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-train...zVimOsrzFKSXZA

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.

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.

[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 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.