Drug Bust

Yesterday, I was handcuffed and frisked during a drug bust. It happened while I participated as a volunteer role-player during a police training exercise. Three of us were talking by the side of a building. As two police officers approached, one of my compatriots dropped a bag of “drugs” and all three of us took off in opposite directions. The exercise was to train the police officers on how to handle a situation when there are more potential bad guys than officers. The “dealer” who dropped the bag then pulled a knife and the officers had to neutralize that threat. We repeated this exercise nine times for the total group of eighteen officers being trained. Several times I was allowed to wander off. Some times the officers halted me through voice commands. One officer grabbed my arm and one handcuffed me. When I was allowed to wander off, I circled back, and they had to deal with me again. Then we participated in a Rapid Entry Deployment (RED) where an active shooter was in a building. I was hiding in one of the rooms and the RED team had to find and search me as they swept the building. This all served a useful purpose in police training and helped me as a mystery writer understand more about police procedures.