Shut Out

Well, I was crushed to find out on Wednesday, March 27 that the police academy in Goulburn did not wish to entertain me as:

“There are some public liability issues around us divulging much of our use of force curriculum, which we are very protective of in the current legal environment.”

I mean, if I haven’t spilled the beans about their secrets since 1986, I might be deemed to be somewhat trustworthy. I was free though to make up a list of questions, but I could do that from back home instead of taking the show on the road as the Travelling Tactical Trainer.

I basically wasted an entire week. I arrived on the previous Friday (March 22) and was forced to stay in a really slummy room in the Alpine Heritage Hotel, which really needs a good bulldozing to fix all its problems. Some festivals were in town so there were no decent rooms available. The next night I slept in my vehicle in an otherwise totally vacant parking lot in a park until 03oo hrs when a large vehicle parked beside me with its music blaring, forcing me to move. I came back after daybreak and slept for an hour. I did find a great place to stay that Sunday night (Black Sheep Motor Inn).

So, you can see why I was depressed that when I got the word that that I was persona non grata at the academy. Despite this horrible start, I knew that my plan of getting my foot in the door would work, so I fanned out a few more emails of introduction and by April 2, Insp. Steve EVANS called me up from the Australian Federal Police Academy in Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). To to my huge relief, he invited me to his facility with open arms! What follows has been amazing…