Shooting in Virtual Reality
Scenario-based training in my academy class involved role players – often more than one - and evaluators spread out across the grounds of the academy. In addition to those people were the scenario coordinators, a dispatcher or two, and additional support staff. All that starts to get intensive human resource-wise. Never mind the safety issues involving that many people, several of them inexperienced. As a community, during my time in police work, we have gone [...]
Self-Defense
The term "self-defense" means different things to different people. To a police officer, self-defense differs significantly from defensive tactics or DT, as it is known in the law enforcement training community. From a civilian perspective, "self-defense" may be synonymous with martial arts. While others may believe self-defense means using a [...]
Like a box of chocolates – vehicle stops and approaches
“Life is like a box of chocolate; you never know what you’ll get until you bite into one.” Whether pro-active policing is still a thing or not, working street cops will make traffic stops. Most of the time, the officer has no idea who is in the vehicle and [...]
Review – Active Shooter Response Training: Lone Wolf to Coordinated Attacks
Once again, Active Killer events are back at the forefront of everyone's mind. While there are a lot of questions, there are not always enough well-researched and thoughtful answers. This article reviews author Scott Hyderkhan's Active Shooter response manual. It is a revised second edition from July 2020. The first [...]
CIVILIAN INVOLVED DEFENSIVE SHOOTINGS | Be Fair, Be Honest and Be Clear
Civilian who uses deadly force may suffer post-shooting trauma and civil litigation, and will most certainly be subjected to widespread, mostly unqualified second-guessing. The civilian usually has no standing legal immunity, and no agency, union or other support network in place. It behooves police not to needlessly add to those [...]
Driving While Shooting – Just Because We Can, Doesn’t Mean We Should
We have seen numerous officers across the country engage in officer-involved shootings (OIS), firing rounds out of their patrol car's windshield. You can explain shooting out of the windshield if your car is either parked or stopped by impact, you are seated in the vehicle, and being attacked. However, shooting [...]
Roka Arms’ Downrange Tab and Training for Off-body Carry
Most of us carry concealed firearms in or on our beltline, whether with a strong side hip holster, inside the waistband, or “appendix-ish” carry. At least one American Cop writer advocates for carrying smaller revolvers in pocket holsters. All those options are great until you can’t carry them that way [...]
REALITY CHECK II | Plastic Practice
Probably one of the biggest shortcomings of law enforcement is the lack of training or time in the area of firearms. Mainly, it’s due to budgets, manpower and lack of range facilities. Here, I won’t address the lack of interest from management or officers’ reticence for training on their own [...]
The Behavior Management Psychology Of Patrol
The vast majority of what we do as police officers is to interact with people. So it’s safe to say our inter-personal and communication skills will dictate our effectiveness. Any of us who’ve been on the job for any length of time know an officer who can come into almost [...]
SHOOTING WITH X-RAY VISION PART I | Vital Shot Placement In Dire Curcumstances
My partner and I just finished teaching an advanced pistol class. One of our students came over to me, frowning. “Doc, I feel a lot better about my shooting skills after this class,” he said quietly. “But I’m still unclear about one thing. Where should I be aiming to put [...]
ANOTHER ROUND OF LOW LIGHT CONSIDERATIONS
Low light. It seems either you enjoy working in that environment or you don't. I did, and I still miss the challenges. Anyway. Back when the world was flat and pterodactyls were our air support, flashlights were talked about in terms of candlepower. Then the SureFire 6P handheld, running on [...]