Highway Patrol – Week 5 – Part 2

Good morning FFFs,

This has been a crazy, stressful, tiring, good week. :P

My brother and his family were a part of a "Generation Joshua" camp from Friday afternoon until Wednesday morning. The students came out and did hands on political action stuff such as knocking doors and making phone calls. It wasn't nearly as educational and fun as our usual American Government Camp, but it was last minute. Anyway, my sister and I drove out to camp (about 20 min away) every morning to help with breakfast and watching the kids. I watched the kids, especially my 15-month-old nephew. Busters (that's the nickname I call him) finally started calling me "BehBeh" this week! :) I wasn't there to get him up in the morning on Wednesday (because breakfast was later) and my 2nd nephew told me Busters stood up in bed, looked around and said, "BehBeh? BehBeh?"

So that was the tiring and a bit stressful part.

On Saturday my computer, which I've only had 3 months, decided to not turn on. Talk about Stress! Thankfully our computer friend at church was able to replace the hard drive and all my files are saved. The bad news is that I no longer have Photoshop, Microsoft Word, or any other program that had been added to the computer when I bought it. I did get Word, so that's good. Now I just have to spend a lot of money and get Photoshop. I thought of trying to use Canva, but I know Photoshop, and I can do things so much faster on there. So . . . I guess I'll be spending money. :P

Tuesday was a busy day spend at the polls. I was up at 4:30, at the polls at 5:30 and we opened at 6. There were 2 people waiting to vote at 5:30. We had people in there voting all day long! Seriously, there was only a 2 minute time after 6 PM when the room was empty! Our total number of voters was 699. That's more than a presidential election! Then it took longer to pack up because we had to count the ballots and make sure we had the right number before heading to the courthouse. I didn't get to bed until almost 10:30. Yep, I was tired. :)

Right now I'm fighting a cold. Probably from the cold, the early mornings and such. I have messes all over that need taken care of. I have a Christmas Collection book that I need to finish and get a proof copy ordered. I need to get a blog post for Tuesday done. Other blog posts, things done for this, that, and the other. And the house needs cleaned. Oh, I also need to practice the violin. I'm not sure I'll have much time to read. And as for writing? Yeah, right. I want to write, but it's not happening.

Highway Patrol

Week 5 – Part 2

    We all had a break after that, and then Sgt. Lueckenhoff divided us into three teams. “You can take your stuff to your car,” he told us. “Then meet out in the parking lot.” Six other HP troopers were there, and Sgt. Lueckenhoff sent them to find some good place to do the practice stops. They found a place, but no one knew where they were. They were back behind the dorms in a nearly empty parking lot. Some of us walked over, others drove. It was a chilly, overcast night.
    When we had all gathered, Sgt. Lueckenhoff sent each team to a different pair of patrol cars with two officers. Dad and I were with two other men and Sgt. Lueckenhoff’s wife. We were given some basic instructions about how they do a stop, and then we were handed the gun (it was an air-soft gun that shot little cornstarch-type of bullets) and a flashlight. (The officers took turns being the driver of the car that was stopped, and they also had a gun, only it just shot air.) The officer who wasn’t in the car sort of walked with us and gave some suggestions at first.
    Dad went first and had a very easy stop, gave the driver a warning and let him off. However, before anyone else took a turn, the officers talked about how important it is to keep an eye on the traffic. “Remember,” one of them told us, “this is a highway. More troopers have been killed by someone driving by than by a criminal.”
    The next stop went well, and then it was Nick’s turn. (Nick is one of the few classmates that I learned his name.) He was very nervous. As he started to approach the vehicle, after making sure there was no traffic coming, the driver jumped out with something in his hand. Quickly Nick drew his gun and then realized the man had a cell phone. Nick ordered the driver to get back in his car and end the call. He then approached the vehicle and continued with the stop.
    After he had finished, the officers talked a little. “How did it make you feel when the driver jumped out of the car?”
    “Like he was going to shoot me!”
    “There are always those people who think they should get out of the car when they get pulled over.”
    Then it was my turn. I got a grumpy guy who was driving without any lights. He complained that he’d had them set to turn on automatically, but that they hadn’t turned on. He also didn’t have his proof of insurance. I gave him a ticket, and he went on his way still grumbling. After each turn, we were taken to the other side of the car and asked if we’d noticed the gun on the dashboard. Not one of us had! We were so busy watching the driver’s hands and worrying about the “traffic on the highway” that we hadn’t even looked on the dashboard.
    “When we train,” one of the officers told us, “we spend an entire week doing traffic stops. At first they are just like these, easy. Someone messes up, we stop and iron out what you’re supposed to do, then keep going. Here you get everything pretty quickly. You don’t have time to practice the same sort of things over again.”
    Sgt. Lueckenhoff’s wife didn’t do any stops, so Dad was up again.
    He got out of the car and took a few steps toward the vehicle when the driver jumped out with one hand behind him. (The rest of us were all standing around watching.) Dad ordered the driver to show him his hands. The driver pulled out a gun and started shooting. Dad attempted to pull his gun, but it was in his sweatshirt pocket and wouldn’t come out at first. The other officer told him to shoot the driver when he did get it out. Dad tried. The gun wouldn’t work. That’s when it was discovered that the safety was still on, and no one had told us how to turn it off. The driver was kind enough to cease firing until the gun was fixed. Then Dad shot him.
    “Was there much difference between this driver with a gun and the driver with the cell phone?” one officer asked. There really hadn’t been much difference. Both had jumped out quickly, both had one hand either partly or completely behind their backs. “Some people will even point their cell phones like a gun at an officer,” we were told. “Usually it’s because they want suicide by an officer. In the dark it’s hard to tell if the guy has a gun, or a phone, or something else. Why is he jumping out? What is he planning on doing? We have to be ready for anything.”
    I don’t remember what the next stop was like. I don’t think it was very exciting.
    Nick’s turn was up again. Standing near the car that was being pulled over, I saw the driver pull the hood of his dark sweatshirt on. I knew something was up. Nick decided to approach the vehicle from the passenger side. Those of us watching were motioned to the front of the car and away from the doors. It was soon obvious that this driver was a “sovereign citizen.” (There really is no such thing as a real sovereign citizen. They are simply a group of people who don’t think they should have to follow any of the country’s laws. They usually have their own version of a driver’s license, don’t want to comply, and want to get into huge arguments.) The driver started right in with complaining and refusing to comply when Nick asked for his ID. He started quoting sections of fake laws and rights. Finally Nick told him to get out of the car so they could talk. The driver agreed and quickly, before Nick could get around to his side, he opened the door and jumped out. I saw at once that he had a gun. The driver went to the back of the vehicle and started shouting, “Where are you? I got out.”
    Nick was trying to decide which way to go, because he was a little nervous about this guy. Finally the driver came back up and started shooting at Nick over the hood of the vehicle. Nick admitted he was shot, but the officer observing told him that he should draw and shoot back. He did.
    “One of the things we look for in training,” we were told after this scenario, “is if a trooper freezes or if he keeps going. In training an officer is never dead. We want to see if they have what it takes to keep going, to act even when things are crazy.”
    Sgt. Lueckenhoff came over and told our group to change places with another one so we could have a different perspective on things. We headed to the far end of the parking lot and met the next two troopers. They gave us a quick bit of instruction about where the lights were for the spotlight, the red & blue lights, and where the flashlight was.
    Dad was first. He approached the car where both a driver and passenger were, and told the driver he had a tail light out. The driver wanted to see, and Dad told him he could in a little bit, but first he needed to see his driver’s license and insurance card. The passenger decided at this time that he was going to get out and go see his girlfriend. Dad told him to remain in the car. But the passenger got out, with his hands up, and started to walk away. Dad wasn’t sure what to do, so after an order to the man to return to the car, he pulled out his gun and shot him.
    The scene ended there, and we were told that if a passenger decides to leave and isn’t acting threatening or anything, they just let them go. They have no reason for detaining him since he wasn’t the one driving the car.
    When it was Nick’s turn again, I could see the driver leaning down and reaching under the seat while calling out the window, “What did I do wrong?”
    Nick told him to stay there and he’d tell him. Then Nick walked around to the passenger side of the car. It turned out the men were headed to Taco Bell to get some supper but had been driving too fast. Nick gave them a warning and let them go after some friendly chat.
    The officer who was behind the wheel asked Nick afterwards if he had seen him reaching under the seat. Nick hadn’t. “If you’d come up to the driver’s side, we were planning on doing some things,” he said, “but you didn’t, so we didn’t have the chance.”
    Dad had the last stop, and it was a drunk driver who got out of his car. Dad arrested him, and the driver willingly staggered back to the patrol car and got in the back seat.
    “How do you safely get someone out of their car on a busy highway?” someone asked.
    The senior officer asked someone to get in the car and they’d show them. I got in the car. The officer goes around to the passenger side, then walks to the front of the car where he can see oncoming traffic. When it was clear, he told me to get out and walk back to his car. This officer said that he does most of his sobriety tests and questions with the person sitting in the passenger seat of his patrol car. “I stand in the opening holding onto the door if I need to,” he said. “I just like doing it this way, as it makes it more difficult for the person to run if they decide to.”
    The highway patrol officers don’t put people they are transporting to jail in the back of their car. They keep them in the front. “It’s easier to keep an eye on them. And if one of them tries to do something, we are right there to stop it. I’d feel more concerned if they were in the back.”
    Sgt. Lueckenhoff then called everyone together. He asked if we’d all learned new things about the highway patrol. We all had. He had a few more things to say, then dismissed us. We’ll have a dinner next week for our “graduation” and then classes will be done.
    Thank you for joining me. I hope you have learned a lot too.

How was your week?

Did you enjoy this report?

Would you rather watch kids or work in the kitchen?