Elias continues his training at home in Waterloo Region and gains valuable experience through foundational judgment scenarios. Later, he moves down to the Ontario Police College where he'll spend several months learning alongside recruits from across the Province with training in everything from police vehicle operations to intimate partner violence response. On the road, Amanda experiences a busy night responding to several calls, including one for shoplifting at a local grocery store.
Rachel This is Into the Blue – A podcast about becoming an officer with the Waterloo Regional Police Service.
For each episode, we start with a theme and bring you two perspectives – one from an officer in training and another from an officer in the community.
In this episode, it's all about hands on skills.
Music
Rachel I'll welcome back our digital content coordinator, Mark. Hello. Hello, Mark. You've been following some of our officers to try and really get an inside look at the work and skills required to be an officer.
Mark Yeah. That's right. So, we've been following Elias, and at this point in our story, he's just going through some of that initial training here at home in more of the region. He's really just starting his career as a police officer. And we're also following Amanda, who's been with us for a few years and is really putting those skills that she learned in her first year to work.
So first up, we will check in with Elias as he starts what we call the pre-Ontario Police College program or because police officers love acronyms pre OPC. Which is really just those first three weeks here at our service before they head down to the police college.
Music
Mark So a big part of pre OPC training is to quickly immerse them not just into that book knowledge required to do policing, but also get them started right away on working on those kind of hands-on skills. I checked in with Elias on his second week here, and on this particular day they were in the gym at police headquarters, going through what we call judgment scenarios.
So, what are those like? Give the listener kind of a rough description of what a judgment scenario is.
Rachel Okay. So, a judgment scenario is basically a situation that the training branch has kind of come up with an idea for. And then they run officers through that situation. So, it's a way for us to practice our skills in us in a more safe environment. You know, we always say it's the best place to make a mistake is in our, you know, in our training, because we will learn from it in training.
So, it could be anything from, you know, officers responding to a call at a building, an abandoned building. And you know, how we're going to search that building and the kind of safety precautions we're going to take when we're going there and communicating with each other and all those kind of steps. it just gives us a chance to work together and practice.
Mark Yeah. And I think the kind of one of the important parts is that, you know, we actually have a couple of people signed as actors. There's props usually involved. So, if it's a bar, there's probably bar things there. sometimes we set up a mock school. or even if it's a neighbor dispute. Could be, you know, a fence and things like that. So, it really gives them a chance to practice those skills.
Instructor One thing we're looking for, right, is as you guys go through or as we demo, just think of what behavior am I, exhibiting…
Mark So one of the important things to remember that this is only week two, and the recruits have a very spotty knowledge of how to actually police. So, they throw them into these scenarios anyways, and they start experience some kind of that, that conflict right from the beginning. So, for this scenario I'm here to see today the recruits are paired up.
They've been asked to leave the room and then while they're out, they kind of set up the scenario when they come back into the room in pairs to respond to the surprise situation. In this case, it's an impaired person at a restaurant. and the owner wants the owner of the restaurant once wants them to leave.
Student/Actor Hey, Andrew, it's Waterloo Regional Police. How are you doing? Better than you. Yeah. All right. So, the bar owner called us, said you have to leave. Yes. You've had too many to drink. I was just drinking and minding my own business. All right, well, unfortunately, we have to ask you to leave now. Okay, so. The party, don't stop. The party never stops. But you can take it elsewhere. Not right here. Right where?
Mark So the instructors do a great job here to lay that kind of foundational knowledge. Stressing the importance of that later book, book or academic knowledge that they'll need to have to respond to a situation like this.
Instructor/Student Oh, and he pulled the knife. Yeah. Yeah. Let's stop right there. Andrew pulls that night. What do you guys think? He's a safety concern to us and everyone around us. Think about not only the behavior, but what else can we do to help mitigate, like, a safety concern, right? When we demo, it'll be a lot of that. Just talk us through what you think is, like, the most appropriate response. Right? And then when you guys go through, we're going to be a lot of like kind of stop start stop start right.
Mark So, speaking with some of the recruits after they kind of went through these and situations, you can tell they were definitely trying to pull on some of the really early basic knowledge, but they were still just kind of finding their way and they had to be kind of coached through the situations, to put those skills kind of into practice.
Student Yeah, I mean, it was obviously a little nerve wracking. I mean, we witnessed one before, so that that definitely helped. ease things a little bit, but yeah, you just didn't really know what to expect. Right? All the scenarios before that were kind of, somewhat cooperative. That was the first time we saw them pull a knife.
Student Right. So, Andrew, it's Joe here with the Waterloo Regional Police Service. my partner here. Mike with me. Mike, how's it going?
Mark Well, I can see it's awkward and definitely a bit confusing for them in these kind of unexpected situations. And it's definitely a slightly painful exercise to watch but it's putting them ahead, of many of their classmates down at OPC because they're already working with these situations. When I spoke to the supervisor of the training unit, he said, that's exactly what they're trying to do. So, they're trying to throw them into these scenarios. And that's all by design.
Matt it really gives them a good contrast over what they know right now. And what they're about to learn, either at the Ontario Police College or when they get back to us from the entire police college for their five and a half weeks of training. So, it just and it almost shows the importance of they need to pay attention when they're down there, they need to, really grasp material that they're going to get because, at the first few weeks, they don't know a whole lot. And so, when they come into these new scenarios and they kind of have that look on their face of, I have no idea what to do, we need to show that contrast and show the seriousness of what they're about to engage in.
Mark So pre OPC is the time recruits get also introduced to kind of that lifetime of fitness. One of the tests of fitness we use is called the pin test. the test includes push-ups and AB hold a stretch and one of two different running activities. They start running that test here at home in that pre-OPC, you know, three week program our instructors wasted no time. they're running, you know, day one, day two of being here on here.
Instructor So this is the shuttle run or the beep test. There are two lines, each of the, warning line. And then past that, a yard or a meter pass. That is the goal line. You have to run from one side to the other side. minimum touching the and line by the time the beep happens.
Mark I mean, I'm sure the instructors really just love to see their students sweat, but there really is a purpose to this kind of constant focus on physical fitness, during your entire training.
Instructor So to be physically fit, especially with cardio, is the main importance, whether it's for, for, for pursuit, if it is for, you know, resting the subject, it's also just for longevity and physical fitness as a whole. it's no surprise either, that physical fitness is a great way to deal with stress, whether it be personal or job related. Stress and shift works hard on your body. So you started good practices now, good habits now. Hopefully they're long term.
Mark Elias really seem to grasp this idea too, that fitness is more than about just running after a suspect. It's about kind of a lifetime of healthiness and something that prepares you for the job that is physically demanding.
Elias Well, I always maintain my fitness and for my mental health, for my physical physique. Like that's something that once again, volunteering, helping the community is passion, but also fitness should be an everyday thing.
Mark So are a pre OPC program. So those three weeks before you go down is really designed to give you a primer and everything you're going to learn at OPC. through the magic of editing, we're going to take a quick break and Elias is going to move down to OPC and we'll pick up with him when he gets down there.
Music
Mark So at this point, Elias has packed his bags. he's completely moved into a dorm or what they call a pod on the grounds of the Ontario Police College. Rachel, how would you describe kind of big picture, what does Ontario College kind of look like to somebody who's never been there or experienced it before?
Rachel Yeah. So it's honestly it's like a college or university. It's a it's a huge building. I mean, it's got swimming pools there. It's got a cafeteria, a gym. It's got a huge driving track, in the back, even like a, like a little village, to do scenarios. And, it's got the residence. So, the place where you sleep right in the building, it's really got everything, that you would need there. So, it's quite it's quite a big or a large facility.
Mark And I think that's a good explanation, like a college or university. and everything is even kind of right on that schedule, which it was telling me about.
Elias Yeah. Currently there's about 550 recruits, four classes. However, each class is separated for 50 students each. And then with from that class your individual class of 50 students, there are five different pods in which ten individuals live with one another and they are gendered oriented. So, ten females and then four males. You have breakfast, then you're ready to go for your first period.
And so the day consists of breakfast two periods of 90 minutes each lunch. And then you have other to 90 minute periods. And then dinner, dinner, lunch and breakfast are all assigned timing based on your respective classes. Remember when you were in grade nine where you were running to each different class, not knowing where you're going, but you get the use of it as your attend that school throughout high school. That's exactly the Ontario Police College, but it's 13 weeks and not 4 or 5 years of high school.
You're really get used to it really fast, and it seems so stressful at first, but it does come together because you also have everyone from all the different services that come here. It starts off as competition against one another, but then after the second day they quickly realize, no, we are a team. We're all here for one another and it's support.
Mark So at the college, the classes are split between that kind of hands on practical skills and the academic knowledge. So, a lot of Elias's time management is really about balancing, balancing the need to be good at kind of both of those activities.
Elias Well, when you're here, you have a requirement of completing 40 workouts, which majority of us would exceed that by the end. But for some folks, that's a bit hard to put in, especially if they're heavy academics. So, it's trying to balance that out. But also, you have to do homework, whether it's traffic or federal law or provincial law, whether you're it's open book, you're accessing, looking through the actual act and regulations, it takes time to figure out the scenarios for your homework.
Mark Theory is a big part of the education. The recruits go through classes on physical fitness, defensive tactics, practical de-escalation, dispute resolution, practice, note taking, and just a ton more. but on this day, I visited a class that was focusing on practical skills of driving police cars.
Driving Instructor Coaching
Mark The driving instruction unit at the college is made up of almost a dozen instructors, most with multiple decades of experience.
Todd Okay. welcome back folks. It's a beautiful day, sun shining. And it is hot out there. And it's a Friday. Okay, what better thing can you ask for in terms of coming to PV on a Friday afternoon? But that being said, we got a lot of important work to do today. So, what we're going to start with today, folks…
Mark When I visited the instructor, Todd, that the in-class portion and offered to send me along to watch as two officers went through the day's training. So, I actually sat in the back of the cruiser and went around the track a few times and it was it was really interesting to watch.
Rachel Did they have the thing where they had the thing on the front? They had to balance?
Mark It's coming up.
Todd In the program, we're probably the middle of the program right now, but we're introducing, the technique where they're trusting their eyes more so they can borrow the roadway if their eyelid tells them it's safe to do so. So, it's more of a mental exercise, really, than a physical. Their eyes have to give them the correct information and in order to do that, they got to increase what they're seeing outside of what a civilian might be looking for. We need to be more observant and take, make better decisions about what actions we're going to take.
Mark One thing that hits you almost immediately. It's just how vast and deep the knowledge from these instructors is. We're talking about some officers who potentially taught police car driving, for good portions of their career, only to come back and teach it part-time in retirement. That's how much these instructors care. What are some of those, you know, core skills that you think they're trying to teach you?
Elias Yeah. So it's definitely a big transition of driving as a civilian versus driving as a police officer. Because as a police officer, when you're responding to different calls, you have so many things to be aware of. And part of that concept is I lead in the police vehicle operations. It's where you want to be. Looking ahead of you, seeing what's ahead, whether it's pedestrians or whether it's congested traffic, or to the fact of when you're turning corners.
Are you looking to the front of your car or are you looking at what's ahead of that corner? Is it clear? Are you able to borrow some other road in order to respond faster to some calls? So those are some of the concepts in which you they really emphasize, which made a big difference. Even when we go out to St. Thomas on the road there, they will be asking you what was behind that house, what was the address of the house?
You always need to be aware of your surroundings at all times, because some people get distracted just based on the presence of police officers, whether imagine an accident, traffic builds up. It's not because there's one lane close, it's because people are slowing down and looking. When people look at a certain direction, they tend to start steering to that direction.
So, you always want to be and be aware and cognizant of your surroundings in terms of for your safety, because at the end of the day, we all want to go home and we all want to help the community. So, I think that's the biggest part of the police vehicle operations classes. They really teach you those fundamentals that would enhance your, observing your surroundings.
Mark So one of the exercises I rode in a cruiser with was called, ball in the wok, and you’re already laughing. So, it's exactly as it sounds. picture kind of a 12-inch diameter shallow pan. So, a walk you'd use at home on your stove? It it resembles that typical Wok. it's mounted to the hood of the police car, sometimes magnets that day, whatever else they could find around to hold it on.
In it is a tennis ball, and it's kind of tethered, just so it, you know, can't go too far. Otherwise, it's just kind of sitting in there and rolling around. it's held on with the small piece of fishing line that's about it. so the goal is to keep your movement smooth enough that the ball stays kind of in that pan. It is definitely is a little bit more challenging than it seems at first, I don't know. Do you have experience with this?
Rachel Yeah, I remember that from Police college 100%. And it gave me so much stress doing that because it was hard. It was very hard, but it was a great exercise for sure.
Todd What we're trying to accomplish with this exercise is for the students to start looking through their corners, let their eye lead, tell them that there's some roadway that I can borrow, which is going to help me smooth out the corner, allow me to increase my speed a little bit earlier so that I can maximize the top speed that I'm able to go.
Mark So the track is basically it's massive. I mean, it's probably a few kilometers. It's series of kind of intersecting and parallel ovals. it mimics the variety, of different things you might see on a normal road. It's manufactured with hills and blind turns and yields of stop signs. And there's even like a fake hedge installed so you can't see around a left hand turn and things like that. It's got working fully working, traffic lights. So the instructors, they start in the car for a few demonstration laps, then they hop out, to give their feedback just over the radio.
Instructor We don't want to touch that brake until we've gotten to the Radar board. 80.
Mark So it took a few laps but eventually you could see that smoothness starting to come out. You could tell the officers were definitely really hesitant at first, and the instructors needed to constantly provide kind of encouragement over the radio.
So the purpose of the Pivo program is to really take somebody who's a civilian driver and give them that extra knowledge, skills and abilities to bring their driving really up to the next level.
Todd From day one, they come in as civilian defensive drivers. We're trying to get them to leave here with a defense or with a cooperative driving principle that's going to assist them in their police duties. As defensive drivers, they've got to go with the flow. Sometimes we need to get them to go through the flow. And the skills we're teaching them in the next few weeks are the skills that are going to assist them in going through the flow when that time comes and inevitably that time will come.
Mark Everybody wants to know, were you able to keep the ball in the lock?
Elias Yes, I well, I dropped it once. However, majority of the time I definitely got it in there. It stayed in there. I was getting out more for my partners than for myself, so that's a good thing.
Mark So Elias kind of touched on something I think a lot of the officers felt especially kind of hopping into the cruiser for the very first time.
Elias Also, they experienced the pressing the pedal to the metal for the first time with the sirens on really gets you going. It's more nerve wracking than exciting, even though actually it's both. But that's a really one of the experiences where you get to be like, wow, my dream of becoming a police officer is actually coming, becoming a reality.
Mark The physical skills you learn at police college continue to kind of to be an important skill every day. Once you become a fully-fledged police officer on your own. When I was out riding with Amanda, it was evident to see that those skills were completely intertwined in every single shift. At one point when I was interviewing her, it got interrupted by a shoplifting call, which we kind of heard.
Dispatcher For 510 wearing a navy blue ball cap, gray sweater, black shirt.
Mark So a closer officer in this call was able to get there first, but I could feel her trying to balance that severity of the call with the need or risk of how quickly to respond. As we got closer, the dispatcher relayed that multiple shoplifters were involved. you know, one of them with several outstanding warrants. Ultimately, she drove briskly, but stayed well below the speed limits and didn't use her or her lights and sirens.
Amanda I know, I’m debating whether to put my lights on here.
Mark And I asked about I asked her about this afterwards.
Amanda Oftentimes if a call comes in as priority, a lot of the times you are the that's kind of like the okay, to put your lights and sirens on. It's priority one. You can turn your lights and sirens on. Sometimes we assess that. Maybe it's not actually priority. We don't need to turn our lights on for a call like that.
It wasn't priority one. However, there's another officer there who's with a subject, and I don't know how that's going to play out and he's going to be making but likely an arrest. So in my head, I want to get there as quickly as possible to make sure that officer is safe. and we were quite the distance away.
So that's why I was assessing if I should put my lights on. So I'm listening to the radio to hear how things are going. He said he was 10-4 in the arrest was made, so I didn't turn my lights on.
Mark If there's one thing to take away from this, I would say being a police officer means being good at those practical things. However, to know when and how to use those practice skills really requires an understanding of kind of those powers from, say, legislation limitations and just having a good fundamental knowledge, that can only come from the academic learning and coaching. What are your kind of thoughts on that?
Rachel Yeah, I would agree with that. You really need to have that foundation of the academics and, you know, knowing your authorities, when you're responding to any call, because any of the actions that you take have to be backed up by, you know, the learning that you've done and the authorities that you have.
So, we will leave Amanda and Elias there for now, and we'll check back with them in the next episode. Picking up with Elyse at the college and Amanda as she takes to the road to take some calls for service. Mark, thanks for joining me. We can't wait to hear what's coming up next.
Jen Into the Blue is production by the Waterloo Regional Police Service. It is hosted by Rachel Molnar and produced, reported and edited by Mark Araujo. Supervising director is Cherri Greeno.
Special thank you to the entire dedicated training team at the Ontario Police College, as well as the WRPS Training and Education Branch – without their collaboration this production would not be possible.