Random police academy weapon stats

[Chipster]

So I am TDY at ILEA for the week teaching firearms. Here's a few notes from day 1. We have 30+ in our squad but I was able to get some stats off of page one of the weapons of the students.

Out of 25 students we have:
1. 16 Glocks
a. (9) .40 S&W
b. (6) 9mm
c. (1) .45 acp

2. 8 Sig Sauer
a. (5) .40 S&W
b. (1) 9mm
c. (1) 357 sig
d. (1) .45 scp

3. 1 Smith Wesson M&P
a. (1) 9mm

I've only seen one (1) P320 and of the rest of the other guns, specifically I didn't see anything other than the above mentioned makes/models. It seems that of those who have a WML (60%) everyone is using a version of the Streamlight TLR. Holsters seems to be a mix, with the Safariland 6280 being the most popular, with several Blackhawk Serpas holsters present, as well as an old Safariland SSIII. The ALS is noticeably rare unless partnered with the SLS hood. Sight wise everyone has had either the standard Glock night sights or the Trijicons with one guy running the Tru-Glo fibre optic/tritium combination.

Disappointing that the they still teach, no demand, that the slide lock lever is never to be used except to lock the gun back. The only approved method of chambering the weapon is the "yank the slide back" method with a strong "push/pull" action. Total round count for the day was 108.

[Beendare]

What happened to the philosophy that depts had some sort of consistency in weapons and caliber?

Forgive my ignorance of LEO procedure, but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

[El Cid]

What happened to the philosophy that depts had some sort of consistency in weapons and caliber?

Forgive my ignorance of LEO procedure, but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

I suspect he has folks from different agencies in the class.

That said, I have not been able to find any LE shootings where officers sharing mags has been a factor. It may have happened - but I've been reading every AAR of shootings I can find for over 30 years.

[BehindBlueI's]

What happened to the philosophy that depts had some sort of consistency in weapons and caliber?

Forgive my ignorance of LEO procedure, but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

ILEA, which I assume is the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, is the training academy for almost every department in the state of Indiana. A few departments have their own in-house academy, like Indianapolis. You could potentially have 25 departments represented by 25 students.

I know of two incidents were ammo was shared on my department. Neither one mattered as far as the outcome.

[Erick Gelhaus]

That said, I have not been able to find any LE shootings where officers sharing mags has been a factor. It may have happened - but I've been reading every AAR of shootings I can find for over 30 years.

I'm aware of a couple where mags were shared. But only one in which it allowed the fight to be ended. That ended up happening because the copper was only carrying a G27 without a spare mag. And he was the one who ended up in position with a line of sight on the suspect.

[Sero Sed Serio]

What happened to the philosophy that depts had some sort of consistency in weapons and caliber?

Forgive my ignorance of LEO procedure, but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

Some departments subscribe to this theory. Personally, I think having a liberal (this is the only context where I find this term acceptable) weapons policy and allowing officers to choose (within reason) what they shoot best with to carry is more important than the ability to be able to share ammo. The likelihood of an officer needing to get solid hits during the first few rounds of an incident is of far more value than being able to replenish from a friend after having used up the 21 to 51+ rounds (using a SIG P239 in .40 vs. a Glock 17 as a benchmark) that most uniformed officers carry.

When I was with the county attorney's office and embedded with a large agency's anti-crime teams, the teams I worked with had an incident where an officer ran dry and needed to borrow, but it had more to do with that officer not having a fully duty load than anything else:

One district's team (we'll call it district 2) was at the hospital visiting a colleague, and were therefore armed with off-duty guns, when they joined a pursuit started that ended up traveling across the entire Phoenix metro area. One of the subjects ended up bailing on foot and running across a major street in North Phoenix, firing rounds at an officer's car. Officers engaged the suspect as he was running, and put him down. One of the district 2 guys ran his compact Kahr dry, and had no spare ammo. He told a district 4 guy (who had an AR) he was out, and the district 4 guy offered a spare mag from his duty Glock 22, but when he realized the district 2 guy didn't have a Glock, he gave the district 2 guy his pistol. The downed bad guy made a move for his gun, and officers re-engaged, eliminating the threat. So 8 officers involved, 9 guns discharged...

While working this assignment I carried a G19, with 2 G17 mags as a reload, and the guys I worked with carried a variety of Glocks in .40, .45, and possibly 9mm, and I never for a second was concerned that there would be a problem because I couldn't share mags with whoever I was riding with. However, this was in a large city in a large metro area, so I always figured all I had to do was survive the next 5 to 10 minutes, and then two of everything would show up to bail me out.

[AMC]

What happened to the philosophy that depts had some sort of consistency in weapons and caliber?

Forgive my ignorance of LEO procedure, but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

It is logistical advantage to the agency to have one caliber, certainly, but in my opinion not a serious tactical advantage to the officers.

I'm in your area. In 1994 my department experienced a horrendous gunbattle with a multiple long gun armed, body armor wearing bad guy. One of my co-workers was killed in that fight, and another wounded. Over 1100 rounds were fired. Our officers were armed with a mix of semiautomatic pistols in 9mm and .45, .357 revolvers, and 12 GA. 870's with #9 buckshot. No rifles. Even our Specialist team (our counter sniper element) did not carry their long guns in the car then. The fight lasted over thirty minutes. Afterwards, the decision was made to equip every officer with the same semiautomatic handgun (a Beretta 96G)......Because "share magazines". Totally ignored was the fact that this was a rifle fight we brought pistols to. That frankly fucked up reasoning still plagues our department today, though we've moved on to SIG 226 .40's, and we do now have rifles in the cars. The point is, choose the right tool....The handgun is an emergency "holy shit it's going down now!" Tool.....Not the answer to everything.

[ST911]

Ask: If you have expended all of your ammunition and failed to solve your problem or extract yourself from the situation, why should I give you some of mine?

Disappointing that the they still teach, no demand, that the slide lock lever is never to be used except to lock the gun back. The only approved method of chambering the weapon is the "yank the slide back" method with a strong "push/pull" action. Total round count for the day was 108.

You have a large number of disparate students, systems, and abilities, and expectations of what they'll do and how they'll be supported when they get back to their source. Universal techniques work for that environment.

[LSP972]

?.. but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

Sure... for the slugs who refuse to buy enough stuff for themselves, and TOTALLY believe that the "department" buys/provides everything they need.

For 30 years, I would "share" chow, SOME items, fuel, etc. with fellow troopers. When dealing with armed bad guys... water, MY guns, and plenty of ammo... Everybody was on their own. Most of them KNEW they needed some personal extras... but we're simply too damn cheap to buy their own. Well, guess what? I would never give them mine when the shit hit the fan. The big thing during Katrina was no extra batteries and pitiful extra batteries amongst those cheap jack rookies AND old timers. One of the few things I know about that bullshit was watching the first crew relieved back to Baton Rouge bought every SureFire G2 from local suppliers and grabbing as many S123s as they could from Supply. Some actually learn things... Eventually.

.

[Rex G]

What happened to the philosophy that depts had some sort of consistency in weapons and caliber?

Forgive my ignorance of LEO procedure, but isnt it an advantage to be able to share ammo?

Some politician/chiefs like to say that the ability to share ammo, in a gunfight, is a good thing, but the reality is more likely the ability to get a better deal on large lots of training/qual ammo. I work for a huge municipal PD, one of the largest in the USA, and am unaware of any incident in which officers shared ammo because they had identical pistols. During one chase, in the Eighties, which was a running gun battle, the passenger officer emptied his 1911, and then emptied his spare magazines. The officer behind the wheel then gave his partner his .44 Magnum revolver, which was emptied, then speed-loaded once, before the driver said enough, and saved his final speedloader for the end of the chase. This was told to me by a reliable source, and is not a mere war story; I was in that chase, the fifth patrol car. An LT authorized additional units to be in the chase, due to the number of occupants, and the known presence of at least one "MAC" type of weapon being fired at patrol units. (I had two .41 Magnum sixguns, but being in the fifth pursuing unit, did not engage with gunfire; no shots were fired at the crash scene that ended the chase.)

We standardized on .40 S&W in 1997, with three decocker DA pistols approved for uniformed primary duty weapons. (Any officer could "grandfather" his/her existing duty handgun.) The list of approved pistols was tweaked a bit during the following few years. This achieved commonality of ammo, and a common manual-of-arms, to facilitate training, while allowing different hand sizes to be accommodated. Eventually, the decocker-only part was removed from policy, as Glocks, the S&W M&P40, the xD, and eventually the P320 joined the list. (The xD was soon removed from the list.)

In late 2012, .45 ACP was added to the approved duty cartridges. Those electing to switch to .45 ACP were advised that the PD would only provide .40 training ammo, at least in the short term. I very nearly switched to a G21 SF or Gen4, for less-severe recoil, as one of my wrists was not aging well. (I carried big-bore Magnum duty sixguns in the Eighties, which probably did the initial damage.) Instead, I held out for the rumored 9mm approval, which happened in September 2015. Well, so much for commonality of ammo, though again, those opting for 9mm were advised that only .40 would be available for training.

At the end of 2015, the 1911 was added to the approved list, a gift from our departing chief, who had carried his grandfathered 1911 until the end of his career. Because none of the approved duty pistols, since 1997, had been single-action, a transition/certification class was necessary. I attended this 1911 training, and because an all-steel .45 ACP 5" 1911 has milder recoil than most .40 pistols, I added my 1911 to my duty pistol qual list.

The wide variety of duty pistols, that existed here until 1997, does not exist today, but the ammo standardization, largely present for a number of years, has unraveled, and we are probably the largest PD that authorizes the 1911 as an optional primary duty pistol for patrol officers.