Car chases and shootouts: A day in the life of NH police training
May 3—CONCORD — The police cruiser lurches to a stop. An officer leaps out, rushing inside for an armed robbery in progress at a convenience store. Within minutes, it's over, and five people have been shot — three bad guys, a store clerk and a customer.
It's a high-tech simulation, but the emotions and the stress it engenders are very real.
This is how New Hampshire trains its next generation of police officers — classroom instruction reinforced with real-world scenarios and hands-on driving experience.
Lt. Andrew Weaver teaches at the New Hampshire Police Standards & Training Council (PTSC) in Concord, offering solid instruction about the law and proper procedures, interspersed with anecdotes from his own long career. Sometimes he stresses what to avoid as much as what action to take — particularly when it comes to vehicle pursuits.
If you're about to initiate a pursuit, think about the risks and rewards, Weaver tells the recruits in a recent class. "Always, in everything you do, you should think about ethics: Is this the right thing to do?" he says.
What's the state policy on police pursuits, Weaver quizzes the future officers.
"There's no pursuit policy statewide. It's up to your department," replies Kyra Olms, who will serve with Salem Police Department.
She's right. Each law enforcement agency in New Hampshire has to adopt a written policy on pursuits. It's critical for police officers to review those policies regularly, until it's second nature, Weaver tells the class.
John Scippa, director of the PSTC, said police departments today are "much more cognizant of the potential risks to innocent bystanders, and for that reason, agencies have developed policies to, generally speaking, put pretty strict restrictions on when and if an officer can engage in that kind of a pursuit."
A pursuit by definition means that a police officer has tried to stop a vehicle and the operator is not pulling over for the blue lights and sirens. At that moment, Scippa said, "They have to look at the underlying reason for the stop, they have to look at the conditions in which this pursuit is possibly going to occur, and weigh the risk versus the reason that they're trying to stop the person."
"Every decision that they make is balancing their ethical and legal obligations with keeping the public safe, keeping the person that they're dealing with safe, and keeping themselves safe," he said.
Why they're there
The current police academy class includes 37 men and 10 women. Once they graduate, the new officers will work for law enforcement agencies across New Hampshire, including the State Police, liquor enforcement, small town departments and city agencies.
These are serious people.
Rebeccah Frulla used to be a pastoral minister at a parish in Salem, where she worked on guidelines to create a safe environment for children. She will now join the Litchfield Police Department. "I just kind of decided I wanted to be on the other side of the fence," she said. "I wanted to arrest people who hurt kids instead of making policies to prevent it."
Lee Jenkins, who will work for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department, is also making a career change. "I was in the juvenile justice system and I felt like I could do more to help out my community and society," he said.
An EMT with Linwood Ambulance Service, Erica Haase is the daughter and granddaughter of police officers. "It wasn't a surprise when I told them I'm joining the Lincoln Police Department," she said.
Weaver said he knows he only has a few short weeks to work with these recruits before sending them back to their departments for field training. "I want to talk to them about what they need to do, then we take them out and we show them what to do," he said.
He tells the class that he drives with his windows down so he can see and hear what's going on around him. "Your job is not to drive around and listen to music and be cool," he says. "Your job is to patrol the streets and stop people from getting hurt, or crimes from happening."
"Learn this stuff before you ever roll out on the roadway," Weaver says. "It's important, and it could save your life."
Maximum stress
The cones on the driving course represent people and other vehicles, Weaver reminds them. "We can't drive around hitting people and other vehicles," he says. "It's frowned upon."
"We want you to be able to demonstrate to us that you can respond through a cone course, and you can get from point A to point B safely."
He walks them through safe driving techniques, then sends them outside one at a time to Lt. Holly Catalfamo, who puts them through a bone-rattling course — driving forward and backward.
"We want to create a sense of chaos," Catalfamo said, turning up loud music and hitting the sirens and lights as the first recruit jumps in the driver's seat of the Ford Explorer. She roars in his ear, "Get there, get there, don't waste time, they're waiting for you."
He hits a few cones along the course, then at her direction, pulls the vehicle over and rushes to the building, where Weaver makes him drop and do 10 pushups, designed to raise his heart rate even higher.
"We're just trying to amp them up and have them perform under the stress," Catalfamo explained. "Training inoculates you to stress, and that's the whole point."
As each recruit gets inside, Scott Ferguson, who programs the high-tech simulators used at the academy, barks at them: "Let's go, we've got a robbery. Let's go."
Ferguson has been part of 115 police academies in his 37 years here.
After the armed-robbery simulation ends in bloodshed, Weaver and Ferguson ask each future officer what they remember. Most are breathing hard and forget key details of what happened. Only a handful remembered to call for backup or tell dispatch where they were, a potentially deadly mistake.
How many rounds did you fire, Ferguson asks one recruit. "Three or four?" she replies uncertainly.
"Thirteen," Ferguson tells her. She looks stunned.
That's something the Attorney General's Office would be certain to ask her later, Weaver tells her.
Better options
Weaver doesn't scold the recruits; this is a learning environment. "If you're going to make mistakes, it's going to be here," he says. "I don't want it to be out there."
Traffic conditions, adverse weather, your own driving abilities, and the underlying offense all have to play into the decision whether to initiate a pursuit, Weaver tells them.
If the driver just killed someone, "I'll probably chase him to the ends of the earth," he says. "If he went through a stop sign? Put the lights on. If he doesn't stop, let him go."
But a better option might be to call it in and ask other officers to block off the traffic ahead, he tells them. "Now he's boxed in and can't go anywhere," he says. "It's a pursuit that never starts, nobody gets in trouble and the bad guy goes to jail every time."
"If the pursuit is going to put everyone and their brother in danger ... you're probably not going to be pursuing that guy," Weaver says. "If you hit somebody, there's no coming back from that."
When a driver flees on foot, it can be tempting to pursue them, Catalfamo acknowledges. But she says, "Sometimes the smarter thing is to actually wait with what you have — which is the car."
But if you do end up in a foot pursuit, Weaver tells them, "Let dispatch know — and take the keys."
"I can't tell you how many guys have gotten in a foot chase and the dude circles back, gets in the car and takes off," he says.
Capt. Jack Dalton, training coordinator for Durham Police Department, reviews pursuit policies with his officers every year, and does an analysis of any pursuit that does occur, which is posted online for the public to see.
Dalton said he's proud that Durham is one of only 11 departments its size in the country that has reached the highest level of meritorious accreditation from CALEA, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. "Because of that, we need to be who we say we are," he said.
Durham police have been involved in just seven pursuits in the past 24 years, Dalton said.
When he sees a wild police chase on TV, Dalton said, "I get sick to my stomach."
He thinks about the people in the other cars that the pursued driver and pursuing cruisers speed by. "Someone's family is in that vehicle. Someone's children are in that vehicle," he said.
"It's just not worth it."
Police academy instructor Catalfamo tells the recruits to "think smarter, not harder."
"Ultimately the most important thing is that sanctity of human life," she said. "We want to make sure we hold people accountable and that justice is served, but we want to do it in as safe a way as possible."
