Day 1 of MHP Patrol School (pictures)

[QuietPro]

Further..... I went through AA and AB Schools while in the Army and we didn't do retarded crap like that..... Yelled at, roll around in sand and sawdust pits, doing PT, running....? Yeap.......

They put you guys in sawdust pits back in the 'Nam, Boss?

Humor aside, I know you don't agree with me. But I stand by my post. You DO make an especially valid point on one thing: That Jelly-Belly standing around watching. GREAT example for your Cadets.......

[Young SGT]

Sounds to me like you just don't agree with it, which is fine. I'll let you in on a secret. The guys in the front leaning rest did something to get called out and smoked. Pictures don't mean anything.

[Bearcat357]

They put you guys in sawdust pits back in the 'Nam, Boss?

Saw wood pits @ Jump School @ Benning in 85.....

Sand pits in Hawaii in 89 at AA School.....

Fun stuff......

Humor aside, I know you don't agree with me. But I stand by my post. You DO make an especially valid point on one thing: That Jelly-Belly standing around watching. GREAT example for your Cadets.......

I just there are better, proven ways to train folks than what they are doing currrently. Especially with the haircuts bs and portable PA's jammed in folks ears..... Wanna be tough on them...? Great....but that just looks foolish in my book......

And yeah....the jelly-belly, no matter who he is, isn't the best example in the world for newbe Cadets.......

[QuietPro]

^^ 10-4

[mach1]

4 Guys from patrol school went to the ER last night with Kidney Failure, my understanding is one is in bad shape.

[Bearcat357]

Sounds to me like you just don't agree with it, which is fine. I'll let you in on a secret. The guys in the front leaning rest did something to get called out and smoked. Pictures don't mean anything.

Other ways that are much more effective to train folks than smoking them just because....having staff shave their heads and taking pictures of it.......and yelling at them using bullhorns.....

Just sayin'.......

[BamaCounty]

4 Guys from patrol school went to the ER last night with Kidney Failure, my understanding is one is in bad shape.

MMM. I wonder how come. Just let a lawyer get in contact with these guys and watch out from there. 4 guys in the ER if tha don't smell like died fish, I don't know what is.

[headonstraight]

My take:

Full disclosure - I applied for this class and very much would have liked to been a part of it, regardless of what I would have had to endured to graduate.

It is hazing. I don't deny that some degree of hazing-like behavior is a necessary evil to simulate stress within the cadets, but I think MS highway patrol definitely wins the prize for having the most paramilitary environment and the most hazing-like techniques.

Their methods undeniably produce tough troopers: Troopers who can do a lot of push ups. Although MHP doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to criminal procedure.

I have a few personal friends who are attorneys around the state and they have not had the most favorable comments about the troopers knowledge in court as well as comments about how many troopers struggle to write a readable report.

Furthermore, if you ask any well-trained DUI officer about MHP DUI procedures, they will probably roll their eyes.

MHP is old school and apparently that is the way they want to keep it. Again, I would have been honored to have been a part of it and I knew full well going in about their hiring practices and that it was a slim chance for me to get in without the proper political connections.

As mentioned, several other states have excellent DPS systems that hire based upon merit, qualifications and experience. They have less hazing (notice I didn't say none) and their troopers spend more time learning law and procedure and less time doing push ups.

Some people are trying to talk out of both sides of their mouths. In one thread it is, "MHP is SO tough, you have no idea, you can't make it, it is the hardest thing ever" and now all of a sudden that it is being questioned as a bad thing, they are saying "Oh cmon, this is common".

Please tell me how any of the following is not hazing:

-Waking up in the middle of the night with a megaphone and being told to pick up your bed and move it into a field and sleep there, only to be woken up an hour later and being told to move the bed back indoors.

-PT'ing all morning for hours, lining up in the mess hall for lunch, being handed a tray and being told to put the tray down, do not eat anything as there will be no lunch served today, only more PT.

I am not against para-military, in fact I am for it. But MHP practices are archaic and prehistoric.

Self explanatory:

4 Guys from patrol school went to the ER last night with Kidney Failure, my understanding is one is in bad shape.

[mach1]

@Bama the kidney failure was due to lack of hydration.

I was there and decided to leave, because my health and family is more important then MHP. I trained for 5 months for the academy and lost 35 lbs, and that wasn't enough to prepare me. You have to be in extremely good physical condition. There is no doubt there is a lot of hazing, but that is not why I left.

@Headonstraight I disagree with needing a political connection to get hired. I have no connection at all and dont know any troopers. I dont know how much experience you have or anything about you. But most cadets at the academy had law enforcement exp, military, college or all three. Better luck next year, the staff seemed sure there would be a school next year.

[BamaCounty]

@Bama the kidney failure was due to lack of hydration.

I was there and decided to leave, because my health and family is more important then MHP. I trained for 5 months for the academy and lost 35 lbs, and that wasn't enough to prepare me. You have to be in extremely good physical condition. There is no doubt there is a lot of hazing, but that is not why I left.

@Headonstraight I disagree with needing a political connection to get hired. I have no connection at all and dont know any troopers. I dont know how much experience you have or anything about you. But most cadets at the academy had law enforcement exp, military, college or all three. Better luck next year, the staff seemed sure there would be a school next year.

Lack of hydration happens when you don't get enough breaks and breaks for getting water. I agree family a lot more important than staying and being haze. I would leave in a new york min fellow by a few phone calls. This is dumb as heck too do. As I have stated many times so far, if a group of highschool kids did this too their teammates or a frat there be all kinds of hail being raise.

[BamaCounty]

headon we chatted about this and I agree there better ways to GATA your rookies. The above and many other pictures are hazing. If you heard of a bunch of highschool kids doing this to freshmens and picture got out, and base on what you see MHP doing, what would you call it? Hazing. If a bunch of frat guys were in a hallway in a frat house with people standing over them with megaphones, what would you call it? I have yet been too a call where anyone was standing in the hallway with a megaphone yelling.

If it's un-acceptable for the above too do it , then its un-acceptable for any academy to do it.

[Young SGT]

Geezus, we get it. You think it's hazing. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of training you must've gone through.

[headonstraight]

@Headonstraight I disagree with needing a political connection to get hired. I have no connection at all and dont know any troopers. I dont know how much experience you have or anything about you. But most cadets at the academy had law enforcement exp, military, college or all three. Better luck next year, the staff seemed sure there would be a school next year.

I disagree that MHP hires based upon merit. I realize that it not required to have political connections, but there is a lot of that going on. As far as my comment about experience, I didn't mean that they don't hire those with prior LE experience, but rather what your experience is based upon. In other words, what have you done as an LE that should make you one of the best? What makes you qualified to move up to a state agency? Is it your merits and qualifications or rather did you form the right relationships with the right people during your time as a local LE? It tends to be a lot of the latter.

During my "oral interview" at MHP, I was asked no questions about myself or anything personal whatsoever. They learned nothing new about me during the interview. It was 3 questions (and fairly closed questions at that) that took about 5-10 minutes. And that is including the time that I spent trying to cram as much "oral board material" as I could into the limited opportunity.

If they do not attempt to conduct a proper interview, how are they even pretending to make unbiased decisions? How are you supposed to find out which cadets are articulate without giving them an oral interview? These practices are causing the agency to not move forward. Not necessarily backwards, but they are not moving forward. That said, I still would have been thrilled to have been included in patrol school. It is a well-paying agency that would allow me to be pro-active, which is exactly what I want, but luckily there is more than one agency that I can do that at.

All of the other states who have excellent DPS depts have decided to adopt better hire practices. Experience is great, but what exactly is your experience composed of? Did you write a lot of DUIs/make a lot of arrests? Did you have a strong court record? Can you demonstrate that you are proficient and competent? These are some of the things MHP is missing out on.

Example: This guy below me got hired over me.

Y u did not make it to the next setp.. what happen,,

hey, did u say that you did not make it to the next step.. if not.. y..

Such a well-spoken young man. I'd love to read his reports.

[rgr2day]

I cannot agree that this is hazing. Idiotic, perhaps. But not hazing. Doing push-ups, squat thrusts, etc....is P.T.; nothing more. Conditioning for the body, nothing more than that. Looking on the facebook page, I see the Cadets have water. They have multiple instructors out there to observe their cadets. If a cadet was seriously injured or killed in this type of training, I highly doubt that this type of training would be allowed to continue. As long as the cadre is obeying established safety protocols, I see nothing that is immoral or overly degrading that is happening to these cadets.

There are many of us that have attended military schools of a much more exreme and punishing environment than this. Ranger, Airborne/Air Assault, Special Forces, Pathfinder, SEAL, MARSOC.....etc....Would you condsider that hazing, or training? No; if I saw something illegal, overly degrading, or immoral going on there- Being forced to roll in your own vomit, for example.....yes, I would agree. But in this case, no.

Doing P.T. and sweating in of itself is not hazing.

Ask plenty of guys who are troops with MHP who have done the things you mention in the military if the things you mention are far more challenging than patrol school,........I think the answers you get will be the contrary of what you think.

[Young SGT]

An outside source compiles the data. Not the Highway Patrol. That's where they fail.