Indiana Police Force Trains New Recruits With Drunks

An Indiana sheriff’s department recently took to the social media to recruit volunteers for an unusual experiment: asking for people to come out, knock back enough beer to get buzzed and start sh*t with police officers.

Hancock County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Bridget Foy says this exercise helps train officers how to handle drunkards in a controlled environment before turning them loose into the streets.

"Recruits need to know what they're doing before they pull over their first impaired driver," said Foy, who has trained officers in field sobriety for nearly 15-years. "For the first few years (of teaching the seminar), I used videos. But the hands-on experience is so much better."

During the most recent seminar, Foy had 10 volunteers gather at the Fortville Police Department at 2pm to start happy hour, which consisted of them drinking enough beer to get the “feel goods,” but not enough to get them slobbering drunk.

"I tell the people they need to get to a point where they're very buzzed," said Foy. "If they get very drunk, they're no use to me, and they're no use to the trainees or the class.”

After a couple hours of feeding her volunteers social lubricant, Foy sends in a group of new police recruits and begins teaching them how to properly conduct field sobriety tests. And while the drinking exercise is sometimes humorous for everyone involved, Foy says, for her, preventing drinking and driving is a serious job.

Recent statistics from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute indicate 2,073 people were hurt as a result of alcohol-related crashes – 158 died.