High-speed chases. Gunbattles. Arresting gang members. Handcuffing. High-risk felony traffic stops.
These are all scenarios that students in the Davis County Sheriff's Office Citizens Academy have been put through during the first four weeks of class.
But students recently learned a different side of policing. Noise complaints. Barking dogs. False alarms.
These are not scenarios that would typically be found on "Cops." But in reality, they're what most police officers deal with on a daily basis.
Eighty percent of the calls the Davis County Sheriff's Office responds to deal with noise complaints — loud parties, stereos and pets.
Ninety-nine percent of the job is done with words, not guns, said Sgt. Randy Slagowski. "You hardly ever have to use force," he told the students.
Students also learned that many calls don't involve bad guys victimizing strangers. Police are often called to break up fights between family members.
A domestic-violence investigation today is almost as intense as a homicide investigation, said Sgt. Dan Yeaman.
Although the majority of police work is not as glamorous as it's portrayed on television, there are still elements that set it apart from all other occupations.
Students experienced the more exciting part of police work during a demonstration by the Davis County SWAT Team. In a mock scenario a Boy Scout leader had taken several boys from his troop hostage in a home. After a hostage negotiator's efforts to get the enraged leader to surrender failed, a dozen or so SWAT team members made their slow approach to the house before throwing in a "flash-bang" and entering the house. The real-life actors were replaced with metal dummies and SWAT team members stormed through the door, shooting the pretend bad guys. After a lot of gunfire and explosions, team members had cleared and exited the house within a few minutes of crashing through the front door.
Students only watched the SWAT exercise, but they had their own chance to enter and investigate a building during a class session on responding to business alarms.
They discovered responding to a simple business alarm is anything but routine. They quickly learned to expect the unexpected.
To give students an idea of how hard it is to look for a possible suspect in a building, Slagowski said he picked a place to run practice scenarios where he and his SWAT team had a real-life search that proved to be extremely difficult: the Opera House at Lagoon Amusement Park.
It didn't take long for students to find out that going through a dark building with dozens of closets and crawl spaces to hide in is very difficult. They found out that using your flashlight too much can turn it into a "bullet magnet," as deputies call them.
In several role-playing scenarios, the students were shot and killed by deputies posing as bad guys, before they even knew what hit them.
In some cases, students got separated from the main group while searching the building and ended up shooting each other thinking they were firing at the suspect. Communication is key, said Slagowski, when undertaking a large search effort.
Students have four more weeks left in the academy.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com; djensen@desnews.com