PERU – A Lewiston police officer visited a third-grade classroom Friday afternoon at Dirigo Elementary School, telling students what a typical day on the force is like.
Corey Jacques, who has been an officer for 17 years, talked about the types of equipment he carries, how each is used and why.
Jacques said using his handgun on the job is “a last resort.” There are other options for dealing with a difficult suspect, he said.
He pulled out a small canister of pepper spray from his gun belt and held it up to the students.
“Does anybody know why they call this pepper spray?” he asked.
Students guessed it was because it burns when it’s sprayed in a person’s eyes.
“It does burn, but they call it pepper spray because it’s made out of crushed jalapeno peppers,” Jacques said. “They crush up the jalapenos and put it in the canister. When it hits your eyes, it burns for about a half hour.”
Next, Jacques pulled out a Tazer without a cartridge.
“If you get hit with this Tazer, it shoots about 50,000 volts of electricity into your body for five seconds,” he said. “During those five seconds, you can’t breathe because your muscles are cramping up.”
He asked students why it’s a different color than his gun.
“So you know that it shocks people?” one student asked.
“No, we make it yellow so when we grab it, we know that we’re grabbing the Tazer, and not our gun,” the officer said. He’s never had to use his Tazer or his gun on the job.
“I hope I never have to fire it either,” he said.
To show the students how heavy his equipment is, he put his bulletproof vest and his gun belt in a tote bag.
“This isn’t even counting my boots and some other equipment that I have to wear,” Jacques said as he passed the bag around to students. As he let go of it, students’ arms dropped and they gasped as they tried to lift it.
“Next time you see a police officer struggling to get out of his car, don’t laugh at him,” Jacques said with a smile. “We’re wearing some heavy equipment.”
Near the end of his presentation, Jacques brought out an ink pad and several fingerprint processing papers. He gave each student a chance to stick their fingers on the ink pad and roll their fingertips across the paper.
“This is what happens when you get arrested and processed,” Jacques said. “When you get arrested, it doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means you made a mistake.”
After he was done speaking, he handed out T-shirts and stickers to students, explaining that he “dug around in his office and found this stuff laying around.”
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