Citizen shot while ‘role playing’ during police training

[HCM]

These happen far too often

Citizen shot while ‘role playing’ during auxiliary police training exercise

https://www.police1.com/police-training/articles/citizen-shot-while-role-playing-during-auxiliary-police-training-exercise-dcTi3dJIjwlLAOlf/?fbclid=IwAR12zTe0pu1KfOoYwcj5_tvGqEezj1rGxTm7knzZ r3SyhzVimOsrzFKSXZA


TAYLOR, Mich. — After a man was shot in the abdomen, police in Michigan are investigating how a live round was introduced to a police training exercise on Sunday.

A citizen was role-playing during a training scenario with the Taylor Police Department’s auxiliary police unit when he was shot, reported FOX 2 Detroit. Auxiliary officers were practicing a vehicle take-down exercise when someone fired their service weapon.

The Michigan State Police is now investigating how that happened.

“A live weapon was somehow brought into a training scenario,” said Lt. Mike Shaw of the Michigan State Police. “There was a live weapon that was introduced in the training exercise, striking the role-player in the abdomen.”

Shaw says the citizen is expected to recover. According to the report, the gunshot victim is a relative of one of the auxiliary officers.

“It’s fortunate that no one was killed during an incident like that,” Shaw added.

[DDTSGM]

Too many people don't understand the proper safety protocols for 'simunition' training. They fail to make the training area 'simunition' safe and they fail to thoroughly search the participants before issuing the weapons.

Often searches are skipped, or abbreviated, because 'hey, we're all big boys, we can clear our own weapons and gear' or because the folks running the show think they might insult the participants by searching to make sure they are actually GTG.

The same rules apply when using empty and cleared service weapons, although if SIM rounds aren't being used there is no reason not to use red/blue weapons.

This is going to cost the agency.

[AMC]

Proper safety protocols, proper searches, and dedicated full time Sims weapons go a long way towards eliminating these incidents. But impatience, arrogance and apathy are very stubborn human traits. Our insistence on adhering to the above is likely the main reason that the Range Staff is no longer responsible for any Sims training at my department. We're just a bunch of fuddy-duddy killjoys who don't understand tacticool.

[Paul D]

This the Taylor, MI police department's auxiliary department. It looks like they are 35 volunteers and not sworn officers. According to the TPD website, they are there to help the 97 sworn officers in tasks like home checks, business checks, etc. Is it normal for an auxiliary volunteer group to do force-on-force training? If they can afford this type of training for a volunteer force, I wonder what training opportunities must provide for the real cops.

[Coyotesfan97]

This the Taylor, MI police department's auxiliary department. It looks like they are 35 volunteers and not sworn officers. According to the TPD website, they are there to help the 97 sworn officers in tasks like home checks, business checks, etc. Is it normal for an auxiliary volunteer group to do force-on-force training? If they can afford this type of training for a volunteer force, I wonder what training opportunities must provide for the real cops.

It wasn’t uncommon for us to use unsworn members for FoF training when we needed a lot of volunteers. It was basically a department wide email asking for volunteers. You just had to make sure they understood what they needed to do. A lot of times it was easier using them the sworn Officers.

[Coyotesfan97]

Too many people don't understand the proper safety protocols for 'simunition' training. They fail to make the training area 'simunition' safe and they fail to thoroughly search the participants before issuing the weapons.

Often searches are skipped, or abbreviated, because 'hey, we're all big boys, we can clear our own weapons and gear' or because the folks running the show think they might insult the participants by searching to make sure they are actually GTG.

The same rules apply when using empty and cleared service weapons, although if SIM rounds aren't being used there is no reason not to use red/blue weapons.

This is going to cost the agency.

One time at SWAT school we had another agency Officer going through who was a FoF instructor for his agency which was a lot larger than ours. He put a 9mm round between his toes then put his socks and boots on. He dinged us for our simunition search in the class after-action review because it wasn’t found. We kind of shrugged whatever but it shows what some people do.

We had a number of Sims instructors who had been through the week long school. We had to be searched going in initially and any time we left the training area and came back. We used yellow crime scene tape as a marker to show you’d been searched. There were usually two people at the sims station taking care of issuing the guns and ammo. We had dedicated blue Glock 17s and M4s. It was definitely a lot of work to ensure safety.

[Chuck Whitlock]

After going through the Simunitions Scenario Instructor certification, I never got to run a scenario before my certification ran out, but I was able to squash a lot of well-meaning but bad ideas that could have otherwise ended in ugliness.

I recently attended a class with some minor FOF demos using sims. The safety protocols would have been fine for Airsoft, blank, or red/blue guns, but were inadequate for the Simunitions used. The use of Airsoft, blank, or red/blue guns would have actually added value to the particular scenario(s).

[RoyGBiv]

I played a Bad Guy once in an Active Shooter training, inside a large office building. I was confident enough when the safety process was explained to me that I was only slightly worried about catching a live round when the Good Guys overran my position. :rolleyes:

And it was a bit surreal firing a G17 at a bunch of LEOs running at me.

Dedicated sim guns using these rounds and very soft recoil springs.
IIRC, the frames were all taped with color tape and the slides were painted blue.
87998

[psalms144.1]

I've been through FLETC's Instructor Methodologies for Non-Lethal Training Ammunition Instructor Training Program (what a mouthfull!) and, having run several FoF iterations for Active Shooter training subsequent to that, I see almost no use or need for Simunitions or any other version that has ANY possibility of using live guns. Give me Airsoft any time - less clean up, easier to store/transport, etc.

Even with Airsoft only, however, a no BS thorough safety inspection prior to training is absolutely non-negotiable. I prefer dedicated safety inspectors using handheld magnetometers for this. If I can't have a dedicated safety guy, I do these searches myself, every time. I've been through WAY too many iterations of training put on by other instructors where the safety check is cursory at best, or even left to "buddy checking." Fuck all that. If you don't have the time to make sure no live weapons (including batons, knives, etc) are going into your training area, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

[Tensaw]

Not directly on-point, but still in the neighborhood; this is cheap insurance (https://bloksafety.com/shop/) for any sort of alleged dry practice. They work well in that they provide positive visual confirmation that the firearm is unloaded while still allowing weapon manipulations such as reloads, bolt/slide racking, and trigger pressing. Too, these greatly reduce the likelihood of rolling out the door with an empty weapon that you thought you reloaded after dry practice.

Also - what that guy above me said. Gospel.

[HCM]

This the Taylor, MI police department's auxiliary department. It looks like they are 35 volunteers and not sworn officers. According to the TPD website, they are there to help the 97 sworn officers in tasks like home checks, business checks, etc. Is it normal for an auxiliary volunteer group to do force-on-force training? If they can afford this type of training for a volunteer force, I wonder what training opportunities must provide for the real cops.

I don't believe this is FOF training by/for the auxiliaries, rather, pursuant to their support function they were serving as role players / OPFOR for the sworn officers. Most federal agencies national academies (FLETC, Quantico etc) hire role players for these functions.

Even if the training was for the auxiliaries it would likely be run by the regular LEO instructors / training staff.

Regardless, this is a failure by both the instructors running the training and those participating, one of whom introduced the live weapon.

I consider FOF training more dangerous than live fire training because as AMC and Dan Lehr and others have said people get sloppy, consider themselves too cool for proper safety procedures etc.

I've also been through the FLETC UOF and NLTA classes. In addition to the lassie-faire attitude towards safety, the other issue I see is understaffing. As @Coyotes Fan mentioned running FOF properly is a lot of work. In addition to the instructors running the evolutions, you need at least one maintaining site security / sterile environment and one handing FOF weapons and ammo, loading/issuing mags etc.

[octagon]

This the Taylor, MI police department's auxiliary department. It looks like they are 35 volunteers and not sworn officers. According to the TPD website, they are there to help the 97 sworn officers in tasks like home checks, business checks, etc. Is it normal for an auxiliary volunteer group to do force-on-force training? If they can afford this type of training for a volunteer force, I wonder what training opportunities must provide for the real cops.

I worked at a neighboring agency to Taylor and we also have auxiliary officers. 30-40 at any one time of volunteers. Ours do the same basic stuff as theirs but do carry guns and get as much or more firearms training as regular officers. The difference is they do the job part time and for free so they train most times they meet to keep their hours up. We used ours as assists for house checks and patrol with a sworn officer or when two Aux were together they just did non enfocrement work. They also helped out with large events as extra eyes/ears or parking/traffic control. When I was rangemaster I had to train them once a month on firearms and they did the same CAPS, Simunition FoF and live fire training we did monthly and 40 hrs of in service a year.

Our aux officers and more often police explorers were the role players.

[LittleLebowski]

These happen far too often.



Yup. Completely preventable.

[HCM]

One time at SWAT school we had another agency Officer going through who was a FoF instructor for his agency which was a lot larger than ours. He put a 9mm round between his toes then put his socks and boots on. He dinged us for our simunition search in the class after-action review because it wasn’t found. We kind of shrugged whatever but it shows what some people do.

We had a number of Sims instructors who had been through the week long school. We had to be searched going in initially and any time we left the training area and came back. We used yellow crime scene tape as a marker to show you’d been searched. There were usually two people at the sims station taking care of issuing the guns and ammo. We had dedicated blue Glock 17s and M4s. It was definitely a lot of work to ensure safety.

It is a lot of work to ensure safety in FOF which is part of the reason it's not as common or frequent as it should be.

Re: the jackass with a round between his toes, hopefully someone clued his agency into his behavior as such petty "gotcha" / "winning" attitude is a bad fit for an instructor. That or his agency was shocked they were no longer welcome at training...

Along those lines, a few years ago I attended a mixed (local/state/federal) Active shooter instructor course. One student, a local LEO who runs firearms' training business on the side displayed a particularly poor "too cool for school" attitude which culminated in him intentionally shooting a clearly marked Instructor / observer with sims during a FOF evolution over a personality conflict. Suffice to say my only criticism of the class was the fact this individual was not removed from training for cause.

Keep in mind, this is an instructor school designed to teach you how to teach active shooter tactics to the lowest common denominator LEO. This individual was so fixated on "winning" and showing off he completely missed the point of the training.

[RoyGBiv]

I worked at a neighboring agency to Taylor and we also have auxiliary officers. 30-40 at any one time of volunteers. Ours do the same basic stuff as theirs but do carry guns and get as much or more firearms training as regular officers. The difference is they do the job part time and for free so they train most times they meet to keep their hours up. We used ours as assists for house checks and patrol with a sworn officer or when two Aux were together they just did non enfocrement work. They also helped out with large events as extra eyes/ears or parking/traffic control. When I was rangemaster I had to train them once a month on firearms and they did the same CAPS, Simunition FoF and live fire training we did monthly and 40 hrs of in service a year.

Our aux officers and more often police explorers were the role players.

We get to do a lot of that as volunteers here, except for a hard NO on carrying any weapons (pocket knife is ok).... I'd jump at the chance to be "auxiliary" in some more formal way, just for the opportunity to qualify for LEOSA (assuming that would be an option as an Aux officer). I expect there's more to it than I know about.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

At the old NTI, we were thoroughly searched. No knives of any type. Even crenelated flashlights were not allowed. Only smooth edges ones. Of course, we couldn't bop each other with them. I did bop a 3D dummy though. Contact was not allowed. If you chose to seize a gun - Sims or Code Eagle, you had to touch it and yell a code word (which I forget). The gun holder had to give it up. No retention H2H. This led to a few arguments about whether you would really have gotten the gun. I did that once, got the gun and proceeded to shoot the bad person. That started a discussion about why I would shoot an 'unarmed' person. My rationale was that the bad person was reaching to get the gun back and there was an ongoing terrorist attack. My refereee (a state trooper) said that worked for him.

Those 'practice' rounds do hurt as I'm sure folks know.

[Coyotesfan97]

Those 'practice' rounds do hurt as I'm sure folks know.

You know when someone’s done a lot of acting when they put on two pairs of gloves. Sim rounds on knuckles hurt! I had a pair of motocross gloves I’d use when I was an actor.

[Coyotesfan97]

It is a lot of work to ensure safety in FOF which is part of the reason it's not as common or frequent as it should be.

Re: the jackass with a round between his toes, hopefully someone clued his agency into his behavior as such petty "gotcha" / "winning" attitude is a bad fit for an instructor. That or his agency was shocked they were no longer welcome at training...

Along those lines, a few years ago I attended a mixed (local/state/federal) Active shooter instructor course. One student, a local LEO who runs firearms' training business on the side displayed a particularly poor "too cool for school" attitude which culminated in him intentionally shooting a clearly marked Instructor / observer with sims during a FOF evolution over a personality conflict. Suffice to say my only criticism of the class was the fact this individual was not removed from training for cause.

Keep in mind, this is an instructor school designed to teach you how to teach active shooter tactics to the lowest common denominator LEO. This individual was so fixated on "winning" and showing off he completely missed the point of the training.

I remember our SWAT Commander dealt with it pretty pointedly but IIRC he was allowed to continue. I’m pretty sure he spoke to the guy’s supervisor too. Jackass is a good description!

[DDTSGM]

One time at SWAT school we had another agency Officer going through who was a FoF instructor for his agency which was a lot larger than ours. He put a 9mm round between his toes then put his socks and boots on. He dinged us for our simunition search in the class after-action review because it wasn’t found. We kind of shrugged whatever but it shows what some people do.

We had a number of Sims instructors who had been through the week long school. We had to be searched going in initially and any time we left the training area and came back. We used yellow crime scene tape as a marker to show you’d been searched. There were usually two people at the sims station taking care of issuing the guns and ammo. We had dedicated blue Glock 17s and M4s. It was definitely a lot of work to ensure safety.

Others have already addressed this moron.

I'd just like to add something that I tried to make sure our administrators understood - safety protocols are designed to protect from carelessness, cluelessness, and just plain accidents. They will not prevent an intentional overt action.

Our protocols involved re-searching any time you were out of eye contact of what we called the scenario officer or the safety officer. We searched folks into the sim issue room and they stayed their under our armorer's supervision until they left with the scenario officer to go through their scenarios. The safety officer was with the role players, who were treated the same way.

Getting role players to stay on script all day was a chore, especially the first time they helped. The tendency was to want to add something that they thought helped the scenario more than becoming cop-killers.

Since I've retired the funding source changed and the Academy has sufficient funding that they were going to start hiring roleplayers like they used to do at FLETC. Don't know if that has been accomplished.

[jnc36rcpd]

I read "Training at the Speed of Life" by Ken Murray (inventor of Simmunitions) some years ago. My reaction was that the safety protocols were overly elaborate and largely unnecessary. The more experience I gained attending and providing force-on-force training, the more I realized how right Murray was.

I do think the magnetometer is one's friend. It provides a fast efficient way to screen officers for most forgotten threats.

I would agree that the screening process is intended to catch the forgetful, not the ill-intended. If you have a case like the arrogant idiot smuggling a cartridge in between his toes, I'd point out to him and others that the screening process is not intended to catch prisoners entering super-max. I'd also ask him what he thought he was proving and to whom. I'd also mention that he was delaying the time officers could break for lunch or secure for the day.

[Chuck Whitlock]

I read "Training at the Speed of Life" by Ken Murray (inventor of Simmunitions) some years ago. My reaction was that the safety protocols were overly elaborate and largely unnecessary. The more experience I gained attending and providing force-on-force training, the more I realized how right Murray was.

Indeed. Had I not been trained/certified by Simunitions, I likely wouldn't have realized what the deficiencies actually were.


I do think the magnetometer is one's friend. It provides a fast efficient way to screen officers for most forgotten threats.

I would agree that the screening process is intended to catch the forgetful, not the ill-intended. If you have a case like the arrogant idiot smuggling a cartridge in between his toes, I'd point out to him and others that the screening process is not intended to catch prisoners entering super-max. I'd also ask him what he thought he was proving and to whom. I'd also mention that he was delaying the time officers could break for lunch or secure for the day.

Particularly since the magnetometers will usually pick up the rebar in the concrete floor.

[claymore504]

I am with a unit at an Army National Guard training facility in Texas. We have LE that come train on our Urban Assualt Course and we help them out usually. The last group was a SWAT organization that works in central Texas. I watched the process of issuing out simunition ammo and equipment and they had a good system. I would hate to get shot trying to help out due to poor SOPs.

[JATA]

One time at SWAT school we had another agency Officer going through who was a FoF instructor for his agency which was a lot larger than ours. He put a 9mm round between his toes then put his socks and boots on. He dinged us for our simunition search in the class after-action review because it wasn’t found. We kind of shrugged whatever but it shows what some people do.

We had a number of Sims instructors who had been through the week long school. We had to be searched going in initially and any time we left the training area and came back. We used yellow crime scene tape as a marker to show you’d been searched. There were usually two people at the sims station taking care of issuing the guns and ammo. We had dedicated blue Glock 17s and M4s. It was definitely a lot of work to ensure safety.

That was a chicken shit move on his part. My LE career started in 98. I'm currently sworn but only as an unpaid volunteer (try to get about 12 hours a month in). I so still work (full time) in a field where FOF training is used. The point of the pre drill search is to make sure nobody brain farted NOT to catch a determined smuggler. Supposed you guy DID make everyone take their shoes and socks off...... would he ding you for the one he had in his ass?

[Sero Sed Serio]

You know when someone’s done a lot of acting when they put on two pairs of gloves. Sim rounds on knuckles hurt! I had a pair of motocross gloves I’d use when I was an actor.

When I was a Pina County Prosecutor we could volunteer to be actors for DPS sims training. When I took my turn, my co-workers mocked me all day for being paranoid because I brought a cup. In my first scenario the thought process that ran through my head was “Ow! Ow! Ahhhhhhhh…” as the first three rounds hit my right thigh, left thigh, and nuts respectively. That round bouncing off the cup with no damage or pain bought me so much vindication…

[Coyotesfan97]

When I was a Pina County Prosecutor we could volunteer to be actors for DPS sims training. When I took my turn, my co-workers mocked me all day for being paranoid because I brought a cup. In my first scenario the thought process that ran through my head was “Ow! Ow! Ahhhhhhhh…” as the first three rounds hit my right thigh, left thigh, and nuts respectively. That round bouncing off the cup with no damage or pain bought me so much vindication…

I had a towel that I would fold over and tuck into my crotch and hang over my pants so I had double towel protection. LOL

[Default.mp3]

I had a towel that I would fold over and tuck into my crotch and hang over my pants so I had double towel protection. LOLThe use of the towel/shemagh hanging over the crotch is what I typically see where I roleplay, due to the fact that it has more airflow and is much easier to urinate in, as once a cup is in place and you're all jocked up, it becomes a chore to strip stuff off. I would just run my shemagh folded in half, one half hanging in front of the war belt buckle, the other half hanging behind it.

[DDTSGM]

Good thing you guys didn't do fof with me running the show. Cups, red man external protectors or hockey groin protects were the only choices.

Towels, nope.

[Totem Polar]

Considering that I still have two healing up scars COM (one that’s 2 inches above my belly button, and one awesome hit just to the right of my sternum) from a *month ago, Imma gonna go with a cup. I don’t want a mini-crater and that bruising anywhere on my wedding tackle.

As an aside, Clusterfrack can certainly shoot under pressure and movement. Proof that competition is useless for self defense... :cool:

(Time stamp on this photo is a week after the evo where I took the hit, btw)

[jnc36rcpd]

Simunition now makes a groin protector which offers decent protection without the issues of cups or towels.

[Clusterfrack]

Considering that I still have two healing up scars COM (one that’s 2 inches above my belly button, and one awesome hit just to the right of my sternum) from a *month ago, Imma gonna go with a cup. I don’t want a mini-crater and that bruising anywhere on my wedding tackle.

As an aside, Clusterfrack can certainly shoot under pressure and movement. Proof that competition is useless for self defense... :cool:

(Time stamp on this photo is a week after the evo where I took the hit, btw)

I did get killed in the streets at ECQC several times…

Cup and towel seem like a good idea…


I’ve had good experience with airsoft as a FoF training tool. Except for getting shot in the dickhole. That was not a good experience.


…My hand was fucked up and my Johnson was on fire…

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200221/9b599ce23c64f73c65ff1fb217fcf34d.jpg

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I had the living crap shot out of me at the NTI. We were in a room, where a bunch of bad guys entered. Ah - ha - I bolted out the door into 4 more with at least fully auto something. Plus handguns - Code Eagle, sims. Quite the mix and they opened up on me. Hit front and back. Wearing a t-shirt. Black and blue, broke the skin in places, bloody mess to pull off later. I've mentioned this before that at the university gym when changing some folks asked if I fell down and went boom. Explaining it was a simulated gun fight - OH DEAR! Wife was mad at the old fart taking risks.

What choices - fight four guys with a j frame or flee into four guys. Later I did disarm a well known trainer with a Sims Glock and procede to shoot said person. There was a debate whether I should have shot an unarmed person at the time. My view was that they just tried to kill us and I disarmed them. They could have disarmed me. Thus, bang -whistle blew. Ref said one sim was enough. The Ref was a state trooper who also said he bought my rationale and the shot was righteous. Got shot some more in various runs, shot some bad people.

Caught a Code Eagle on my hand - it was red and that freaked me for a moment till I realized it was paint.

I went for the folded up washcloth in my pants as I found the cup uncomfortable. Luckily, didn't shot there. Got my hand screwed up in knife class - had to wear a gadget - another thing to explain to the denizens of the liberal arts world.

Wife won't let me do this anymore and I need to take care of her, so I won't risk injury in training - not that my old bod is up for that.