Trainees

I was a training officer for over 18 years and I had 75 trainees during that time. I had several good trainees and a couple poor ones. The rest were in the middle.

I do not believe in yelling at trainees, it shows that you are not in control. I did yell at one trainee, once. We were working “c” squad in downtown San Diego. I saw a homeless guy stop in front of a small tree and pull out his penis and start to pee on it. We stopped him for urinating a public and he was going to get a ticket for that offense. My trainee was writing the ticket as a spoke with the guy. He started to get upset and wave his arms in the air. He then started yelling about getting the ticket. I grabbed him and started to handcuff him. I looked at my trainee and he was still writing the ticket. I yelled: ” What the fuck at you going?” He dropped the ticket book and helped me cuff him. I asked why he didn’t help and he said that he saw me “choke out ” a guy a couple days before and he knew I could handle him myself. I told him that we fight people together. After the guy calmed down I released him after he signed the ticket.

I had a trainee in southeast on 2nd watch. He was a former army MP with 4 years of service. He was so good that I was able to teach him things that most officers did not know. He caught on quickly and It was a pleasure training him.

I got a trainee that failed 5th phase and he was sent to me to do his phase 5 again. He was a retired marine master sgt and set in his ways. There wasn’t much I could do with him. But in the end he was safe, could hear and answer the radio and write a report. You can’t ask much more from someone in training.