The Permian Basin Law Enforcement Academy, located at the Midland, Texas, Police Department shooting range, is currently conducting a police academy, and the graduates will most likely become police officers. There are 16 in the class, ten of whom hope to become officers with the Midland Police Department. The others have the goal of becoming law enforcement officers in Big Spring or Seminole.
On Thursday, 8/7/08, the PBLEA conducted a training session, and members of the media were invited to observe. So the local tv stations and the newspaper had cameras and reporters there, and your humble blogger was there also, snapping photos and trying to stay out of the way.
Jim Reynolds heads up the PBLEA and was very much in charge of the class, and to this observer it appeared that he had the students' full respect and undivided attention. The lesson for that afternoon, however, was a hands-on demonstration and practice using the legs in defensive tactics, and two specialists taught the class.
It would seem that the best use of legs in a defensive move would be to face the opposite direction and run like hell. But maybe that's just me.
A police officer should be able to control and defuse a potentially violent situation, so the lesson that afternoon was basically how to kick an attacker to throw him off guard and off balance. The instructor for the class was MPD Officer Brad Barnes, and he was assisted by MPD Officer Mollie Porter -- you will see them in the Photo Journal.
Mr. Barnes is not only an instructor for the MPD, he teaches these skills to the public as well. See West Texas Mixed Martial Arts for details. His assistant, Ms. Porter was a college soccer standout -- who better to teach kicking skills, eh? It's nice to know the MPD utilizes the talents an officer brings to the job.
The move taught that day involved kicking with the shin, not the foot, as the foot is too easily injured. Mr. Barnes calls the move the "Thai Kick," and if you search that phrase you could probably find some video demonstrations of the move. But in the meantime, check out this Photo Journal from the session.
Finally, you will see a cat in a couple of the photos. That's R.C., for Range Cat, and she's a very people-friendly cat and is probably a real delight to have around the range. They say she's so calm that a flash-bang can go off in a SWAT team exercise, and it doesn't even faze her. However, just after the Thursday class ended, one of the students ran up to the place where she was lying, and not realizing she was there, accidentally stepped on her. She screamed, scratched and ran off. She literally vanished, leaving behind nothing but a thin red line on the student's bare leg.
Here's hoping R.C. is OK.
Nice to hear that more students are now taking degree on law enforcement agencies.Congrats to all those graduates going to become police officers.
Posted by: Law Enforcement Trainee | October 08, 2011 at 09:45 AM