By Kelsey Givens
“Taser, taser, taser!”
Those three words were the only warning cadets received before a surge of electricity shot through their bodies, incapacitating them, as they experienced the true power of a stun gun.
During the most recent police academy exercise Tuesday, cadets were exposed to the non-lethal weapons they will likely carry, and might use, as deputies, including tasers, pepper ball guns and Oleoresin Capsicum OC spray.
The purpose of the exercise was to help cadets understand what each of these weapons feels like.
After going through this, cadets will hopefully be more humane in deciding when to use force, and understand how to work through them should they ever have to in an emergency, Assistant Sheriff Rick Marshall explained.
“Students get exposed to it so that they can see the effects it has should someone manage to get their taser away from them or their OC. They see how incapacitating it is and they actually learn from it so they’re more humane in their use of it,” he said.
The day began with the taser exercise, which was conducted inside the sheriff’s office in a room currently serving as the cadets’ classroom.
The sheriff, assistant sheriff, captain and many other deputies and detectives dropped in to watch and help film the exercise, as well as to laugh at the pain they knew first-hand the cadets were going through.
As taser instructor, Det. David Boruchowitz got his stun gun ready and began by asking who wanted to be first, the cadets’ anxiety and apprehension could be felt hanging in the air.
The first to go were Jeremy Bunker, 32, and Alvin Hill, 50.
Each of these two chose a different means of receiving their shock.
Cadets had a choice of being shot with probes or having alligator clips hooked up to their clothes. It was split about half and half who chose which means of getting their jolt, Marshall said.
Bunker went first, choosing to get the probes.
Boruchowitz gave him a warning and then shot him in the back from several feet away. The taser clicked loudly as electricity surged from the gun to Bunker.
His body seized up; he had to rely on his spotters to keep him upright, before the shock stopped and he was laid flat on the ground.
While lying on the ground recovering, Boruchowitz used that time to show the cadets the proper way to remove the probes from a suspect.
One by one the cadets stepped up on the blue mat, and had their arms held by spotters as they faced away from Boruchowitz waiting for their shock.
Several times, Boruchowitz decided to mess with the anxiously waiting cadets, yelling taser, taser, taser without actually shooting them.
Other members of the force continually tried to offer advice about the exercise to cadets to make it easier on them.
“Just remember, whatever you think you’re going to say when you get tased is what you’re going to say,” Sheriff Tony DeMeo explained to the cadets, trying to help them not yell out anything embarrassing when they took their turn.
Another deputy even advised Kaitlyn Ferrel, 22, not to use the alligator clips, telling her they hurt more than the probes. DeMeo agreed, explaining the clips hurt more because, “with the probes you’re getting direct contact, but with the clips you get arcing, which hurts a lot more.”
Though this was a serious training exercise, that couldn’t keep everyone in the room from laughing each time a cadet reacted to the taser.
“I enjoyed it immensely; it was an electrifying experience,” Boruchowitz, who has been certified as a taser instructor for five years, said after it was all over.
He even made jokes about Mike Connelly, 23, after he looked overly sympathetic for the people he was spotting while they got tased.
With each passing round, cadets seemed to be looking forward to moving on from the tasers to the OC exercise.
Other officers in the room continued to tell them the OC was much, much worse, however, and they’d be wishing they were getting tased again by the time they were finished.
Once everyone had their turn, the class moved outside to the back parking lot of the sheriff’s office to begin the pepper ball and OC part of the day.
They started with the pepper balls, lining the cadets up along the fence and going down the line, one by one, shooting them with the powdered pellets.
After they had each been shot, it was finally time to be sprayed in the face with OC.
One at a time, deputies shot cadets in the face with the reddish orange spray, forcing them through several stations before they could be taken to the hose to rinse off.
Cadets had to jog forward and perform jumping jacks while reciting the phonetic alphabet and then run forward and order an imaginary suspect to the ground, before they could go to the hose near the edge of the parking lot.
What made the cadets even more flustered was Boruchowitz running behind them the whole time yelling at them, trying to get them to focus like it was a real situation.
“You’ve gotta fight through it, get your eyes open,” he would yell from behind each of the cadets.
Even after rinsing their faces off, cadets staggered around the parking lot like lost souls, trying to force their eyes open and recover.
Marshall said it takes about an hour to recover from the spray.
“It was really incapacitating,” Ferrel said of the experience.
“The OC spray is a non-flammable, water-based repellent that has Oleoresin Capsicum in it and it uses a habanero pepper grind in oil for the irritating agent. And it confuses and disorients someone. It attacks the mucus membranes, it attacks the eyes to make them blind and it gives the impression they’re choking or suffocating. It’s another way to take someone into custody compliant without injuring them,” Marshall explained.
After it was all over, the cadets were split on which part of the training was worse.
About half said they thought the taser was worse and the other half said they thought the OC was worse.
“I’d rather do pepper spray than taser,” Connelly said.
“At least with the taser you could fight someone after about five seconds were up,” Chris Hopson, 22, said.
Unfortunately for these cadets, this won’t be the last time they are subjected to the pain of the taser or OC.
In order to remain certified, Marshall said they have to go through this once a year as long as they want to remain on the force.
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – Nye County Sheriff’s Cadet Chris Hopson reacts to a face full of pepper spray during a training exercise at the sheriff’s office on Basin Avenue. Cadets got a lesson in the use of non-lethal force and an up-close-and-personal introduction to pepper spray, pepper balls and a taser.
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – NCSO Cadet Alvin Hill wears the orange — and painful — tinge of pepper spray on his face and chest after being doused during training.
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – Cadet Elia Johnson appears to have a spiritual moment as she is tased during cadet training on Tuesday.
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- Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – Cadets Alvin Hill and Kaitlyn Ferrel get tagged by NCSO Deputy John Kakavulias, seen here on Tuesday firing pepper balls at the squirming cadets.
While I understand these “non-lethal” devices seem to help save lives, this “training” looks like something out of a bad movie, does the training include the statistics of how many people die or are tortured by cops that go to far or use the devices to punish instead of restrain? The fact that pepper spray can kill asthmatics? That a taser can be lethal to people with heart conditions? The use of any of these items is suppose to replace deadly force, but that’s just not happening, to often we see cops use tazers to punish people already restrained, or pepper spray college kids practicing their first amendment rights. The amount of smiles and laughter at this “training” event reveals a sadomasochistic side to our officers, they think this is funny to zap people and spray people with pepper spray, I see no signs of trying to instill a more humane treatment of suspects, this is sad, and has no honor, are sheriffs dept should be embarrassed, this article makes them look like the stereotype of a bad cop.
It is nice to see everyone’s TOP COP laughing while a member of the department, although a cadet, get tased. This is the mentality of the members of this department. Yet he wants to sue for millions when he is the one who should be sued….more to come later.
Oh if anyone is questioning the photograph, look at the one above with this caption or in the hard copy of the paper….Horace Langford Jr. / Pahrump Valley Times – Cadet Elia Johnson appears to have a spiritual moment as she is tased during cadet training on Tuesday.
I possibly spoke to harshly in my earlier comment, the article doesn’t make our cops look like “bad cops” but it does remind me of a bad episode of “Reno 911″. I hope our police force only uses these devices in place of lethal force, and not as tools of submission.
I HAVE TO WONDER HOW LONG THIS TYPE OF TRAINING HAS TAKEN PLACE. IT IS MENT AS THE STORY READ. THE TASER AND OC. TRAINING ITS PURPOSE WAS TO MAKE THE CADETS FUTURE DEPUTIES MORE HUMANE. I WONDER IF THIS IS A RESULT FROM BEING SUED FROM A OLDER MAN WHO WAS TASED OVER AND OVER WHO SUFFERED PERMANENT INJURY?
I would rather our new potential cops be trained to know what this stuff feels like before they deploy it on a suspect.
Yes, these devices can be lethal, but its better than a bullet isn’t it?
If they have to subdue a crazed druggie, I would rather they “take a chance” tazing him then simply shooting him.
In the training I did in another state for security, I was pepper sprayed, yes it sucked, but we all laughed about it in the end, and I knew what it was like if I ever had to deploy it.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there have been cases of tazer abuse, but this story is simply showing the cadets going through the training, and I would rather have them knowing what to do and how to do it, then ignorant of how the devices work and what their effects are.
It’s up to you if you don’t want to be sprayed or tased do what the officer tells you to do . If you are nice to them thy will be nice to you. You set the tone. They are there to help .
WRONG! These devices were meant to replace deadly force, not become tools to submission, they are used to often, for the wrong reasons, this training to instill humane treatment of suspects fails when you got a trainer using catchphrases and saying how much he enjoys electrocuting people, I’ve lost some respect for our sheriffs dept.
Way to show the world all of your tactics, why have an academy? Why not just train at the high school?
@ roger you don’t need to know the effects on you as an officer, if that was the case we would all shoot ourselves before we carried the gun! This was again a way for certin people to get free face time on the news, have you ever seen other police academy’s let the news shoot film of their training? This is simply just another way of free air time for candidates, otherwise the instructor would have been interviewed!
FWIW 2 of my friends have gone through a police academy (in another town) and they both needed to be tazerd and maced as part of the class. As stated in the article, they need to do this yearly to be certified in its use.
Secondly, what candidates do you see? I don’t see any candidates here? Its a news story about cadets, PVT has done these stories many times before as have the local tv stations.
since you happen to mention it i myself have seen on several different occasions and on several different programs ( news and otherwise ) cadets being tasered and sprayed and the cadets being intervied without the instuctors.
and even if it were true that this particular story were just to get some free ink for some of these kids so what? who cares?
i think it’s good for the public to see what these young men and women have to go through before they are sent out to protect you and i.
maybe it will give some people a new respect for what they have to endure.
they sure as hell aint getting into it for the money.
let them have their moment in the sun. it could be awhile before they have any recognition from the general public for quite some time.
Having taught in several police academies through this state, this training is the same given all over the State of Nevada and in other states as well. A couple of years ago a reporter in Las Vegas was invited to (and did) attend several portions of the LVMPD (Metro) academy and did a TV series on her experience. Also, both the NHP and Nevada POST academies in Carson City have had news media coverage on their respective acadamies over the years, including inviting reporters to participate in different events.
As for the statement “you don’t need to know the effects on you as an officer, if that was the case we would all shoot ourselves before we carried the gun”, that is a ridiculous statement as we all know the effects a firearm has on the human body, however, pepperspray and Taser have been shown to have great effect on some, moderate effect on some and little to no effect on others. The point is each officer has to understand the effect it has on the individual officer and the potential results of a suspect gaining control of either from the officer.
As for the training tactics, this goes back to the news media attending the different academies and, since pepperspray and Taser’s are available to the public, there is no training tactics secret.
As for the interviews, the instructor(s) were interviewed as were the cadets, what the PV Times decides to print is up to them.
Richard Marshall