Baker To Vegas

We are full bore into the preparation to compete in the Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay. This is a 120-mile running relay from Baker, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. The race will take place on the weekend of April 20th and is open to Police Departments from all over the world. Depending on how fast the team is, the race could last anywhere between 14-19 hours. Because it takes place out west, most of the California agencies compete in it, but I’ve seen teams from as far as New York and Australia competing. Chula Vista, PD competes in the 300 Division and has both male and female officers. This means that we compete against other police departments with 200-300 sworn police officers. I would personally put our agency up against any other agency pound for pound, but it really wouldn’t be fair for an agency with 8000 sworn officers (like LAPD) to compete against a police department that only has 150 sworn officers. As I’ve stated in previous blogs, we employ about 250 sworn officers.

The race doesn’t take you straight up the I-15 from Baker. As if running in the high desert isn’t bad enough, the race takes you west of Baker and through the mountains before heading north through cities like Pahrump and Shoshone, Nevada. A couple of years ago, it was actually snowing up in the mountains. There are 20 sworn police officers that run on each team. The length of each stage can range from roughly 4 to 8 miles. Aside from the core runners, there are alternate runners and support staff. The alternate runners ride in the support vehicle during each stage of the race just in case the assigned runner suffers some catastrophic injury. A few years ago, I was driving the support van and as we approached a new stage, I was advised that the officer who was supposed to run that stage had not arrived and that the support runner would have to run. I told the support runner to start stretching and he said, “You’re kidding, right?” I looked back and he literately had beef jerky in his mouth. The support runner figured that he was just along for the ride and assumed that everything was going fine. He decided to start eating Doritos, beef jerky and soda. The junk food was supposed to be for the support driver and crew. The alternate runner didn’t realize that there was a cooler full of nutrition bars and sport drink for him. Anyway, he ended up having to run and all that junk food came back up during the stage.

Of course, it takes a huge commitment from the runners and support personnel to even get the team to the race. All members of the team use their own time to attend the race. This means that if your regular days off don’t fall on the days of the race, you have to use vacation to attend. The team members also have to pay for their own transportation and lodging at the race. There is quite a bit of fundraising that takes place and corporate sponsorships are always welcome. Any funds raised are used to cover the costs of support and shuttle vehicles. The support vehicle follows each runner during the race and the shuttle vehicles transport the runners and support personnel from the team hotel in Las Vegas to the various stages of the race and back. Money acquired through fundraising also pays for team warm up jackets, water and nutrition for the runners to consume during the race.

Several months ago, the runners began to prepare for the race. All of the team members train individually, but they have also been doing group runs at least once per week. In fact, they just completed a time trial to determine which runners will compete in the different stages of the race.

We’ve got some real talent on this team. Several of the members are on our SWAT team, so they maintain peak physical fitness year round. One of the guys is an Ultra-marathoner. As if 26 miles isn’t long enough, this guy regularly does 20-mile training runs and competes in races that range from 50-100 miles. What’s really impressive to me is that members of our command staff are on the team. Our Chief, Rick Emerson is running, as is a Captain, Lieutenant and Sergeant. On most agencies, members of the command staff will attend the race to support the runners. In our case, there’s no better motivation than knowing that the leaders of your organization are competing alongside rank and file employees.

To this point, most of the running has been geared to building aerobic capacity, but from here on out, all of the runners will be turning the screws in an effort to be at peak fitness come the day of the race. Again, all of this training is done on their own time and around their work and family schedules.

While all of this is going on, the support team members secure the best price for a hotel in Las Vegas, which difficult. Baker to Vegas race weekend brings several thousand law enforcement personnel and their families into Las Vegas for the weekend, so there is a premium on hotel rooms. The support crew makes all of the arrangements for the race including making arrangements to get runners to/from stages and ensuring that each runner checks in at team headquarters prior to the race. They also provide for the general welfare of the runners.

Baker to Vegas is a huge undertaking for everyone involved, but at the end of the day, it is a wonderful opportunity for friendly competition with other police departments and a great morale booster for our entire department. If you are ever in Las Vegas on race weekend, make an effort to catch the end of the race; it’s quite an event.

Disqualifier?

Last week, I received this question via e-mail:

"Hello, I have just read your blog on the 10 news web site, and it has inspired me in further looking into becoming a police officer. I have been researching careers in law enforcement for several months now and I believe I’m gonna give it a try. I’m just waiting to turn 20 ½. My only concern is if I will be disqualified because I have a speeding ticket from 2 years ago. Can you please let me know if this will automatically disqualify me from the application process? I would really appreciate it. Thank you.”

A speeding ticket from two years ago will not necessarily disqualify someone from the application process provided that there is no indication that the applicant hasn’t shown a pattern of committing traffic violations.

We don’t like to discourage anyone from applying to become a police officer, however, any applicant needs to know that, if they are hired, they will be held to the highest standard of integrity. The background process is extremely intense, sometimes taking as long as 18 months to complete. Anyone with any type of aspiration to become a police officer has to consider the decisions that he/she has made in the past. Remember, police officers are paid to make sound decisions, especially in high stress circumstances. If an applicant hasn’t made sound decisions as a civilian, he/she probably won’t make sound decisions as a police officer.

Remember that youth is not an excuse to make mistake after mistake. Unfortunately, a lot of people will come to us saying that they committed certain crimes or used illegal drugs as a young person, and they will chalk it up to being young. It’s one thing to experiment once or twice; it’s completely different to abuse.

We do understand that everybody does make mistakes at some point in their lives. If someone admitted to a mistake as a 17 year-old in high school, but has not made that same mistake since and is now 25 years-old, graduated from college, has a family and an exemplary work history, we would be inclined to look past that person’s mistake from 8 years prior. However, say a person says that he/she uses marijuana a couple of times per year and in some social situations, we would disqualify him/her from the application process.

The most important thing to remember as an applicant is to be honest right from the beginning. We can make exceptions for a lot of things, but the one thing that we (or any other agency) cannot tolerate is lying. Once a person is caught lying, he/she will have no credibility as a witness in court. If that person has no credibility in court, every one of his/her arrests could be thrown out. If an officer can’t get convictions out of arrests, there is no point in making arrests and if you can’t make an arrest then what good are you as an officer? Every potential police officer has to take some type of lie detector test (usually polygraph or voice stress analysis), and if that person is caught being deceitful, they are usually disqualified from the process.

So, to answer the question: Can a 2 year-old speeding ticket disqualify you from the police hiring process? Usually not, but again, we have to look at your entire body of work and see how it stacks up against other applicants. I hope this information was useful to you.

Thanks for participating.