The case for the assessment pause

[Le Français]

All LE Firearms training, with very few exceptions, is a compromise. The compromise is between time/money and officer/public safety. Time/money ALWAYS wins.

You're right on a lot of points, but I want to quibble with this one. There are American law enforcement agencies (including some which have NEVER had an OIS or a serious assault on an LEO in the history of the entire agency) which still send LEOs to private shooting schools year after year, issue many thousands of rounds a year in practice ammo, authorize on-duty solo trips to a range of the LEO's choice for practice, purchase whatever holsters the LEOs want (subject to reasonable safety considerations), NEVER say "you're good enough already, stop with all this shooting" and generally robustly support skill at arms.

Those agencies are rare, and SFPD is definitely not one of them. But, they are out there.

[cpd2110]

I think it's an aiming vs panic firing issue. I think aimed shots will have slower split times and time for more assessment. I believe the way to train aimed shots is not necessarily on the range but through regular FOF training. I don't think it's very realistic but I think that is the way to get in ingrained in people.

To your point, out of a few hundred individual runs we had 2 blue on blue events. I would say both involved startle and not processing. I had noticed an issue last year with our new instructors where they were giving too much input during a debrief. I had them require the student to give their feedback first on this years training. In most cases, the officers were able to diagnose their own issues. Some are so new they don't have a clue but were still given a chance before the instructor jumped in. On the B on B deal, 1 guy owned it bigger than life, apologized and even gave the actual reason and no bs of why it happened. The second guy did not own it but the victim officer reminded him quickly (that is still a win). We bang on the new gen cops often, but this training and officers taking ownership of issues gave me some hope for the future.

[DDTSGM]

I think it's an aiming vs panic firing issue. I think aimed shots will have slower split times and time for more assessment. I believe the way to train aimed shots is not necessarily on the range but through regular FOF training. I don't think it's very realistic but I think that is the way to get in ingrained in people.

I tend to agree. The problem always seems to circle back to a couple of elements:

1) Time and money;

2) Competent instruction.

I would be curious to know the number of police officers working today who have NEVER done scenario-based FonF with NLTA. I would guess it would be around 30%.

We need to get to the point where scenario-based FonF/simulator training is expected to be a semi-annual event.

As I write this I am very aware this is pistol forum, but along with that training LE needs to revamp EVO training in much the same manner. There are far more officers killed in auto accidents each year than by felons. But, that is a story for another thread.

[AMC]

You're right on a lot of points, but I want to quibble with this one. There are American law enforcement agencies (including some which have NEVER had an OIS or a serious assault on an LEO in the history of the entire agency) which still send LEOs to private shooting schools year after year, issue many thousands of rounds a year in practice ammo, authorize on-duty solo trips to a range of the LEO's choice for practice, purchase whatever holsters the LEOs want (subject to reasonable safety considerations), NEVER say "you're good enough already, stop with all this shooting" and generally robustly support skill at arms.

Those agencies are rare, and SFPD is definitely not one of them. But, they are out there.

We actually agree. Hence the 'with very few exceptions' part of my statement. They're out there, but they're sadly not the norm. Heck, a few are even relatively large Metro places. Again....the exception.

And you're right.....SFPD ain't one of 'em, despite years of effort. It took me nearly 3 years to get training for the damn Range staff. When decision makers think a Basic POST Instructor class is the end all, and now you're 'trained', you're speaking a different language.

[TheNewbie]

I was issued a DAK P226 in .357 Sig. For most, the DAK and .357 Sig are,in theory, not ideal.However, the combination actually produced an accurate gun, with hood recoil characteristics that helped you slow down and shoot accurately, but allowed enough speed to be effective. I wouldn’t want a .357 Sig again, but the combo wasn’t as bad as it seems on paper.



Training is a better fix that thinking a particular trigger type will solve all your problems, but training and the gun combo can help mitigate shooting like you are at Omaha Beach.


I sometimes wonder about the guys who carry 3 extra magazines of 17+ rounds, if they have thought about fire discipline vs fire volume. All of those rounds are going somewhere when they leave the gun.

[BehindBlueI's]

Well, you're a great example of "quality of quantity" posting, so you've got that going for you....

Great thread, touches on so many points that really do bear consideration.

I still try to respond to "mentions" in a timely fashion if possible. I just don't scroll through threads and my moderating is basically just cleaning up the classifieds whenever I get around to it these days.

[Clusterfrack]

I still try to respond to "mentions" in a timely fashion if possible. I just don't scroll through threads and my moderating is basically just cleaning up the classifieds whenever I get around to it these days.

I'm just glad to have you here. Each Mod has different levels of engagement at different times, and I don't have any problems with some of us doing more of whatever.

[feudist]

The number of shots fired is also very situationally dependent. The three that contribute the most are surprise attacks(no mystery there) rushing attacks(again, duh)and when multiple officers are involved.
It's been known for decades that the more officers present when the shooting starts, the more shots each officer fires. Known as "bunch firing" or "sympathetic firing", essentially officers will continue to fire as long as they hear gunshots.
In the Amadou Diallo shooting by NYPD in 1999, 4 officers fired a total of 41 shots from their Glocks, striking him 19 times.
Diallo was unarmed.
When confronted by the officers of the plainclothes Street Crimes Unit he reached back and withdrew his wallet, either thinking that they were robbing him or simply getting his ID out.
Indicted for second degree murder, they were acquitted at trial and exonerated by the shooting review board.

From listening to the officer's testimony on C-Span, it appeared that the officers were spreading out and approaching him when he presented the wallet. He was standing inside a boxlike vestibule to an apartment entrance.One or more of the cops yelled at him "Freeze!" or "Gun!", and everyone drew their guns. simultaneously, one of the officers fired and another tripped and fell. Everyone started shooting. some of the officers thought Diallo had shot the one who tripped. some of them thought he was shooting at them because thir 9mm Full Metal Jacket(in 1999!)bullets were ricocheting out of the brick vestibule and whizzing past their own heads.
IIRC, 3 of the cops fired 10+ rounds and the one who fell fired 8.
According to eye and ear witnesses the firing lasted around 2 seconds.

There was a huge shitfit. But it wasn't so much about the tragedy of an innocent man being killed as it was about how many times they shot him, BECAUSE that was prima facie proof of racism and the yada yadda yadda. Which is kind of the whole problem. Nobody gives a cup of cold spit about paying for more police training until there is literally a lawsuit that results in a court mandate. But 99.999 lawsuits aren't aimed at righting a wrong. They're about lawyers getting paid by deep pockets. Go ahead and add another couple of nines to that percentage, actually.

In my 36 subsequent range days, or the previous 20, I never once heard a word mentioned about this issue. Never trained with another officer in a live fire scenario, much less several at a time. Way too dangerous. When we finally started doing a single FOF scenario once a year, it was almost always unscripted Laser tag/capture the flag level "training".
The truth is, we hardly ever received "training". We absolutely did not practice. We qualified with pistol(50 rounds), shotgun(4 rounds), stick(rarely. Like 4 or 5 times over 28 years), mace(every few years), handcuffs(every fewer years" and TASER(every 2 years. Ish). We had the exact same Use of Force policy played on a VCR tape that I heard in the academy in 1990. Sometimes we'd do a desultory driving course, mainly aimed at not backing into things. We always got nasty lectures on whatever "Thou Shalt Not" was a bug up some ranking admin puke's ass.
Everyone involved in training was there to avoid being on the street in Patrol, plain and simple.
Every other department around us did no more...and mostly much less.

[Chain]

With plenty of stories about shooting scores of rounds and making single-digit hits, there doesn't seem to be a lot of stories about bystanders being hit. Not to discount concern for misses, but, when people are dumping mags, where are those rounds ending up?

[Hambo]

With plenty of stories about shooting scores of rounds and making single-digit hits, there doesn't seem to be a lot of stories about bystanders being hit. Not to discount concern for misses, but, when people are dumping mags, where are those rounds ending up?

It happens. An LAPD officer killed a girl with a round that went through a dressing room wall. NYPD has hit bystanders. We had an officer who killed a citizen with a miss that went thought a house wall.