Security police officer training class includes large group from LANL
A recent 34-member Tactical Response Force 100 class included 25 trainees from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
A recent Tactical Response Force (TRF) 100 class included a few locals and a contingent far away from home.
The Central Training Facility (CTF) graduated 25 Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel from the TRF-100 course, which is the Department of Energy National Training Center’s standard basic training course for the security police officer upon entry into the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) protective force community. Y-12’s CTF is certified to teach the National Training Center’s TRF-100 curriculum to anyone in the DOE system.
“This the first time we’ve done a large class from outside the Oak Ridge valley,” said CTF Manager Jim Hoffman. “It’s not uncommon to get a call from other sites asking if they can send folks to one of our classes, but it’s usually like one, two, or three students.”
The reason for the influx of Los Alamos students is because of the growth at the New Mexico site, and the National Nuclear Security Administration asked if the CTF could help. “They [Los Alamos] are going through expansion and needed additional classes to meet their needs,” Hoffman said.
The possibility of training a cadre of Los Alamos security police officers seemed unlikely until a shift occurred in the CTF's summer schedule. “When that happened, we’re able to do it,” Hoffman said. “We could help them out.”
The 34-member class also included three attendees from Sandia National Laboratories’ campus in Livermore, California, three from the Oak Ridge Federal Building Protective Force, two from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and one new CTF range instructor.
The seven-week course focused on handgun and rifle training, defensive tactics (hand-to-hand combat), and basic DOE tactics, such as bomb and building searches, despondent employees, direct threats, and more. In addition, students completed a prerequisite web-based course prior to TRF-100 training.
“It’s very difficult to conduct large classes for others,” said Capt. Lynn Bales, lead instructor. “You try to put a spin on the classes relating to individual sites. That is tough when you are training folks from outside your site. Los Alamos did provide an instructor, who we could lean on during the course.”
Adding to the degree of difficulty was the inexperience of the trainees. “The class dynamic was different for this one,” Bales said. “We had students with no previous law-enforcement or military backgrounds. They’re just starting their careers. We typically don’t see that. The instructors earned their pay with this class.”
The students put in a lot of effort, too. For the course, students had to achieve passing academic and shooting grades. The average academic score was 387.92 out of a possible 400. In firearms, the passing score is 320 out of a possible 400 and this class had a 367 average.
“The students worked very hard and had a 100-percent pass rate,” Hoffman said. “The CTF instructors are really good at what they do and they worked additional hours with the trainees to ensure a high passing rate.”