Officers from the Conway Police Department (CPD) Academy and other local law enforcement agencies gathered at Conway Municipal Airport this week for the Emergency Vehicle Driving Course .
A total of fourteen officers who are at the CPD Academy and are training to work in Conway, Benton, Bryant, Searcy, Faulkner County and Maumelle spent their third week of training at the airport practicing and completing the course of four-day driving course which includes emergency braking and lane change courses, as well as a reversing course.
The Log Cabin Democrat attended Wednesday’s training at the airport and sat up front with officers as they practiced the drill and attempted to complete the difficult support course. Laid out on one of the airport’s large runways, the course featured a series of sharp turns that officers had to reverse at high speed. As the limits of the course were demarcated by cones, officers had to complete the course in 30 seconds and could only knock down a maximum of two cones. If any of these parameters were violated, the agents would automatically fail.
Under the supervision of three CPD instructors, all of whom conduct regular patrols in Conway in addition to their instructor duties, the officers-in-training had been practicing the course since Tuesday. CPD spokeswoman Lacey Kanipe told Log Cabin that each officer must pass the course as part of their 14-week training at the academy, which equates to approximately 560 hours.
Trainees had the choice of taking the course in a Chevy Tahoe or a Dodge Charger. While most officers seemed to prefer the Tahoe, the car most seen on patrol in Conway, Kanipe said she’s heard from trainees that loaders have a higher margin of error and are easier to handle, an important trait to complete the course in a tight time. required limit.
The current CPD Academy class is the third the department has trained in the past 18 months, Kanipe said. This week’s driving course included 32 hours of training, including 12 hours behind the wheel. After officers complete the academy, they must complete another field training officer course which lasts another three months. Kanipe said the process to become an officer takes six and a half to seven months of training in total.
