The training is part of a new program launched by the West Georgia agency meant to address some of these questions. The program, called "Shoot to Incapacitate," is challenging decades of police orthodoxy around use of deadly force. Instead of teaching officers to always aim for available center mass of the body — usually the chest, upper torso and head — the training is giving them another option if they must fire their weapons in the line of duty.
The course is the first of its kind in Georgia and could well be a first in the nation. It is teaching officers that in some instances where they are authorized to use deadly force, they have the option to aim for the pelvic region, abdomen, legs and arms of a person posing a threat. The idea is that a gunshot to these areas, while still potentially deadly, could stop the threat while increasing the chance that the wounds will not be fatal.
It is a break from generations of American law enforcement training taught in academies and in annual recertification training. The reason officers have been instructed to aim for the upper torso and head area is that it generally provides the largest target and the fastest way to stop the threat.
This method, while effective, has contributed to the roughly 1,000 fatal police shootings each year and helped plunge law enforcement agencies, and the communities they serve, into crisis after crisis. About a quarter of the fatal shootings each year occur in situations involving the mentally ill, sometimes at the height of a breakdown or episode.
"It's a responsibility, in my opinion, of any police leader to look at options for their police officers so that a deadly force encounter doesn't necessarily end in a deadly result," said LaGrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar.