The screening is approved by Dallas' Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research. Tracy Weems, with the Abilene Police Department's SWAT team, said although there's no continuous training program within the department, individual officers understand the need to be healthy. Plus, SWAT members undergo the same academy screening at least once or twice a year. Abilene recently implemented a multidirectional shooting range to allow more realistic exercises. And when training his Austin cadets, Milstead said he pushes recruits in simulations of real-life police practice.
Cadets run a course, shoot, change magazines, run again and shoot again.
Afterward, trainees and instructors compare targets hit while the cadet was standing still and targets hit after a simulated foot chase. That's my way of motivating them. When it all boils down, that's all that's there. Austin police officer Randall Milstead stretches prior to a 5K road race Wednesday that was part of the 1999 Texas Police Games. Milstead, who attended Howard-Payne University in Brownwood, spent summers in Abilene as a child.