The Welding Technology Program at Walla Walla Community College (WWCC) recently partnered with the Walla Walla Police Department (WWPD) to work on PIT training vehicles. The PIT maneuver, or Precision Immobilization Technique, is a law enforcement tactic used to stop a fleeing vehicle by forcing it to spin out and come to a stop. This technique is typically used for drunk or reckless drivers and dangerous criminals fleeing from apprehension.
Performing a PIT maneuver can be dangerous. Gentle contact is made from the police front bumper to the target’s rear bumper causing the target vehicle to spin out and lose control, effectively stopping it. This maneuver requires precise timing and is only used by trained law enforcement officers in high-risk situations.
Detective Marcus Goodwater and Officer Rich Westphal are the Emergency Vehicle Operations Course (EVOC) trainers for the Walla Walla Police Department and have been tasked with training their team in PIT maneuvers this March.
Westphal contacted WWCC Welding Instructional Technician, Ryan Bull to see if the welders could make the training vehicles safer. “It was such a great idea when he (Westphal) brought it up. We had enough leeway time to see what the welders could come up with and the college is such a great community resource,” said Goodwater.
“When I was contacted to create a safety feature for the cars, I thought of reinforced front bumpers,” said Bull. “But it was Jill who used her trigonometry and computer skills to build them.” Jill Lopez, a sixth-quarter welding student who will be graduating from WWCC this spring, was excited for the challenge.
Every welding student must complete a fabrication project during their sixth and final quarter. Students must develop an idea, create a blueprint, build the design, and end with a finished product. Because of her enthusiasm for the project, the PIT training bumpers became Lopez’s final project.
“She had to design her parts digitally in our CAD [Computer Aided Design] program and instruct our CNC [Computer Numerical Control] plasma table machine to cut them out, then she had to fit and weld the pieces,” said Bull.
“The pipe welding for the corner supports was difficult,” said Lopez. “I had to make sure we were cutting them at the right angles. I used band saws and a plate roller to form the bumper that matched the same curve as the factory bumper,” explained Lopez.
Lopez’s intuitive design consists of two pieces that are welded together at the center of the bumper and reinforced with strong piping at each corner. This way, if one of the sides gets damaged during training, only one side of the bumper will need to be replaced. Fifth-quarter welding student, Issac Sautters, assisted Lopez by softening the bumper’s edges and coating them with black paint.
“It’s cool to go from an idea to a plan, to fabrication. But I’m ready to be done with the project,” she laughs “There has been a lot of trial and error.”
As Westphal viewed Lopez’s work he said, “I’m very impressed with the structural design. It by far exceeds what the Washington State Police Academy Training has on their bumpers.” Goodwater agreed, “This is going to be so helpful for us. Our whole department will be training with this design, it will allow us to train non-stop.”
This experience has also been valuable for Lopez as she looks to begin her professional career. She recently had an interview to become a professional welder at a local business and is looking forward to earning pay checks for her work.
Lopez’s project will soon be tested during training. “We don’t want to damage anything,” said Westphal. “But if the community needs us to stop a vehicle before it returns to our city limits, a school zone, or other high traffic area, we have the tools and training to keep our community safe.”
