Oh-h saaayyy can you O-C?!?

[Kalindras]

Alrighty, then...I am adding a new qualifier to my list of, "...Well, it could be worse..." descriptors. Added a list which has, up to now, included such memorable faves as, "...It could be worse, you could have Leprosy," "...It could be worse, she could be pregnant," and "...It could be worse, it could have been rectal," we are now adding, "...It could be worse, you could get sprayed with OC at the same time."

Last Friday, I became an official Correctional Officer for the State of Texas. Today, I started my OJT, which is the second phase of training, after the Academy. Wow, I thought, now we'll really get to see some action! Finally, we'll be out on the unit, working among peers and convicts...not this dry, old book-stuff!

Alas, last week, the unit locked down for its semi-annual Comprehensive Shakedown--a month-longish period wherein the inmates are confined to their cells, 24 hours a day. Sooooo, upon our arrival today, we got delegated to one of three things: 1) Making PB&J sandwiches for the inmates' meals (during lockdown, they eat in their cells), 2) Doing laundry (they don't leave their cells at ALL, even to go work or to school), or 3) Policing the grounds. WHEEEEE!!! :banghead:

But what of OC, I hear you asking? Well, as part of our ongoing training, at 1400, they lined us up outside, and proceeded to apply a healthy schmear of LE-10 OC spray to one side of our face. For those of you LUCKY SOULS who have never had the pleasure of encountering OC in the wild, let me pause and explain the basic experience:

1) The nice Sergeant asks you which side you want it on. MOOD: Apprehensive.

2) The choice having been indicated, he proceeds to whitewash your face from your scalpline to somewhere around your hip with a cosmetic sponge--which has been pre-moistened with slightly more OC spray than would be necessary for a similar project, say, putting a coating on the U.S.S. Nimitz. MOOD: Slightly panicky.

3) They tell you to take off down the hill towards the awaiting spectators (these events ALWAYS draw a crowd, and rest assured, next year, I'LL be there for it! ) MOOD: Relieved, it's not that bad...yet.

4) Roughly halfway down the way, the helpful man with the stripes on his shoulder orders you to OPEN YOUR EYES. Up to now, the sensation has been a bit of a tingle...nothing terribly unpleasant. You're thinking, "Hey, I must be one of those rare folks that this stuff doesn't affect! COOL!!" Then, as visions of barfights unchecked by the Police with their pepper spray are dancing in your head, it hits you. MOOD: AAAAIIIIIIEIEEEEEE!!!! IT BURNS!!! IT BURNS!!!!! AAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEIEIEIEIEIEEEEEEEEEE!!!

5) Staggering about, clawing at your face, the helpful spectators implore you to turn around and walk into the wind. This is actually helpful, and a jolly good idea. They ALSO tell you that it's imperative that you pry your eye open, "...And get some air to it." This is somewhat less helpful. MOOD: AAAIGGH!!! MUST...TEAR...SKIN...OFF...OF...FACE... MAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPMAKETHEBADMANSTOPMOMMY!!!!

6) For the next roughly thirty minutes to an hour (depending on your particular constitution, your tearducts, and the prevailing wind conditions) you will be essentially useless, stumbling about like a blind, three-legged dog trying to keep pointed into the wind, and wondering why , exactly you responded to that add in the paper/internet/job fair... MOOD: OOOOOH, F*** THAT SMARTS!!

7) Once the actual blinding, searing agony in your eyeball proper has diminished to the point that you can see , you are still not through this ordeal. No, because now the helpful Sergeant and his merry little band of elves come around, passing out damp paper towels, "...So you can wipe the stuff off." They try to keep a straight face as you attempt to do so, knowing full well that water basically just reactivates the compounds. Hilarity ensues as the whole process starts all over. MOOD: Wow...Thanks, Serge--AAAIAIIIIIEEEEE!!!!! MURDER!!! FIRE!!!! AAAAAAIIIIIGGHHH!!!!!

8) If you are the lucky type who get over it quickly, or have a high pain threshold, within a scant hour and a half, you are blessed with sight again, and indulgin in the hilarity of watching your lesser-capable classmates going through their throes. MOOD: I need to get OC-Training certified, because pepper spray is, apparently, the gift that keeps on giving.

And there you have it. It's now four hours later, and after a shower, I have what feels like terminal sunburn on one side of my face. Anyone else got any amusing OC anecdotes to relate?

 

[carpettbaggerr]

How many times does the Sargeant hit you before you can carry a baton?

And I guess you guys don't have guns at all, hmmmm?

 

[skidmark]

I am employed by the Virginia Dept of Corrections in a non-security position, but had to take the basic security training so I could supervise inmate work crews on occassion. OC was a part of that class.

I got out of getting covered with the stuff for two reasons -- the training changed from being hit with a spray to wrestling with a dummy sprayed head & chest -- so you could figure out what it was like to roll around with someone who still did not want to do it your way, and because I freaked out the class! Lecture just before lunch, then chow, and come back for the practical application phase. Someone has to be a genius to get that timing set up!! Anyhow, since I'm not security I can go off-site for lunch, and did just that. Ran down the road & picked up a hotdog, and kept it with me coming back to class. (Yes, we can eat during class, just gotta keep the place clean).

We all get lined up & told what is going to go on (great training technique -- tell them what you are going to say/do, say/do it, tell tham what you said/did)! About the time the trainer hauls out the can of OC, I ask to look at it. He puts it in my hand, & I bring out the hotdog & run a line of OC across the inside of the bun and commence to chow down.

No tears, no funny face gestures, just a bad hotdog with decent hot sauce.

Everyone else is looking and not believing it.

Trainer gets all flustered, recovers & goes on with the exercise while keeping an eye on me to see if my head will eventually explode. Nope - nada, nothing, zip except I finish the hotdog.

Meanwhile everybody else gets to wrestle the dummy & gets OC on their hands, gets done, forgets & wipes the sweat away. Oh the pain!

Trainer is still eyeballing me & forgets to make me wrestle. Still get checked of as having done the class.

Years of buddies sitting in the back yard with a plate of peppers (habenero, Scotch bonnet, etc) and an iced pail of beers seeing who flinches first finally paid off.

BTW, I have burned a few peppers on the stove & needed to put my head in a bucket, as well as being downwind of a few folks who got facepainted, so I know I will not just shake it off if it gets on my face. But in my mouth? Best hot sauce going!

stay safe.

skidmark

 

[Kalindras]

carpettbaggerr--

"How many times does the Sargeant hit you before you can carry a baton?

And I guess you guys don't have guns at all, hmmmm?"

SIX!! No, wait...FOUR!! Er...Blue? Dang, I knew the answer to this one...really, I did!! Now, all I remember are bright flashes of pain and what I think was someone screaming, "NOT IN THE FACE!! NOT IN THE FACE!!"

I think it may have been me. I sort of recognise that girly shriek.



But seriously...I'm surmising that the whole concept behind them spritzing us down with this stuff, OTHER than entertaining a sundry onlookers, is to familiarise us with the effects. Ostensibly, this a) gives us confidence in the tools we carry, b) prevents (hopefully) us from using the stuff frivolously, and c) gives us an idea of what to expect, should our OC be (gasp!) taken away from us by an inmate and used against us (now, mind you...this NEVER happens, because the kind, if somewhat errant, souls we are watching over don't spend all day long working out, fighting us and each other, and devising implements of death and destruction out of their typewriters ).

It's also a tad harder to give the same type of training with our firearms, both because a) no firearms are allowed inside the perimeter fence (see the parenthetical remarks, above), and b) few people can derive meaningful instruction from or with a sucking chest wound.

Skidmark--thou art a better, hardier, and more foolhardy soul than I. 'Nuff said! I bow in your presence, and tear up when following you in the bathroom.

 

[PUMC_TomG]

They only sprayed one SIDE of your face???

I got a full burst in the face for my training!

It was delicious.

They let us close our eyes due to the short range, to help avoid hydraulic needling, and to keep you from getting absoulutely totally flipped out at first. It dripped down into everyones eyes after our first task of 4 to perform however - so it wasn't a day at the beach.

 

[SGTIsaj23]

Trainin hijinks

I do truly believe that when instructors take the OC course any resemblence of humanity is removed.

When I took the course we got the full face, fogger spray with eyes open. Let me tell you, that is a shocker. I was still surprised and I had been sprayed in an incident by accident once before.

Anyway, we had several tasks to complete before decon. After each you completed the tasks you were supposed to go over to the wash sink and rinse your eyes. Here's where it got funny (only if you happened to know how to properly decon by experience). The instructors had filled the basin with a mix of baby shampoo and COOL water. They neglected to mention this to the first couple students who went and used the eye cups that were also attached to the sink. Needless to say, all of the inevitable onlookers had an amusing show and the instructors were just in hog heaven.

I too found it funny but I also had a decon spray in my pocket because like I said, it wasn't the first time I've been sprayed.

 

[HKUSP45C]

This reminds me of my sentiments toward OC.

"For the first thirty seconds I thought I was going to die, I was more afraid for next thirty minutes I wouldn't."

It hurt so bad I wanted to stomp bunnies. If only there were bunnies.

I've been stomped, really stomped, by angry men I had done wrong. I deserved their angst.

Nobody deserves OC.

 

[matt33]

My experience mirrors that of HKUSP45C's- Full blast directly in the open eyes at a range of about 4 feet. During the immediately 30 seconds following, I was forced to fend off an instuctor who was trying to steal my gun (fake red one for training). That was a long 30 seconds.

That was the single most painful half hour or so in my life. The heavy dose of PT for 15 minutes before and after being sprayed did not add to my joy. Unless absolutely nesessary, I would not spray my worst enemy with that stuff. If you've never been OC'ed, it feels like someone is putting a lit cigarette out in each of your eyes- yes, it's that bad.

 

[asleepinTucson]

Ahh OC qualifications... too much fun, perhaps that is why I will not change agencies since I don't want to go through it again.

Standing in front of a video camera. Say your name, SS #, and then full front face spray, then fend off several attacks from training officers before being led by your buddy to the water rinse stations.

I carry OC daily on and off duty. I know exactly what it is capable of.

 

[petro]

Btdt...

Been There, Done That


Last year, for OCAT certification for Campus PD. Nasty stuff, nasty. We got hit full face with a ballistic stream type, 2 million SHU, about 7% concentration. The ballistic stream spray is something akin to a super soaker stream. For the rest of my life, I will never forget that feeling. We got hit from about 15 feet away, had to turn and fight off a supervisor for 30 seconds before we got lead away for decon. Some guys got over it better than others; after about 45 mintues, I could finally keep my eyes open enough to walk into the slight breeze.

The main reasons for spraying for training:

1. In most cases were officers use OC, at least one of the good guys gets it too. You know what to expect.

2. Allows Officers to know what to expect when they do OC some one.


Stay Safe

Petro

 

[Kalindras]

Revisiting the joys of OC...

Well, I've been out on the floor for a couple of blocks, now, and been around for a couple of incidents (luckily, I've not been actually involved in any of said incidents).

It's been interesting to see just what sort of effects even being near the stuff will have on people. One of the more memorable ones ran something like this:

One of our Choirboys decided that he wanted to catch out of the particular pod that he was housed in, so he took himself a razor blade and was threatening another of the inmates. Picket officer dutifully calls for rank, and we proceed to step through the use-of-force continuum.

Aforementioned inmate decides that threatening latter inmate is not enough to get him transferred off the pod, so he comes after the Sergeant who had responded. Sarge lovingly, tenderly, with the greatest of compassion, hoses him down from scalp to shorts with OC. I mean, this loser looked like a danged CHEETOH, when they finally led him off. Incidentally, the general mindset is, "We have to fill out the same paperwork whether you use one ounce, or all six. Have fun."

Offender, now blind and apparently mentally affected, turns and runs to the end of the row (in an apparent attempt to fold himself up and slip himself under the locked steel door there... ). While there, he turns the razor blade on himself, slashing at his arm. The Sergeant, against all better judgement, desire, and common sense, attempts to stop him. Unfortunately, he has to pass through his own cloud of OC to reach the inmate. By this time, another officer has joined Sarge, and he, too, blows through the cloud to apprehend the idiot.

Upon reaching the end of the run, after ordering the offender to throw down the razor blade (the ignorance of which order, proves a mental handicap, in my view), they both proceed to spray him down AGAIN. The other officer described the effect as looking, "...Like I hit him with an air hose...it blew his hair all over the place!)

Shortly thereafter, the inmate having laid down the weapon, a free-for-all ensued as multiple attempts at blind hand-cuffing were made, involving two officers, three sets of restraints, five arms, and at least one elbow.

Afterwards, the Sarge returned to the desk (where I had been told to wait and point incoming assistance their way), and he had snot leaking out of places that no human should ever produce mucous from. He blew his nose (from a distance of about four inches--remember the OC on his face?!?) and it was the single most horrifying experience I've witnessed, sans bloodshed, since my child got the stomach flu.

The other officer came out a few minutes later, and together they had a competitive honk-fest for about ten minutes. Faces red, eyes still watering, and snot running down their chests, they tried to look casual until Medical called them over for the post-incident physical.

As an afterward, about two and a half hours later when I returned into the pod (supposedly after decon had been accomplished and the evacuation fans had run for an hour or so) there was still enough of a smell in the air to make your eyes water, several of the asthmatic offenders on the pod were huddled in the opposite corner sucking on their inhalers, and the cell door nearest the incident site looked like a graffiti display, all in bright orange!!

I'm just waiting...I know it'll happen, sooner or later, but I'm not looking AT ALL forward to my first incident. I'm hoping to retire from the TDCJ without a use of force to my name. Probably wishful thinking, but here's to the dream...