Day: March 6, 2019

Wed. Mar. 6, 2019 – that was fun

35F and 45%RH? Possible. But the furnace is running like crazy. [added- actual! and sunny with clear blue sky too]

Well, my CPA class kicked off last night and it was a lot of fun. Very diverse group of ~100 people, ~50 in the Tuesday class, and the same in the Thursday class. Naturally, there were a lot of retirees. Retirees tend to dominate any of the civic things I’ve been involved in. More time on their hands, and interest in the community I guess. Quite a few people heard about the class thru social media or a news report and said, “Oh, that sounds neat!” Wide spectrum of occupations from grad student to trucker, to police hopefuls, and family of cops.

For the pursuit driving, we just got to ride in the vehicles while the instructors went through the course. The other program, we actually drove with an instructor coaching. Still pretty impressive. The city standardized on Ford Explorers with the police package. They handle shockingly well. Very agile, very fast, very sticky. You can do a J turn with them, which I’d never attempt in my Expedition. I asked and they are pursuit rated. The evaluation team liked them for their roomy interior vs. cars.

The defensive tactics part was a bit of a disappointment, but did demonstrate the difficulty of choosing appropriate force level for response to differing threats. There was some discussion of lawful use of force, force escalation, and why tasers aren’t the panacea people think. No one got tased though.

Interesting night, and I’m looking forward to the next class.

Oh, I also learned the DEA, FBI, and another national 3 letter agency run CPA programs in Houston… I’ve got some googling to do 🙂

n

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