Officer Joan Straughter, a local patrol officer for St. Louis Police district 8, recently approached John Wood, vice president for student success, about the police academy’s need for a "fake" U.S. postal box. The academy has a shooting range located in South City at Highway 55 and Gasconade where officers perform training exercises. Currently, the academy is training new and veteran officers on a street scene which includes cars, buildings, trees and lamp posts. The officers run the course to simulate live action such as a shoot out or hostage situation. The street scene was missing a mailbox so teachers and students from Welding and Automotive Collision came together to create a life-like version for the training center. "Its very important for the training of officers that this scene be as realistic as possible," said rangemaster, Richard Long. "We thought it was really important to have a mailbox on the street scene," said Officer Straughter. "Officers oftentimes make the mistake of hiding behind a mailbox not realizing that the metal its made from is not very thick and it’s hollow. Bullets penetrate it very easily."
The mailbox, which was completed this week, will be added to the training street scene and will also be used to shoot a training video that will be distributed to other police departments nation wide.
Thank you to welding instructor, John Baima and welding student, Will Hutchins who built the mailbox according to postal service measurements and specifications and to ACR instructor John Helterbrand and ACR student, Clay Williams who painted the mailbox.
Photo L-R: Will Hutchins (welding) and Clay Williams (ACR)
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