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Police officers at the San Marcos Police Department are undergoing in-training this week, where they’ll receive refreshers on gun training, tactical training and are put through simulations.
This week’s training is one of 11 in-training sessions the department is holding for its officers this year. Texas requires peace officers to have 40 hours of training every two years but SMPD tries to double what the state requires.
“The state requirement is the basic minimum standard,” said Erin Clewell, SMPD sergeant, range coordinator and range master. “You know, we would like to go over above and not necessarily just meet the minimum standard, you know, by doubling it. And we strive to do that every year, I'm not going to say that every officer gets 80 every two years, minimally, they'll have 40. Some end up having, you know, 75, and some have 120. So we make them come to this, but then during the course of the year, there's also other kinds of elective training that they go to.”
Clewell said the in-training features different topics each year. He said firearms training is included every year, and this year officers went through patrol response to special treat situation training.
On Monday, officers covered medical training on how to stop heavy bleeding by putting on tourniquets and packing wounds. They also conducted building searches and cleaning for hostage rescue situations. On Tuesday, the officers trained on approaches and breaching. “So how to make it from your vehicle up to the crisis site. We got to be able to do that safely. And then once we get there how do we get into the crisis site? ... So we teach you officers how to how to get through obstacles, how to get their way into doors, and through windows and all that kind of stuff,” Clewell said.
Tuesday afternoon officers train on situations where an officer or citizen is down.
“We teach the guys how to form up as a team and go in there and extract them from that situation,” Clewell said.
Wednesday officers trained for vehicle assault situations, and they took what they’ve learned and went through live simulations with paint bullets.
“So all Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning, it's all dry,” Clewell said. “There's no ammunition involved, or anything like that. It's all just dry runs, dry runs Wednesday afternoon, then we put on protective equipment, and we use paint bullets. And they're called simulations or non-lethal training ammunition. And we're able to shoot those back and forth. So it's as realistic as we can get.”
The officers went through handgun training on Thursday and will finish the week at the ALERRT Center with a full day of rifle training.
Clewell said they’re constantly looking at trends to help provide officers different kinds of training.
“We see trends, and we look at the trends, that's how we decide what training to do so this stuff that we're doing out here,” Clewell said. “ In general it’s to, wes, it's to keep us safe, but the ultimate goal is to keep the entire community safe.”
Clewell said the training is provided to all the officers in the department, and SMPD is currently searching for new officers. Registration is now open for the Fall 2019 entrance and physical fitness examinations to be held on Sept. 7. Candidates who are able to successfully complete both exams will form an eligibility list from which officers will be hired. SMPD currently has six open positions, although more vacancies are expected. More information can be found at the SMPD jobs website.
