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BPD Officers get technical with traffic crashes

Bellevue officers Carl Grubb, Chad Reed, and Mike Petitt recently attended "Technical Traffic Crash" class in Omaha. This was a two week class held at the Omaha Police Training Academy. All 3 Bellevue officers were able to attend at no cost. This the third class in a series of traffic crash classes. The series of classes starts with Basic Crash, Intermediate Crash, Advanced Crash, Technical Crash, then onto Accident Reconstruction. Once Officers Grubb and Pettit pass this class they will be able to take the next step in the series, Traffic Crash Reconstruction. Officer Reed successfully passed Traffic Crash Reconstruction in 2008 when the Institute of Police Technology and Management (IPTM) brought this class to Bellevue for officers to attend.

During the two week technical class officers used cars to lay down real skid marks on the pavement and actually measure them to see how fast the car was traveling and the frictional value of the roadway surface. Officer Reed said they also crashed two cars on the training ground property and had to determine how fast the cars were going and other facts about the real crash, and explained, "the training focused a lot on using lineal and 360 momentum to determine speeds at impact. Using this in the field will sometimes allow us to make that assessment after a crash."

At the end of the two weeks officers will have to successfully pass a practical test as well as a written test. There were a total of 22 officers in this class from Bellevue Police, Omaha Police, Lincoln Police, Council Bluffs Police, Ralston Police, LaVista Police, Lancaster County Sheriffs Office, Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office, and the Nebraska Air National Guard. The class was taught by officers from both Omaha Police and Council Bluffs traffic units.

Both Reed and Grubb are assigned to the Community Policing\Traffic Unit and both are active members of the BPD Crash Investigation Team. Pettit is currently assigned to the "C" shift road patrol.