Photo By Sgt. Scott Tynes | Staff Warrant Officer Hadeel Alkandari, Kuwait Police Special Forces Unit, practices a...... read more read more
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In a room covered with floor mats, police officers wrestled and tossed each other to the ground using hand-to-hand combatives, trained in the use of handcuffs for uses besides restraint and practiced other trade skills. These first responders were Kuwaiti women training with female American Army military police officers in a region whose culture does not treat genders equally.
Members of the Mississippi Army National Guard’s 114th Military Police Company, based in Clinton, are currently deployed to the Middle East in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. Its female officers are the first Army MPs to train the Kuwaiti Police Special Forces Unit (KPSFU).
Capt. Margaret Krisle, commander of the Clinton Rifles, and the females of her unit were selected to be the first Army trainers of Kuwaiti female police officers. Krisle and MSARNG MPs were ideally suited to tackle the monumental task of pioneering the equality of women in this high-profile unit.
“There are difficulties in every career,” said Staff Warrant Officer Hadeel Alkandari, a member of the KPSFU. “However, the police in a conservative country like Kuwait needs a woman component for arrest and search processes that policemen can't do. As a policewoman, I only deal with women.”
Krisle said her unit is the first Army unit to lead the training, but the KPSFU has received American training once before.
“This is actually just the new group of instructors to take over the VIP team,” she said. “The only other U.S. force to train them was a group of female Marines in 2016. This is the first time the Army has trained them. Their leadership has changed since 2016 and these girls were selected to be the new instructors.”
The Female VIP team, as the KPSFU is also called, was created in 2010.
“Their main purpose is to protect the princesses or any other important females in Kuwait they are ordered to protect. They’re multi-faceted. They pretty much do anything that requires interaction with the females since the males can’t do it,” Krisle said.
Krisle said the women officers don’t train a lot because they don’t have the opportunity to and really only have themselves to train with. Working with the women of the Clinton Rifles was a good opportunity for them.
“Our purpose was getting them all on the same page and extend their certifications to the ones we have so they could pass them down,” Krisle said. “The group of girls we trained were excited to be there and eager to train. They also wanted to develop personal connections. It’s been a friendship, but also a good training opportunity.”
In addition, they learned of the advantages of handcuffs over flexcuffs, which is their primary tool for restraint. Handcuffs can also be used as a non-lethal weapon option. The officers had also never been trained in the use of a Taser, only the males had that training.
“We showed them how to do take downs with handcuffs and to maintain control of unruly subjects. It became another tool in their tool belt,” Krisle said. “They want more of this so they can build on it and keep getting more advanced as our time here continues.”
“The training event was strong and useful,” Alkandari said. “By practicing (we) will improve our skills and we will be able to provide great training to our team. The training was not difficult, but we needed more (time to) practice. Our goal is to move forward and improve ourselves. We are not going to stop at any point.”
Classes were only held from February 2-6 and 9-13 for a total of 10 days of training.
It was during a Key Leader Engagement when Sgt. Danielle R. Lewis, the traffic accident investigations non-commissioned officer-in-charge, was approached and asked about the possibility of training the female officers within the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior. Lewis has civilian law enforcement training as a Hattiesburg police officer and Instructor Certification in women’s self-defense, as well as military training, and was selected to lead the mission.
“I have my civilian Instructor Certification; however, I have not personally taught a class in approximately three to four years,” Lewis said. “This was a good opportunity to revisit training individuals in something I am very passionate in. It also helped me refresh my teaching skills.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed working with the Kuwaitis and continuing the relationship that I’ve built while doing traffic investigations.”
Krisle said it was an experience that broadened her understanding of the U.S. mission in the Middle East.
“It was great for me,” Krisle said. “It’s probably one of the best things I’ve done. It made me realize that what we’re doing here is larger than law enforcement on the post. It opened a whole new dynamic to what we’re trying to do here.”
| Date Taken: | 04.16.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.22.2020 15:58 |
| Story ID: | 367682 |
| Location: | KW |
| Hometown: | HATTIESBURG, MS, US |
| Web Views: | 370 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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