After failing to keep the attention of officers in their new “retraining” program, the NYPD has now chosen to use a clip from Patrick Swayze’s “Road House” to teach cops how to behave, as reported by the New York Post.
The 1989 action movie is being integrated into the three-day mandatory training course for 22,000 officers after complaints that officers were falling asleep during the lectures for a program that teaches them to “take a deep breath” and close their eyes when dealing with tense situations.
“You have to have a thick skin,” an instructor told reluctant cops who took part in the $35 million program before playing the two-minute clip from the cult classic film shown below.
The new tactic was met with “smirking and stifling laughter” from the audience at the Police Academy.
“It’s just ridiculous, the stuff they’re showing us,” one officer said. “It’s crazy. They’re showing us something from a movie and they want us to act like that in real life. It’s not realistic — it’s Hollywood.”
On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to downplay the reports of the training saying the reports came from “some disgruntled individuals,” and asserted the program was “going to have a transcendent effect.”
Although there was no mention of the use of “Roadhouse,” an NYPD spokesperson claimed that cops “are not being trained to shut their eyes while in a possible confrontation situation.”
I think NYPD is the best in the nation. You turn out the best Police Officers in the country. Other states could learn from your way of training. My son tried to tell his sister who’s a cop, why not train Officers in some form of Martial, her come t was no we do fine. So he put her to the test, they used a plastic gun he had her down in less than two seconds. That she got a bigger officer, my son used BJJ on him took him down in less than a minute. They were so mad they said let’s go have a beer, it was fun, really my son said. He lost total respect. So yes California cops need more training.