Serpentine exercises, evasive steering, dynamic lane changes using the Baird’s Judgement Drill and straight-line braking were a few of the exercises Columbia County Sheriff’s deputies performed during a two-day pursuit training last week.
Deputies began in the classroom July 21 learning about elements of pursuit training but spent most of the class on the driver training track complex for the hands-on experience.
“Pursuit driving is one of our newest ventures, and we think it is important because there are too many agencies’ officers go through their basic academy training and field training, and then out there performing their duties, they get involved in a pursuit and they’ve had no formal pursuit training,” said Russel Canterbury, Columbia County Sheriff’s Office training lieutenant. “We felt like it was important to at least cover the basics of pursuits, so they experience it out here in a training environment versus out on the road.”
Columbia County Sheriff’s Office training complex opened in 2015, and the track has been operational for four years now according to Lt. Canterbury. Canterbury also said the pursuit training class is in its second year.
According to Major Steve Morris, the pursuit training is a requirement for all deputies going through field training or on the job training. Supervisors may also send current officers who they feel will benefit from the training and deputies themselves may request an available vacancy in the course if they desire to improve or reinforce their abilities.
“The most important thing as far as pursuit driving is the legal aspects as far as when to pursue and when not to pursue,” Canterbury said. “As far as operational, the most important thing is managing the weight transfer of the car because if you don’t manage the weight transfer of the vehicle, you won’t have control of the vehicle.”
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The hands-on experience factors in daily realities.
“The training culminates with reality-based training on the pursuit track, which include the use of decision making by the students (decision to pursue, to terminate), lines of travel, scenarios and forces the students to utilize radio traffic,” Morris stated in an email. “Cones are used to simulate traffic congestion, road construction and high-risk areas such as school zones.”
Deputy Brian Hood was one of the four deputies in the pursuit training class. Hood has been a deputy with Columbia County for almost two years.
“It definitely allows us to learn the ability of the vehicles and ourselves,” Hood said. “It gives us the ability to understand the limits of the vehicle and to maintain safe handling and prevents us of getting in an accident and allow us to judge how far we can go before we need to either stop pursuing somebody or just reevaluate road conditions for the safety of the public.”
Deputy Jesus Muniz recently transferred from North Carolina, where he was a deputy for four years. He has been with Columbia County for about one month. Muniz said this training is important because of safety and it helps build confidence.
“We can go to a shooting range and practice our marksmanship skills because you can just go out and pay for it. You really can’t go out and pay for this type of training,” Muniz said.
Chris Rickerson is a staff reporter covering Columbia County government and general assignment topics for The Augusta Press. Reach him at chris@theaugustapress.com.
