Before the Badge: Lubbock Police recruits practice field sobriety tests on volunteers

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Lubbock Police recruits are now more than five months into their journey “Before the Badge.” KCBD started following these recruits back in February and now there is only one month left before they walk the stage at graduation.

There are still some important lessons they have to learn before that, though, even if they get to have some fun doing it.

This time around, recruits learned how to conduct Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST). Sgt. Travis Bratton has worked nights on patrol for 19 years, so he knows just how often these future-officers will need this knowledge.

“It was hard to make it through a week without dealing with a drunk driver. I mean, hard to make it through a shift without dealing with an intoxicated person, at all,” he said. “But, definitely drunk drivers was a big problem.”

After practicing on their fellow recruits, it was time to get a more realistic picture of how to spot if someone is intoxicated. Thanks to some volunteers from the community, recruits got that opportunity.

“In a very controlled environment, we give them alcohol. We’ll monitor their BAC throughout the process. And then after a couple of hours of doing that, once we get them to a certain BAC that we want it to be at, we’ll bring them back and have the class perform SFSTs to get them practice and let them see what these clues will actually look like when they get into the field,” Bratton said.

While instructors helped get the volunteers drunk, safely, recruits tested what they’ve learned about SFSTs with a game of Jeopardy.

Over in the other room, volunteers were feeling the alcohol and were ready to be tested.

After their real-world practice, recruits told instructors who they would have arrested.

“Having them do it in a kind of somewhat real world setting is very good training experience, for sure,” Bratton said.

While watching the training was entertaining, and probably a more fun day for recruits, Bratton says their ability to successfully complete these tests could be lifesaving.

“Drunk driving is something that we’ve all seen the results of, however it’s also something that I think societally is very accepted. Like you don’t see as much outrage over a drunk driver as you do a murder, assault, something like that, which I understand they’re two different things. But, you know, it’s very important that they know how to do this,” he said.

Of course, volunteers had a safe ride home after that training.

Recruits were also back out on the gun range this week, this time, practicing with a less lethal shotgun.

After practicing on a stable target, recruits then moved on to practicing in a real-world scenario, like someone coming at a police officer with a hammer. Their instructors are so dedicated to their learning, they played the “bad guys” and even took some hits during the exercise.

Corporal Mike Irby says LPD is moving toward issuing more rifles than shotguns, but when a shotgun is used, more often than not it will be less lethal.

“We don’t have a whole lot of lethal shotguns out there anymore, because we’ve transitioned to the bean bag rounds for the blue shotguns. Those are more, obviously, for the less lethal side of things,” he said. “If we have to deploy the shotgun, we need to take a suicidal subject down without lethal means, we’ll use the bean bags. And that’s more of what we’re transitioning to.”

A less-lethal direct-impact foam round was just used by a police officer this week. The department says a man was armed with a butcher knife and didn’t drop it when officers told him to. So, they deployed a less-lethal round. After he was hit, officers say he still moved forward with the knife, so another officer used his firearm.

The recent situation shows just how closely these scenarios can mimic real life.

There are still seven recruits pushing their way through the academy. KCBD will keep following them over the next month before graduation and “Before the Badge.”