The Sisyphus Comments

PD Discontinues “Reality-Based” Training

On a positive note, a city police department (who will remain unnamed for the purposes of this article) will stop planting unloaded weapons, fake drugs and other props in unsuspecting civilians’ cars as a way to help train officers to search vehicles. Of course on the down side, you have to ask, “What the hell were you initially thinking?”

The chief of police decided to stop using this unconventional training method a couple of days after the practice was detailed in a local newspaper. Apparently some readers inferred from the newspaper headline that officers were planting “evidence” that would later be used in a trial. The chief explained that the planted items were not used as evidence against suspects in court.

The “training” technique hit the newspaper after an officer, who admitted to planting a loaded gun in the trunk of a motorist’s vehicle for training purposes, was cleared of any wrongdoing. The chief said that using a loaded weapon during training exercises is against department policy but the policy was not widely understood and so he didn’t feel comfortable punishing one officer when several had also done it.

Apparently, field training officers plant items of contraband such as unloaded weapons, fake drugs and drug paraphernalia in civilian vehicles to see if their field trainees, who are searching the vehicles incident to an arrest, find the items. They usually planted the items after the drivers were arrested had left the scene or during an impoundment inventory.

Although the chief admitted before the city council that a mistake had been made, he also claimed there was “no other way” to give officers realistic training on how to search vehicles. He went on to say that, on the infrequent occassions where officers used civilian vehicles, the training exercises were conducted in a controlled environment and planned in advance. Of course this would lead a careful examiner to ask, if there is truely “no other way” to conduct the training, but the officers only use this technique on “infrequent occasions”, how are they training the rest of their officers to conduct vehicle searches?

This entire issue came under scrutiny after a motorist who was stopped for hit and run saw an officer toss a loaded handgun in the trunk of his car. The planted weapon was “discovered” by another officer a few minutes later. In this case, the motorist was not informed that he was an unwilling participant in a training exercise. Obviously, since he also had some drugs in the car, he probably envisioned a nice long state financed vacation in his future. The motorist was later convicted of drug and traffic-related charges but he was not charged with possessing the weapon.

I have been involved in law enforcement and training for over 25 years and I have never heard of such an ill-conceived training method. I think this type of uncontrolled reality-based training is a formula for disaster and they are lucky that they came out of this with just a simple citizen complaint.