Police chief brings the training home

When it come to police training in Southwest Nebraska, the options are somewhat limited.

Law enforcement officials have the choice of either going to the eastern part of the state or bringing the training here.

For the past few years, the latter, for the most part, is the option McCook Police Chief Ike Brown has chosen.

Instead of taking his officers off the streets of McCook and sending them to seminars and training sessions 200 miles away, he has done what he can to bring the training here -- training that can be utilized not only by the McCook Police Department, but by the Red Willow County Sheriff's office and other law enforcement agencies in Western Nebraska.

Over the past few years, law enforcement officials have had the opportunity to learn how to handle hostage situations and have used the latest in computer and laser technology to learn the proper reaction to certain situations they may be faced with on a daily basis.

This week law enforcement agencies were given the opportunity to learn standardized field sobriety testing, developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission. The training taught officers how to deal with and recognize an inebriated driver and took them through the process from the first moment of contact through their court testimony. The standardized tests show a 97 percent success rate, according to David Anderson, instructor at the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center, meaning 97 percent of the cases tried using the results from the standardized testing have resulted in successful prosecution against the suspect.

That's good news, when you consider that 25,000 people die each year due to alcohol related crashes. Alcohol related crashes are the leading cause of death for young Americans, between the ages of 16 and 24 years old. For all Americans between 5 and 35 years of age, motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death. More than 50 percent of these accidents are caused by alcohol impaired drivers.

This training -- this standardized testing -- is important in stopping these deaths.

If even one life is saved because an officer was able to identify a person they suspect of driving under the influence and then use these tests to prove in court that they made the right decision through the use of their training, it is all worth the effort.

Now our local law enforcement officers have one more weapon in their arsenal to keep our roads safe and protect the people who are important to us.

Because you never know if that one life may be yours or that of someone you love.