Took this class last week and am now a certified NAUI Police Diver. 
I think this was the best class I've ever taken, learned a lot and had a lot of fun.
Three teams were represented in the class: Cape Coral PD, Punta Gorda PD, and Charlotte County SO.
First day was class day, began with polices & procedures, and in the afternoon turned to a discussion/comparision of our different teams' p&p. I think we'll be making some changes based on this, but our p&p were pretty much standard.
Day two was land/pool day. Started out with putting our gear on - blacked out. To make it interesting, after we blacked out, the instructor screwed with our gear (undoing straps, moving things, hiding things, etc). After that, we repacked our gear, and did it timed (not blacked out, though). Best time was 1:15 to Cape Coral PD. My time was 2:02.
After that, we moved to the pool, tossed our gear in, air off, then donned our gear underwater. Then we blacked out and the instructors screwed with us, turning air off, removing our tanks, regs, weights, tangling us in line, etc. for 5 minutes. Then we broke into two teams and practiced recoveries, focusing on grid search and arc search. Ended the day with debriefing and more p&p.
Day three was in our training lake. Two scenarios, one was a weapons search, the other a car recovery. Weapons search was pretty standard, started with a witness interview (witness was a "PD officer" who nabbed the bad guy and saw him throw something in the water during the pursuit). The instructor even arranged to have a guy show up and pretend to be fishing, encroaching on our crime scene. Another arranged encounter was with someone asking questions of the team (ended up being "press").
Car recovery was pretty cool. Interview with witness (who was fishing when the car went in) gave approximate location of the car, and that nobody had surfaced after the car went in. Further questioning revealed that shortly after the crash, a police car had driven by in code. A call to dispach revealed that there had been a robbery and that the PD had lost contact with the auto in question in the vicinity, and gave a description. Hopped in the water, found the car matching the description from dispatch and found a body in the driver's seat (right next to the teddy bear). Since the windows of the auto were broken, we decided to pull the body seperately from the car, so we bagged him and brought him to shore. Went I back to do a secondary search for a weapon used in the robbery, the instructor pulled me aside and instructed me to pull a lost diver drill, so Wildbill played the victim, I resurfaced and called for help. Safety diver was in the water within a minute, we recovered Wildbill, the weapon (pistol on the floor of the passenger seat), and hooked the car.
Again ended the day with debriefing and review of p&p.
Day 4 we dove in Charlotte harbor, next to the US 41 bridges (main bridges between Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte. We had the PD and SO boats anchored 30 and 50 yards out. Our two teams were to navigate out to the boats, perform a hull inspection, and return to our starting points. Diver 1 was navigator, 2 was distance man. Divers 1, 2, and 3 were to perform the hull search, and diver 4 was to navigate to the back of the boat and surface to keep an eye on the controlls and make sure the bad guy didn't try to start the engine (being prepared to disable it if he did).
We stacked, with divers 2, 3, and 4 carrying the search rope (which made a perfect buddy line). Diver 2 was instructed not to touch diver 1 so as not to mess up his navigation. We submerged, then the dive fell apart. Diver 2 immediately lost diver 1 (vis was inches) and dropped the rope, so diver 3 and 4 (me) continued and hoped to regroup at the anchor line. We ended up surfacing just short of the boat to find diver 2 on the surface and diver 1 not in sight. Went to the last seen point, about 60' past the boat and looked for diver 1's bubbles. No luck. After 3 or 4 tense minutes, diver 1 surfaces several hundred yards past the boat (almost in the middle of the harbor).
We regroup, and make some changes in the plan, including tethering diver 1 (we decided that drowning him was not a great idea - but it was close). This time, we make it out, and when the distance man calls it, we stop and prepare to do an anchor search for the boat. I bump into the anchor line, and pass it to diver one, and proceed to the back of the boat, surface and use the motor to hide me from any observation on the boat. The rest of the team performs the search, we hook up at the back, swim back to the anchor line, and make our egress. Couldn't have gone better.
Then we moved on to jackstay searches under the bridge for weapons recovery, which went well, then to Pylon searches where we discovered a road flare that had been attached to the pylon by our instructor the previous evening. Marked it and called in eod. Again ended the day with debrief and p&p.
Last day was reports day. We wrote up reports from our notes for all of the week's dives, did a review of p&p and ended the class.
This was a really cool class. I learned a lot, and, more importantly, did a lot of networking with other local PSD teams. We made some plans to have some coordinated training days with our local PD and got use of the fire department's compressor. The instructor trains with the Miami/Dade PSD team, and it looks like we'll get some training days with them in the future as well.
I think this was the best class I've ever taken, learned a lot and had a lot of fun.Three teams were represented in the class: Cape Coral PD, Punta Gorda PD, and Charlotte County SO.
First day was class day, began with polices & procedures, and in the afternoon turned to a discussion/comparision of our different teams' p&p. I think we'll be making some changes based on this, but our p&p were pretty much standard.
Day two was land/pool day. Started out with putting our gear on - blacked out. To make it interesting, after we blacked out, the instructor screwed with our gear (undoing straps, moving things, hiding things, etc). After that, we repacked our gear, and did it timed (not blacked out, though). Best time was 1:15 to Cape Coral PD. My time was 2:02.
After that, we moved to the pool, tossed our gear in, air off, then donned our gear underwater. Then we blacked out and the instructors screwed with us, turning air off, removing our tanks, regs, weights, tangling us in line, etc. for 5 minutes. Then we broke into two teams and practiced recoveries, focusing on grid search and arc search. Ended the day with debriefing and more p&p.
Day three was in our training lake. Two scenarios, one was a weapons search, the other a car recovery. Weapons search was pretty standard, started with a witness interview (witness was a "PD officer" who nabbed the bad guy and saw him throw something in the water during the pursuit). The instructor even arranged to have a guy show up and pretend to be fishing, encroaching on our crime scene. Another arranged encounter was with someone asking questions of the team (ended up being "press").
Car recovery was pretty cool. Interview with witness (who was fishing when the car went in) gave approximate location of the car, and that nobody had surfaced after the car went in. Further questioning revealed that shortly after the crash, a police car had driven by in code. A call to dispach revealed that there had been a robbery and that the PD had lost contact with the auto in question in the vicinity, and gave a description. Hopped in the water, found the car matching the description from dispatch and found a body in the driver's seat (right next to the teddy bear). Since the windows of the auto were broken, we decided to pull the body seperately from the car, so we bagged him and brought him to shore. Went I back to do a secondary search for a weapon used in the robbery, the instructor pulled me aside and instructed me to pull a lost diver drill, so Wildbill played the victim, I resurfaced and called for help. Safety diver was in the water within a minute, we recovered Wildbill, the weapon (pistol on the floor of the passenger seat), and hooked the car.
Again ended the day with debriefing and review of p&p.
Day 4 we dove in Charlotte harbor, next to the US 41 bridges (main bridges between Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte. We had the PD and SO boats anchored 30 and 50 yards out. Our two teams were to navigate out to the boats, perform a hull inspection, and return to our starting points. Diver 1 was navigator, 2 was distance man. Divers 1, 2, and 3 were to perform the hull search, and diver 4 was to navigate to the back of the boat and surface to keep an eye on the controlls and make sure the bad guy didn't try to start the engine (being prepared to disable it if he did).
We stacked, with divers 2, 3, and 4 carrying the search rope (which made a perfect buddy line). Diver 2 was instructed not to touch diver 1 so as not to mess up his navigation. We submerged, then the dive fell apart. Diver 2 immediately lost diver 1 (vis was inches) and dropped the rope, so diver 3 and 4 (me) continued and hoped to regroup at the anchor line. We ended up surfacing just short of the boat to find diver 2 on the surface and diver 1 not in sight. Went to the last seen point, about 60' past the boat and looked for diver 1's bubbles. No luck. After 3 or 4 tense minutes, diver 1 surfaces several hundred yards past the boat (almost in the middle of the harbor).
We regroup, and make some changes in the plan, including tethering diver 1 (we decided that drowning him was not a great idea - but it was close). This time, we make it out, and when the distance man calls it, we stop and prepare to do an anchor search for the boat. I bump into the anchor line, and pass it to diver one, and proceed to the back of the boat, surface and use the motor to hide me from any observation on the boat. The rest of the team performs the search, we hook up at the back, swim back to the anchor line, and make our egress. Couldn't have gone better.
Then we moved on to jackstay searches under the bridge for weapons recovery, which went well, then to Pylon searches where we discovered a road flare that had been attached to the pylon by our instructor the previous evening. Marked it and called in eod. Again ended the day with debrief and p&p.
Last day was reports day. We wrote up reports from our notes for all of the week's dives, did a review of p&p and ended the class.
This was a really cool class. I learned a lot, and, more importantly, did a lot of networking with other local PSD teams. We made some plans to have some coordinated training days with our local PD and got use of the fire department's compressor
. The instructor trains with the Miami/Dade PSD team, and it looks like we'll get some training days with them in the future as well.
