LEO's Chime In

[RMH]

My club shared a range with the PD for 30 years. They qualified twice a year and had night shoots now and then.
Otherwise, they were seldom seen on the range except that a few would come out and practice the week before qualification.

We also share our range range with the local PD. But also the Sheriff Department, State Police, Probation Department and the State Prison. Between all of them, one department or another is out there at least two and some times three days a week. And we are a small town

 

[armoredman]

We have 6700 uniformed staff, (Corrections), and we qualify POST annually. That's 56 rounds per staff member. If we did that weekly or monthly the cost to the tax payers would be enormous, at a time when we haven't had a pay raise in 12 years. Nope, it will stay annually.

 

[Old Dog]

You need to study that again.,. not going to side rail this therad... might start a new one

Uh, just to be clear -- you brought it up. As for "latest poster child," that incident happened in 1986. Perhaps you want to revisit it ... Ayoob's most recent account is a pretty good summation, start there.

Back on topic: guess I've been fortunate working for employers where we're encouraged to shoot. Our taxpayers in my state apparently don't begrudge paying for ammo the way they apparently do in other states (Armoredman, 56 rounds a year? Even our corrections folks up the liberal wet side of this state get a lot more rounds than that). I will echo the one previous poster who noted that as an agency instructor one doesn't seem to shoot nearly as much and it doesn't seem that much fun anymore when one does ... I have days on the range that drag by, but on the other hand, if I've got a motivated group, it is actually fun. I don't shoot as much now, but when I do, I'm more conscious of making my sessions worthwhile, so it all works out. And instructors and range safety officers don't have to pick up brass ...

 

[fpgt72]

We have 6700 uniformed staff, (Corrections), and we qualify POST annually. That's 56 rounds per staff member. If we did that weekly or monthly the cost to the tax payers would be enormous, at a time when we haven't had a pay raise in 12 years. Nope, it will stay annually.

We have right at 100 sworn...and we can't afford it.....Just this year we had a tax past....we had been on a pay freeze for that same time frame.....It was quite nice.....but we still can't afford to do that kind of training.....IMHO we do and don't....it is a very fine line.

 

[fpgt72]

Uh, just to be clear -- you brought it up. As for "latest poster child," that incident happened in 1986. Perhaps you want to revisit it ... Ayoob's most recent account is a pretty good summation, start there.

Back on topic: guess I've been fortunate working for employers where we're encouraged to shoot. Our taxpayers in my state apparently don't begrudge paying for ammo the way they apparently do in other states (Armoredman, 56 rounds a year? Even our corrections folks up the liberal wet side of this state get a lot more rounds than that). I will echo the one previous poster who noted that as an agency instructor one doesn't seem to shoot nearly as much and it doesn't seem that much fun anymore when one does ... I have days on the range that drag by, but on the other hand, if I've got a motivated group, it is actually fun. I don't shoot as much now, but when I do, I'm more conscious of making my sessions worthwhile, so it all works out. And instructors and range safety officers don't have to pick up brass ...

Ok....you will not let it lie.

I will not say IMHO...but in anyone who looks at what really happened with an eye to facts not arm chair junkies the real issue is clear.

I am not going to bother looking this up...if another thread starts I will check the FACTS, but till then short and sweet.

We had one agent there that was a "gun guy"....was described to have trained his entire life for an instance just like this. He was armed with an autoloader....12 rounds....he emptied two magazines and scored perhaps 1 hit. With an auto and 24 rounds. Where is the revolver....oh the other guys.

So much went wrong here....and it was not the guns they used...it was all training. Now I will say you can train to the n'th degree...and nothing will prepare you for getting shot at....nothing.

Cali shooting, was also different....yes just like motor bandits in the 1930's caused a shift in practice, the cali shooting caused a shift in practice. And this falls under the need the tool and not have it vs. the never need the tool and just have it sit there. There is going to be a big shift and it happened. However now we have the tool that can do just that much more damage and still not the training....it worries me.

Start the incidents that shifted law enforcement practices thread and I will put in my two bits....till then I will leave it at that.

 

[John_R]

I like to shoot as much as anyone, but being in the sun all day loading mags, running drills, picking up brass, and cleaning guns when it's all over becomes much more like work than pleasure after the first couple of times. We shoot three times per year, all day sessions with night shooting as well. When your hobby becomes work it can take a little of the enjoyment out of it.

All day? That would wear anybody out. That's why I quit doing IDPA - we'd get 130 shooters and it was six hours of standing around in the sun and waiting for thirty seconds of shooting. Not worth it to me.

 

[9MMare]

Ok....you will not let it lie.

I will not say IMHO...but in anyone who looks at what really happened with an eye to facts not arm chair junkies the real issue is clear.

I'm familiar with the "FBI File" of the shootout, it's basic reading for anyone getting into shooting. My takeaways were quite different from yours: of course you're going to miss shots when you lose your glasses, it's stupid to put your gun on the seat next to you (I'll never forget that one), and people can take multiple mortal hits from .45 acp and keep on fighting and shooting. There were plenty of good hits in that fight....the really telling thing is they didnt stop the attacks in time.

 

[fpgt72]

I'm familiar with the "FBI File" of the shootout, it's basic reading for anyone getting into shooting. My takeaways were quite different from yours: of course you're going to miss shots when you lose your glasses, it's stupid to put your gun on the seat next to you (I'll never forget that one), and people can take multiple mortal hits from .45 acp and keep on fighting and shooting. There were plenty of good hits in that fight....the really telling thing is they didnt stop the attacks in time.

Your memory is better then mine....I don't remember someone having a 45acp.....IIRC the two autos are 9mm, shotgun is a shot gun, the rest are revolvers....dang now you are going to make me look it up.

Well according to the never wrong wikipadia (joke there) no 45 acp, 3 autoloaders in 9mm the rest wheel guns save the shot gun.

You are going into an event like this and you only have one pair of glasses......I keep two in my car.

I agree getting your weapon out before you need it is foolish.

There was a basic breakdown in the agents shooting ability.

One was killed after being shot 6 the other 12 times.....this tells me they did not hit an area that was going to put him down right now. IIRC one got shot in the side and stopped just short of his heart. It was fatal just not right then and now. I think of all the gun shots this is the only one out of the 10+ hits that a more powerful cartridge would have been a game changer....shot in legs, arms, side and not going to end the fight and this is where (again as I remember) most of the hits happened....some even in the feet....I do remember that one.

It is really amazing that with all the lead flying around that no one else got hurt.

 

[Armybrat]

My nephew's small town department issues pistol ammo for their officers to practice with, but few do. So nephew brings a few BBQ treats now & then and most of them give him their excess ammo. As a result, he has thousands of rounds of .40 cal.

 

[JO JO]

We had to qualify twice a year and shoot every quarter, could shoot for practice monthly if you wanted but swat shot a lot, normal officers will not practice as Much as the SWAT types ,

 

[mbok1947]

The poster who noted little correlation between range competency and performance in an actual law enforcement shooting scenario is correct. The vast majority of cases where law enforcement officers are called upon to fire their weapons are close-in, fast moving cases where they may actually be in physical contact with the assailant (see the Michael Brown case in Ferguson) or where the assailant is moving rapidly toward them. The cases I saw in my career (I was present 11 times when officers fired their weapons) bore essentially no resemblance to a range scenario where they could take a stance and use the sights. They were pretty much all "point shoot RIGHT NOW or die." In addition, in a great many cases both the officer and suspect are in motion under low lighted nighttime environments. I recall an officer telling me to visualize this setting: Run several blocks to get your heart and breathing rates near maximum at night in a dark alley. Have someone with no warning bounce a basketball in front of you. If the label says VOIT you may legally shoot, but if it says WILSON you should not and may be sued or prosecuted if you do. These things don't happen like in the movies. They happen immediately under adverse conditions and require near-instant decision making. I don't see any way to simulate that on a range where safety procedures matter. Yes it's vital that officers master basic firearms competency, but in the end the most important tools in law enforcement are brains and instincts.

 

[Old Dog]

... In addition, in a great many cases both the officer and suspect are in motion under low lighted nighttime environments. I recall an officer telling me to visualize this setting: Run several blocks to get your heart and breathing rates near maximum at night in a dark alley. Have someone with no warning bounce a basketball in front of you. If the label says VOIT you may legally shoot, but if it says WILSON you should not and may be sued or prosecuted if you do. These things don't happen like in the movies. They happen immediately under adverse conditions and require near-instant decision making. I don't see any way to simulate that on a range where safety procedures matter. Yes it's vital that officers master basic firearms competency, but in the end the most important tools in law enforcement are brains and instincts.

Gosh, I made a few posts trying to communicate essentially the same thing in a "Strategy & Tactics" thread ("Another excessive use of force") recently and got called out by several moderators who wanted to argue with me.

As both an old gunny sergeant, and later a former SWAT leader told me, discussing -- or debating -- combat or uses of forces after the fact with people who've never experienced those situations is usually like wrestling with a pig ... you can't win, there's no style points, you just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

 

[JO JO]

We also did sims training I would agree range time doesn't help with force on force training sims helps with that, I noticed some of the top shooters at the range did poorly on sims , meaning they hit walls, ceilings, add the stress of force on force and your range scores go out the window,
But LEO's are trained at different levels
We trained with swat teams way different then the training a traffic officer receives

 

[armoredman]

FATS was great.

 

[fpgt72]

The poster who noted little correlation between range competency and performance in an actual law enforcement shooting scenario is correct. The vast majority of cases where law enforcement officers are called upon to fire their weapons are close-in, fast moving cases where they may actually be in physical contact with the assailant (see the Michael Brown case in Ferguson) or where the assailant is moving rapidly toward them. The cases I saw in my career (I was present 11 times when officers fired their weapons) bore essentially no resemblance to a range scenario where they could take a stance and use the sights. They were pretty much all "point shoot RIGHT NOW or die." In addition, in a great many cases both the officer and suspect are in motion under low lighted nighttime environments. I recall an officer telling me to visualize this setting: Run several blocks to get your heart and breathing rates near maximum at night in a dark alley. Have someone with no warning bounce a basketball in front of you. If the label says VOIT you may legally shoot, but if it says WILSON you should not and may be sued or prosecuted if you do. These things don't happen like in the movies. They happen immediately under adverse conditions and require near-instant decision making. I don't see any way to simulate that on a range where safety procedures matter. Yes it's vital that officers master basic firearms competency, but in the end the most important tools in law enforcement are brains and instincts.

Very very true....

 

[fpgt72]

FATS was great.

We got a new one...the old one had a cable that ran to a CO2 tank and was not that great...the new one is like a CO2 Pellet gun....nothing attaches it to the machine, and it has co2 to run the gun. It is huge fun to play with.

 

[armoredman]

The one I got to use was the old one, and it was the best we could get...at the time. I would love to try the newer version sometime.

 

[Jeff White]

It's only in the last 10 years that Illinois adopted a statutory requirement for any qualification or training beyond the mandatory firearms portion in the academy. Most agencies qualified at least annually anyway but it wasn't required.

The biggest cost involved in range training is not the cost of the ammunition, it's the cost of overtime. Officers (just like everyone else) expect to be paid when they are on duty and attending training is being on duty.

A proper firearms training program is much more involved then simply going to the range. A complete program starts with the law and the case law of how the courts have interpreted the laws on the use of force, then moves to the fundamentals of marksmanship on the square range, then moves into role playing with simunitions or other engagement simulators, interactive simulations such as FATS or ROBBEC, to more advanced exercises on the range and includes stress inoculation training to get the student used to thinking and performing while they are actually scared.

Sometimes all of these areas are only covered in the academy and unfortunately many programs don't contain all of these elements.

Ideally this training is ongoing for all of these skills are perishable. Done properly there is a continuous cycle of TRAIN, EVALUATE, RETRAIN. Unfortunately few armed organizations are resourced at a level that makes this possible.

Only a few full time LE Tactical Units and certain military special operations units have the resources to train this way.

The rest of the community is expected to work traffic, investigate crimes, take reports, go to court and handle all the rest of the day to day calls for service the job entails.

AND THERE IS ALSO TRAINING THATS REQUIRED TO PERFORM THOSE DUTIES.

So it's a balancing act. The chief or the sheriff has to take the resources, i.e. the number of officers, and the amount of money he has to purchase ammunition, contract for expensive simulators, train instructors and pay overtime to train his officers.

And that's why you see agencies doing the minimum that's required.

And very few of you would willingly pay the taxes that would be required to properly train your local police department.

 

[lemaymiami]

The last post pretty much is right on the money - and for every agency the cost of training is always a big concern...

Here's a few other realities that most aren't thinking about... The average officer will do an entire career in law enforcement and never fire a shot on the street... I think my 100 man agency was pretty typical - we never had more than five or six on the entire force at any one time who'd ever fired a shot at a live target (and that was during my 22 years on the force -and we were in the middle of the "cocaine cowboys" era when south Florida was a particularly violent place....). The typical detective is almost the opposite of how they're portrayed in the movies or other popular entertainments.... He or she spends the vast majority of their time on the telephone or doing computer research in the station (that's how most cases are really solved -getting someone who knows a bad actor to speak up about them...). More than once I've seen a detective that needed to be reminded to bring their sidearm as we left the station (their sidearm and holsters were generally kept in a drawer at their desk...). Not exactly how the movies show them at all....

Yes, about 10 to 15% of sworn officers are also gun enthusiasts (and were long before they came into police work) that will find the time to go to the range as much as possible - even when they're paying for their own ammo..... These are the same folks we drew on for firearms instructor slots (and also the first ones being considered for SRT or other serious street work type jobs). Most were absolutely first rate and I imagine every department has members that have really good firearms skills - but the vast majority of sworn personnel only carry a weapon because the job requires it... Remember that nationwide, over many years, almost a third of all officer shootings were done with their own sidearm (that was true in my era, 1973-1995 and is probably still true today).... a sobering statistic that has little to do with shooting skills and everything to do with coming into close contact with an occasional really violent individual where weapons retention and close quarter hand to hand stuff is a lot more important to your survival than being able to shoot accurately on that once in a lifetime moment when it's all on the line.... That weapon a cop carries is a far greater danger to him or her than anyone else in the public.

Skill and competency levels vary widely across our nation and one of the first things a new police chief will have to take a close look at - is exactly where that given agency is at with firearms and all the related issues involved. Unfortunately the average tenure for a chief of police is around 18 months nationwide... so over the years an agency might be at any end of the spectrum on weapons training - but that is actually only one of many, many different concerns a new chief will have to deal with... Like I've already said -not exactly like the movies...

 

[JO JO]

That weapon a cop carries is a far greater danger to him or her than anyone else in the public.

This is very true, one time we were tasked with security for a large festival walking among huge crowds that was shoulder to shoulder brushing against each other and I will tell you the number one concern for me and my partner was weapon retention, that event I would rather NOT of been armed I felt my PDW was a liability instead of an asset, I would bet in today's PC court system that training / studying Laws and writing/building charges/cases that will hold up in court
far out weigh training to be a bullseye shooter, look how many cases are tossed out due to something that was done wrong on first contact!!
I was talking with a guy that just graduated police academy he told me the bulk of the training was on law and courts not so much on firearms, I have been out of the game for years now but it was the units like swat / specialized units that received advanced firearms training

 

[Leanwolf]

Boys & girls, if you can't shoot like this, you just don't practice enough.




L.W.

 

[Old Dog]

Awesome video! Surprised I'd never seen that before. Boy, think of the liability issues these days if cops tried this stuff ...

 

[Archie]

Twenty-eight years as Federal Lawman. Qualified four times a year until about 1993, then changed both qualification course and reduced to three times a year. In later years, had to to qualify with 'duty' ammo; all factory loaded, no reloads either personal or departmental.

Observed LAPD in qualification. They qualified (not trained) once a month (maybe once in two months?) However, the qualification was always the same and something on the order of thirty rounds. Multiple targets, but sort of a dance routine, if you get my drift.

Currently I'm a volunteer Chaplain with a local L. E. organization; they train four times a year, all day weapons training. Qualify for 'score' once a year. I'm in a more or less rural area and most of the troops have firearms backgrounds - at least not afraid of them. Again, factory issue ammo for training and qualification.