DAYS 5 AND 6: Putting theory into practice
We thought we would get a full night’s sleep again, but we were woken at 3am being told someone had Doritos in their room. We were all lined up outside, and thought we would have more PT, but it turned out to be a prank and we were all given ice cream! That was a bit strange, but showed our trainers have got our backs and want us to enjoy.
We’ve been doing scenarios in an old abandoned hospital, which was quite spooky, and everyone was saying it was haunted in there. We were issued with belts, handcuffs and plastic guns, which were quite weighty, and all the staff went into different rooms to act out a domestic, a break-in, a robbery and things like that.
Cadet Rebecca said that after a bad start, when she and her partner were ‘shot’ by their suspect in the first scenario and her partner was ‘stabbed’ in the second, they had more success in the final room.
“This time we had our heads switched on,” she said. “We went into two rooms and cleared them – it was going really well. We went into the third room and cleared all the closets apart from one. As soon as my partner opened the door, my eyes flicked up and I saw a gun. Something in my mind was saying ‘this is wrong, something’s up’. There was a blanket folded over the rack and down to the floor. I adjusted my angle and I saw a part of the man’s leg.
"I commanded him to come out without touching the gun, not to put his hands up, and to come out of the closet. This is when I personally made a mistake, and I realised straight away what I had done. I tried to correct myself but I was too late. I asked him to go to the wall and I had my gun trained on him, but I asked him to go to the right hand side wall which was by the door, when I should have asked him to go to the left hand wall and covered the door. So he managed to escape, but none of us got shot so we were ok.
"There are still things to be learned, but I would never have thought that I would be doing the things I have done today a couple of days ago. I wouldn’t have had any confidence to do it.”
We then went on to traffic, where we learned how to approach a vehicle, what to look for, how to talk to the people you have pulled over etc. It was such a good learning experience, and definitely something we will remember.