Rangers also are responsible for safety in the park and most are fire and rescue trained, so they are EMTs and woodland firefightsers too. It is common to think of Rangers as
@generic4532 Working in the wilderness, “Crick Dicks” and “Twig Pigs” but many of us do a lot of standard police work. Many parks are in Urban environments, and even when working in the grand western parks we think of, it’s important to remember people on vacation don’t leave their problems
@generic4532 At home. We deal with a lot of DV. People also like wide open spaces to commit suicide, so many of us have extensive training in Crisis intervention to help those in mental health crisis.
@generic4532 Sorry, to ramble, not offended but do want folks to understand that we do do a lot of the work that other officers do. I loved the fact that my job allowed me to wear 1000 hats and truly focus on the service work that LEOs are supposed to do.
@BernG Required. We pay for it ourselves with no guarantee of a job, hence the Ohio State certification, it was my back up, since NPS is notoriously hard to secure a job with. I got lucky and got a seasonal position immediately upon graduating and never used the OH cert.
@BernG My park decided to give me a permanent position after I completed my first season (again, I got lucky, that’s rare) and in those resource agencies once you get a permanent position you are required to get a “Type 1” commission. There’s a long waiting list, so I worked
@BernG For 5 years before going to the third academy, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glenco, GA.
@BernG Most Park Rangers you meet in the NPS, USFW, BLM, will have at least 2 4 month academies under their belt, quite a few will have 3 or 4.
@BernG Sorry that wasn’t short, it’s hard to explain🤷♀️
@fake_living Is about protecting resources that we ALL use, about protecting people in our public spaces, “resource protection” is a type of law enforcement, it’s what we call the work that Rangers do.
@Kia_Nay I’m uncomfortable with the amount of shares and views I’m seeing here. I wrote this thread because I was angry with people insisting that police reform can be solved with more training after Tyre’s murder. I never expected it to be this big.
@Kia_Nay It’s terrifying to be honest. I have always tried to express my experience to folks when given the chance but to suddenly have a trauma shared with a million people can be a bit overwhelming. I’ve never had connections or money so I’ve never known how to get this reach.
@AbbySunbright I was standing one a firing line with 4 individuals all going through the same scenarios. An instructor touched my shoulder and laughed as he said this to me. I replied, while still focused on the objective and with my eyes trained on the range that as someone who’s been
@AbbySunbright On the other side of the gun barrel, I had never thought of firearms training as “fun.” That it was necessary skill and for that reason I worked hard to be good at it and to be very cognizant of my decisions as an LEO that would cause trauma, and that I simply didn’t take that
@AbbySunbright Lightly. The instructor then asked me if I’d been in a firefight, to which I replied “no, I’ve been shot at but it wasn’t a fight, I wasn’t armed.” He then pulled me off the line (having done nothing wrong with the training and committed no safety violations)
@AbbySunbright In front of my colleagues he disarmed me, and stated that I was not going to be permitted to do further training until I’d been cleared by a psychologist. I was taken to a psychologist, who I said the exact same thing to, that I did not think determining to kill someone
@AbbySunbright Was fun, and that in general, training wasn’t “fun” for me. After a 30 minute session, I was cleared with the words, “she’s fine, don’t bring her back here.” and returned to training. All of this was a write up and was used on my dismissal proceeding, even though, the
@AbbySunbright Psych folks said it was unfounded. The write up was for “poor attitude”
While you may see nothing wrong with it, this is all to say that, in general, I’m my experience, police training prioritizes violence and encourages those who are susceptible to it.
While you may see nothing wrong with it, this is all to say that, in general, I’m my experience, police training prioritizes violence and encourages those who are susceptible to it.
@AbbySunbright Because I wanted to go home at night, but it was not the focus of my job, my job was to serve my community.
@AbbySunbright Does a person who’s approached by a 5’2” 115 lbs officer have fewer rights than one approached by a 6’5” 250lbs one? God I hope not. Knowing my size could create a disadvantage was something I took into account when deciding to do the job and in my training,
@AbbySunbright It was not something I felt was ethical in determining what level of force to use. Force decisions should be based on a suspects actions not my size. Furthermore the clear implication when this was said to me was that I could get away with it so I should.
@AbbySunbright And finally, deescalation saves lives, it doesn’t get people killed. The studies are out there. This point was to illustrate that you can put LEOs through all the deescalation training in the world, but if you tell them in other training that it will get them killed…
@AbbySunbright Communicate through Twitter, because I don’t often do it. The mentality of “us vs them” is institutionalized in police training and IMO it’s a huge part of the problem.
@AbbySunbright You’ll fail. Over and over again you are told it’s you and your fellow cops against your community and only one can survive. It’s a terrible way to view policing.
@AbbySunbright In my experience, only mine, I speak for no one else, it is very much taken literally. And the fact is, done well? Our jobs have significantly less risk than we are told.
@TunedIn58 The job, and many tried to help me stay. There were some who stood up for me when I was being attacked by instructors, but at some point it became clear that they were going to get rid of me. I think I was dismissed on the last day because they fervently hoped I would fail out.
@TunedIn58 The change that needs to occur is a cultural one. It’s big and hard Andes have to face it fully to change it.
@Kia_Nay @Bohemiangirl My voice really shouldn’t be centered here. The fact that it’s the one that got elevated temporarily is what it is, so I’ll do my best to use it effectively, but there are better messengers.
@CSaltyMe Right from the beginning, you may try harder to fit in. The culture creates a very strong sense of belonging to survive, and women can get away with less questioning of the system because they are already unwelcome. They are also more likely to be perceived as physically
@CSaltyMe Vulnerable, so fear can become a driving factor in interactions. This is all generalizations, some agencies may do an amazing job supporting female officers, and some female officers stay the course no matter what and don’t buy the BS. Whatever the reforms we make…
@CSaltyMe They need to be comprehensive and done with other reforms. We need sweeping reforms in multiple areas, and no bandaid or quick fix can solve it.
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