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Thread: Standards for LEOs

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duces Tecum View Post
    This is a lay opinion, and is probably worth about what you paid for it.

    I like to think that most jurors are favorably disposed towards their local PD, but the PD has to give them something to hang that hat on.

    If I were on the jury and the PD was defending their firearms training syllabus with things like Black Belt Patch Standards, it would bias me against them, although I may have no idea what BBPS might be. For an institution to pick some currently popular gun guru or trendy drill and, in the years to come, trying to explain to the jury why they did so ("Cool name, bro, F.A.S.T!) might be more difficult then it first appears.

    On the other hand, were I on that same jury and the PD explained that their training program concluded with the same final tests used by Gunsite or FLETC (both with 40 or more years of institutional memory), I would be heavily inclined towards supporting the PD on the grounds that graduation drills for institutions like those mentioned constitute "best practices".

    It's the final test that counts, not the training details. Nobody is suggesting that the PD has to have the same ammo budget as FLETC.

    Like I said, it's worth what you paid for it.
    I hate to break this to you but as a FLETC certified firearms instructor they very much follow Ernest Langdon maxim that the best teachers are the best thrives. Much of what they were teaching 10-15 years ago was ripped off from places like Mis-South and the Rogers School. They may be ripping off new material but I doubt the process has changed much.

    My own Agency firearms unit has man crushes on certain trainers and unsurprisingly those same trainers drills show up in our materials.
    Last edited by HCM; 09-17-2019 at 05:20 PM.

  2. #12
    Understood. But to a layman having the imprimatur of a Federal agency with four decades of institutional experience "stealing from the best" weighs more, I think, than not. In any event, it's a place to start.

  3. #13
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    Something to keep in mind:

    If you are creating this as a tougher standard, what happens when someone fails, suffers adverse administrative action from it, and challenges it legally?

    "Officer Broadside Barn has been doing the job for 15 years with no problem under the old standard. Why now is he being punished for your arbitrary, artificially high standard?"

    If you don't have evidence as to why that standard is higher and is necessary to perform the job, the program will be squashed.

    My agency is going through this right now. We've transitioned from SIG P229s to the Glock 19M and Glock 26. Our qual courses are purposed to shoot from our duty carry, so there's no hand-jamming mags for specific strings of fire. All of the reloads and strings of fire match up with loadout of carrying two 15 round reloads and a 15+1 in the gun. So, our FTU is taking advantage of updating the qual by also making it more stringent. Previously we only had to fire 2 rounds at 25 yards, which you could completely throw into the berm and still have no trouble passing. Now it's 8 rounds, and if you throw those into the berm you're already failing. In addition the mag changes are also a lot tighter. To any decent shooter it's fine, but it's just short enough that if you're one of those LEOs with poor gun handling that doesn't really know how to reload your gun efficiently (Ever see the guys carry mags backwards or facing in random directions?), you're likely going to miss your entire follow up string. Finally, there is now a WHO string instead of just a SHO string, and women in particular (for whatever reason, I don't know) seem to be throwing shots like crazy on the WHO string.

    The result is that we're seeing a 20% failure rate on the Glock 26, and a 10% failure rate on the Glock 19. Even though the review board has formally passed the course, we're still shooting the old course. I think we can all figure out why its being hung up behind the scenes, and who the majority of those failing the course are and what positions in the command structure they likely hold …..

    In any case, the FTU is already taking about a gun a month from agents who fail the old course. So to take those ~12 failures a year and make it 600 failures per year is a complete non-starter.

    Where to go from here?

    Respectfully, I disagree with Trooper. I think rsa-otc has an excellent firearms program for his company that far surpasses most police programs. In particular, people respond well to prizes and competition. Instead of instituting a higher standard which will almost certainly get shot down, I think encouraging good performance through dynamic training, competitions, and rewards is the best way to go. The most I've ever seen agents get excited about shooting is challenging each other, and running IDPA/IPSC style courses of fire. FTU also posts a "Drill of the Week" on their intranet page, but that's obviously up to the FIs at field offices to integrate into recurring training and get people motivated.

    Does anyone here know how the US Marines became known for their marksmanship? Yeah, everyone's heard the stories about them in WWI and how devastating their marksmanship was. But how did they actually get that good?

    You got paid extra if you qualified Expert. Over a number of years marksmanship became a matter of pride, to the point that alone is the driving force in the USMC to do well on the courses of fire.

    Will you reach everyone with these approaches? No, you can't, but short of some catastrophic, tragic shooting where even the city council says that the shooting standard needs to be higher because Patrolman Broadside Barn smokes a baby on accident during an active shooter, I don't think you'll get a noticeably higher standard enforced. The best you can do is motivate those who are "on the fence", so to speak.

    Not only is that a more realistic building block to start from but as someone that has poured myself into projects at work to see them destroyed by retarded management, I also think it'll be a better goal for your mental/emotional health.

    YMMV.
    Last edited by TGS; 09-17-2019 at 06:52 PM.
    "Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer

  4. #14
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    To clarify, this will not be our “qual”. We have a qual and we do not need another.

    This will be more along the line of, hey, people all over the country agree that if you can do XYZ, you are good.

    It’s to help guys have goals and baselines for their personal training, and we, the instructors, will try to help them reach those goals.

    Does that make sense? Not a qual, more like something I can reference and say, you can do it in this time if you are good. Your current time means you suck.

  5. #15
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    I think TGS is spot on in his assertion that promoting a culture of competence through incentive is likely going to be the most successful approach. Socaldep and I have discussed this offline. I think LAPDs bonus qualification, the pay bonus and bragging rights it brings, and the requirements for scoring before applying to specialized units, is a great way to build that culture within an agency. Absent this, it's all too easy for folks to embrace a culture of "Lowest Common Denominator".

    I also agree that you need to provide the groundwork for increased standards, not just in the form of justification, but the work of training the folks up to the standard. We're trying to engage in that slow walk right now, but are hampered by a totally broken facility that is closed 30% of the time for maintenance to prevent it collapsing on.our heads.

    All of this may be a moot point to the OP, depending on his purpose. It almost sounds like you're looking for standards for your FTU staff. There are tons of quals and drills out there for that. What will be the consequence of an Instructor not shooting to the standard? Is this a challenge type thing, to get guys to stretch themselves or develop as shooters? Some of us need a bit more information to make a relevant recommendation.

    ETA....posted right after you did OP. I think for just setting personal bench marks and training goals for cops, any of the drills and exercises mentioned above will be good.
    Last edited by AMC; 09-17-2019 at 08:44 PM.

  6. #16
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    This isn't built for LEOs, but IMO is pretty relevant:

    https://priorityperformance.files.wo...vel-target.pdf

    I find a lot of civilian oriented drills emphasize from the draw. That makes a lot of sense for civilian carriers. LEOs more often have some notion they are going in to danger and will have their gun at the ready prior to needing it. I'm not saying to ignore draws or counter-ambush stuff, but I am saying if you aren't good from the ready you need to focus there before spending much of your time on getting your draw speed down and that fundamentals matter more than shaving .20 seconds off your draw.

    I find many drills emphasize reload speed. That's definitely an "icing on the cake" skill for LEOs and not something that increases survivability. Once you can reliably reload the gun with the bullets oriented correctly and the magazine fully seated, you're good. If you've mastered survivability skills and have more time, sure, push those reloads. But it shouldn't be priority.

    So what I like about Find Your Level, particularly for LEOs, is that you work from the ready until you're good enough to advance. You're working on skills that matter more and more often first before low reward skills. You're getting an idea of how much sight picture you need for various sized targets, how fast you can shoot and keep good hits, and working on tracking your sights. The strings of fire are short. Hopefully this will combat running the gun like a sewing machine under stress and can be used to reinforce "assessment speed" shooting. Even if a real engagement runs 15 rounds, you *probably* shouldn't be shooting one 15 round string (I'm sure exceptions exist, but in general...) Once somebody is good enough from the ready, replace "concealed" with "duty carry". Uniformed guys run it from the duty rig, plain clothes guys from whatever they normally carry with.

    The targets don't cost you anything more than some printer paper and ink plus staples or adhesive to stick it on a used cardboard target.
    Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.

  7. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by gskip View Post
    To clarify, this will not be our “qual”. We have a qual and we do not need another.

    This will be more along the line of, hey, people all over the country agree that if you can do XYZ, you are good.

    It’s to help guys have goals and baselines for their personal training, and we, the instructors, will try to help them reach those goals.

    Does that make sense? Not a qual, more like something I can reference and say, you can do it in this time if you are good. Your current time means you suck.
    Gotcha, totally makes sense. I interpreted some of the words in the OP, like "hold them to it" or some such to mean a qual.

    Quote Originally Posted by AMC View Post
    I think TGS is spot on in his assertion that promoting a culture of competence through incentive is likely going to be the most successful approach. Socaldep and I have discussed this offline. I think LAPDs bonus qualification, the pay bonus and bragging rights it brings, and the requirements for scoring before applying to specialized units, is a great way to build that culture within an agency. Absent this, it's all too easy for folks to embrace a culture of "Lowest Common Denominator".

    I also agree that you need to provide the groundwork for increased standards, not just in the form of justification, but the work of training the folks up to the standard. We're trying to engage in that slow walk right now, but are hampered by a totally broken facility that is closed 30% of the time for maintenance to prevent it collapsing on.our heads.

    All of this may be a moot point to the OP, depending on his purpose. It almost sounds like you're looking for standards for your FTU staff. There are tons of quals and drills out there for that. What will be the consequence of an Instructor not shooting to the standard? Is this a challenge type thing, to get guys to stretch themselves or develop as shooters? Some of us need a bit more information to make a relevant recommendation.

    ETA....posted right after you did OP. I think for just setting personal bench marks and training goals for cops, any of the drills and exercises mentioned above will be good.
    That's cool that LAPD has that program. We already have a cash bonus system in place, I wonder if FTU could get it awarded for firearms proficiency. Do you, @SoCalDep or anyone else have any commentary on how it's playing out?

    Also, unrelated, did you guys not get that portable conex shooting range to ameliorate the range issue? I wonder what our field office out there is doing. The last time I talked to someone, I think they said they were driving to some military range hours away.
    "Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer

  8. #18
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    "That's cool that LAPD has that program. We already have a cash bonus system in place, I wonder if FTU could get it awarded for firearms proficiency. Do you, @SoCalDep or anyone else have any commentary on how it's playing out?

    Also, unrelated, did you guys not get that portable conex shooting range to ameliorate the range issue? I wonder what our field office out there is doing. The last time I talked to someone, I think they said they were driving to some military range hours away.[/QUOTE]

    SoCalDep is closer to LAPD than me, so could probably speak more to how the Bonus Qual works for them, but I know it's been in use for a long time.

    The SF office guys used to shoot at what is now our Airport Range at SFO. Went down there several times with them back when my buddy was still with you guys. Very squared away shooters all. Several former MSD guys among them. Since the SFO range is currently kinda shut down for renovation, I have no idea where they'd be shooting. Concord, maybe?

    We did not go the Ready Range route. Cool idea, but not remotely cost effective for us. Just had a meeting last week with all parties about our range, and the dire situation we face. As in....lose the range, lose the Academy, and then lose the ability to have an armed police department. The City is gonna have to face the music and shell out some cash to fix the place, and like lickety split. The engineers did not give us promising news.
    Last edited by AMC; 09-17-2019 at 10:59 PM.

  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by gskip View Post
    This will be more along the line of, hey, people all over the country agree that if you can do XYZ, you are good.

    It’s to help guys have goals and baselines for their personal training, and we, the instructors, will try to help them reach those goals.

    Does that make sense? Not a qual, more like something I can reference and say, you can do it in this time if you are good. Your current time means you suck.
    If you haven't already taken a look at it, I strongly recommend 'Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Use', by Karl Rehn and John Daub. It's listed for $20 on Amazon.

    https://blog.krtraining.com/strategi...training-book/

    The first section may not be quite as relevant to your context since it is meant for concealed carry, but I believe it is a very well thought perspective for both students and instructors to consider.

    Here is a review from Greg Ellifritz, who also has an a background in LE training: https://www.activeresponsetraining.n...ndgun-training

    Some of the older material that formed the foundation of the book may be found as follows:

    Beyond the 1 Percent
    Minimum Competency
    Drills

  10. #20
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    I don't want to derail this, but most of our qualification courses were done from the duty holster, even for plainclothes troops.

    We would get some of our people on the range once a year. Many of the command staff could only break away from their onerous duties once annually. (Others would enjoy coming to the range and qualified on long guns despite being mocked by other command staff,) Given the inordinate hysteria by many management personnel to saying to anyone that they would find out (rather than know instantly), detectives frequently missed any non-mandated training. They also worked in uniform during special events.

    When I was still relevant, I realized that officers often have knowledge of a threat and may well have pistol in hand. That said, I believe the worse case scenario would be a surprise attack in which the officer would need to deal with the ALS/SLS holster. For that reason, we kept a Q course that required clearing leather (or plastic).

    I would agree that positive motivation works well in improving firearms proficiency or proficiency of any kind. It also helps if the troops realize that the instructor actually cares about their survival on the street. In my time, I saw instructors sabotage great training by being arrogant jerks.

    I will remark that I was proud of our detectives (often problem children for firearms instructors). When we transitionedfrom 9mm to .40, they wanted SIG 226's rather than the 230's they had been issued in the 9mm era. A bunch of kick-butt detectives at my former employer.
    Last edited by jnc36rcpd; 09-18-2019 at 12:05 AM.

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