Police Training

I spent two days this week at police in-service training school. Really interesting stuff. They were doing vehicle stops, high risk takedowns, and Immediate Rapid Deployment in a high-target envirement. All I do is watch, and try to stay out of the way. I don't even get to play the victim. I learned so much and its highly unlikey much of this stuff will find its way into the Constable Molly Smith books. I don't write techno thrillers, so I'm not really interesting in putting weaponry and tactics into these books. But I am interested in how the police officers must be feeling as they enter, say, a school occupied by a shooter. Are they scared? Focused? Determined? I want to know how they work as a team and they co-ordinate amongst themselves. That might well find it's way into Molly Smith and John Winters lives some day.

They also viewed video taken of traffic stops that turned bad. We saw a couple of officers, and cars, taken out by traffic speeding by on the highway. Not nice at all. So here's a tip for all you drivers out there: If you see those flashing red and blue lights up ahead pulled over to the side of the highway - move over. Please.