Cadets Get a Chilling Message on Survival

The classroom lights are turned off at 8 a.m. sharp and a slide projector flashes horrifying images on the screen.

San Diego Police Officer Archie Buggs is lying on the street, blood spilling out from his head. He was shot execution style Nov. 4, 1978, while writing a routine citation for an open container of alcohol in a car.

Click. Click.

Pools of blood cover a Linda Vista driveway like large oil stains. This is where San Diego Police Officers Ronald Ebeltoft and H. Keith Tiffany were slain June 6, 1981, by a man outraged over a neighbor’s rose bush.

Click. Click.

The bullet-riddled body of a California Highway Patrol officer still in uniform is shown on an autopsy table. He was shot during a routine freeway traffic stop.

For 10 hours, dozens of police murders were replayed on slides, photos, movies and audio tapes for cadets in the 74th San Diego County Sheriff’s Academy’s course titled Officer Safety. They heard a tape of a patrolman moaning “I’m going to die,” and met a San Diego police officer who described how it felt to get shot six times at point-blank range.

“A police officer is killed (in the United States) every 3 1/2 days,” said Deputy Al Guerin. The instructor added that the average police shooting takes place after dark at close range and lasts less than three seconds.

“You guys are entering a whole new world,” said Guerin, who has been involved in three shootings. “We want you to survive because you’re skillful, not lucky. We want you to collect that 25-year retirement.”

Despite the early-morning hour, the cadets were wide awake and attentive as the violence unfolded on the screen. For many, law enforcement suddenly didn’t seem so exciting. They had been scared by the murder of classmate Kelly Bazer, but they

wrote off her killing as an isolated incident. Now, they were not so certain.

“It scared the hell out of me,” Cadet Jeff Loving, 21, said at the end of the day. “I’m married, I got a kid. That’s my life. The first time the job seriously gets in the way of my marriage, I’m out of here. It’s great to be a cop, but I can always work in construction.”

Loving was one of several cadets who said the class made them less anxious to hop in a patrol car and conduct dangerous traffic stops. For the first time, Loving said, he recognized the value of working inside a county jail for a couple of years to learn how to deal with criminals.

The Sheriff’s Department has a strong reputation within local law enforcement circles for supporting the use of force by deputies to defend themselves. By comparison, other law-enforcement organizations issue guidelines that define strict conditions under which an officer may pull out his gun, and that ban the use of certain equipment as weapons.

“We want to use the minimum amount of force necessary but . . . we like to teach these deputies how to use everything that’s at their disposal,” Sheriff John Duffy said in an interview. “Their fists, their hands, their fingers, their fingernails, flashlights, their clipboard, whatever, to use in some way as a defensive weapon when they have to. And their instincts will take over at the proper time . . .

“We don’t use maximum force for minimum situations. But, on the other hand, we get paid to win, not to lose, and I tell them that. I reinforce that every time I talk to them.

“But I tell them if you use excessive force . . . on somebody, I’ll personally book your ass in the county jail.”

The Sheriff’s Department scheduled the officer safety course late in the academy so that cadets are not so frightened that they turn in their badges. The class is designed to destroy the myth that police work, like “Starsky and Hutch,” is all glamour and glory. The instructors emphasized throughout the lecture that most officers who get killed could have survived if they had practiced a plan of survival.

“One-half of these kids will be affected by this,” Guerin said. “We try to scare the pants off them to let them know you can get killed doing this. About half of them think, ‘It can’t happen to me.’ ”

Guerin, who taught the daylong course along with Sgt. Alan Truitt, described the class as the most important of the dozens included in the academy. He said he gave the cadets answers to all of the test questions because the passing grade is based not on how well they do on the exam but whether they can survive on the streets.

“We’ll show you what you can do to make yourself a survivor,” Guerin said. “We want you to eliminate all unnecessary risks. Then all that’s left is the ones you can’t do anything about. Go ahead and enjoy them. That’s why you’re here. You want action.”

Truitt and Guerin, who are both assigned to the sheriff’s street narcotics team, have taught the class on officer safety since 1981.

“The first thing you think about in a shooting is, ‘Did I make a mistake?’ Not, ‘Is the guy dead?’ ” Guerin said. “From the time we’re a kid, we’re taught that it’s wrong to hurt people and it’s wrong to kill. Sometimes it’s right, but it’s unpleasant.

“You’ve got to psychologically resolve the moral and ethical factors of shooting beforehand.”

Law enforcement is the fourth most dangerous occupation, behind underground mining, construction and firefighting, Guerin told the cadets.

“The others are killed in a cave-in or a fire because of an accident,” Guerin said. “You get killed in police work because somebody made you a personal project . . . They will gain status in their subculture by killing you. And they enjoy it. That will be very hard to get used to.”

From the first day of the academy, instructors make the cadets feel vulnerable.

“We tell them from here on out you’re a walking bull’s-eye,” said Deputy Tom Cleary, who taught riot and mob control. “We instill a paranoia into them. When you walk out of here to go on duty, you never lose that. It keeps you alert.”

In the officer safety class, cadets learn that deputies make easy targets because they often are not prepared to take a life. That is the opinion expressed in a training film by convicted police killers serving life sentences in the Illinois State Prison.

“A great number of police officers are not conditioned for the job,” one police killer says in the film. “They drink too much and become fat . . . Most cops go into police work because they can’t find another job.”

Like many jobs, police work can get very routine. An officer who becomes complacent after responding to a series of “routine” calls is a prime candidate to get shot, Truitt said.

“I’ve told myself many times during the graveyard shift, ‘Truitt, you better wake up because you may have to kill somebody in the next five minutes,’ ” he said.

At 4:50 a.m. on May 9, 1981, San Diego Police Officer Robert Kobs responded to a report of a female beating up her mother. Kobs stopped two men and began a pat-down search when a woman came running out of a nearby house.

As Kobs turned to calm the screaming woman, one of the suspects sucker-punched him and kicked him in the head. Kobs told the cadets what happened next:

“I rolled over and tried to pull my baton out when I heard a gun go off, saw the muzzle flash and felt the pain all simultaneously. The first gunshot blew me off to the grass. I instantly went for my gun and it was gone . . .

“It starts to dawn on me that he has my gun. He fired the second shot and hit me in the left leg. . . . I knew I was going to die with this jerk firing my own gun.

“When he fired the third round, something subconsciously came to me. I’m not going to lie here for this . . . I’m going to do something about it. I wanted to live more than at any time in my life.”

Kobs said he started to roll back and forth trying to dodge the bullets.

“He wasn’t as bad a shot as I hoped. He emptied all six rounds and hit me six times . . . I firmly believe he was looking for an opening. The minute I gave it to him, he took it . . . Nothing provoked him other than he had a general dislike for police officers.”

Kobs was shot in both legs, once in the back and once in the stomach. He spent three weeks recovering in the hospital. He is still assigned to light duty but hopes to someday return to patrol. Kobs said the gunman has three to seven years left to serve in prison and that his accomplice was released in July, 1984.

“You will find when you get to the field you will start out safety conscious, then quickly become lax,” Kobs warned the cadets. “Don’t get complacent. I had been to six other 415s (disturbance calls) that night. My attitude was another 415, take names and set them loose. I wasn’t thinking there could be a shooting. Don’t get caught like I did flat-footed . . . I let my guard down too soon.”

Truitt and Guerin provided the cadets with numerous alternatives to help them develop a plan of survival in the event they face a situation similar to the one that confronted Kobs.

“I’ve made a personal decision I will never let somebody shoot me like a dog,” Guerin says. “I’ve made plans to avoid that. Something you should think about.”

The Times agreed in advance not to publish many of the recommendations to keep the information away from criminals. The following are some of the safety suggestions given to cadets:

- Always keep your eyes on a suspect’s hands. If someone walks up to you with his hands in his pockets, be suspicious, even if you are waiting in line with your girlfriend outside a movie theater.

- Don’t stop target practice after graduating from the academy. Practice loading your gun at night and shooting with your weak hand. After shooting more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition during the academy, many deputies do not touch their gun, Guerin said.

- Get in the habit of doing the little things that could save your life. When you park the car on a routine stop, for example, always crank the wheel. You may need the angled tire for cover if shots are fired.

- Prevent ambush attacks by altering your daily routine. Don’t start every shift at the same place on your beat and don’t eat at the same restaurants. “Trust your instincts,” Guerin said. “If you feel funny about going down an alley at night, don’t go down.”

The warnings left many cadets stunned about their new profession.

“I’ve really wanted this career for a long time,” said Joseph Marquette, 24, as he fought back tears. “I’ve never had second thoughts about this career until today . . . It scares me. It does. They put us through scenarios, role play and war stories, but what they showed us today . . . this is real.

“I always felt I could kill if I have to. Now I wonder.”