Several weeks ago, Fox’s Let’s Be Cops issued a challenge to the Imgur community. What would you do if you were a cop? The winner would be flown to Los Angeles for real police training with LAPD. A challenge was issued, and good guy OP delivered.
Meet Kaan.
Kaan, aka dartboardblue, is an aspiring math teacher from Florida. He loves judo and self-defense, and has been an Imgurian for two years, though admittedly identifies as more of a lurker. Taking a stranger from the Internet and giving them a gun definitely had the potential to go terribly awry, but Kaan was awesome. His down-to-earth, positive attitude was unwavering.
Kaan’s adventure began at the shooting range where Officer Dave, a member of the LAPD for 15 years and general gun expert, gave the safety rundown. There was no way he was going to let anyone get away with bad firearms handling. Kaan took to the Glock like a pro, learning to take it apart, load it, cock it and aim it.
Next came target training. The quest was simple–effectively aim the gun toward the target and fire. The pistol was first.
Followed by the shotgun.
Finally, the M4.
“I was nervous the first time I shot the 9mm,” Kaan recalled. “I had never used a gun other than paintball and air soft. The recoil was a bit harsh, but after handling the shotgun and M4, the pistol was nothing.” After getting to know Kaan, it came as no surprise that he was a natural; he nailed nearly all of the targets. After a few hours, Officer Dave felt he was ready to move onto combat training, which meant moving while firing, as well as quickly changing from one weapon to another.
On day two, the firearms were replaced by real police cruisers. The key to driving like a real cop is effective management of braking, acceleration and steering using skill and physics, with the goal of catching a suspect in a pursuit. Statistically, the suspect will crash within two minutes, so, according to the police driving instructors, “It’s a race to finish second.”
At the end of the day, Kaan applied what he’d learned to a final mock police pursuit. He wasn’t quite able to catch the bad guy, but he improved his original time by 15 seconds!
He also got to meet the cast!
Special thanks to Fox’s Let’s Be Cops for making one Imgurian’s police training dreams come true. Since training with LAPD, Kaan has been visiting a shooting range in his hometown to hone on his skills. As for driving, he uses caution when testing out what he’s learned so he doesn’t end up in the back of the police car.
For more images from police training, check out Sarah’s post on Imgur.