LEO Training, Good Enough?

Do LEO's have the proper training to handle a shootout when it happens?

  • Yes

    Votes: 17 34.7%

  • No

    Votes: 32 65.3%
  • Total voters
    49
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A Contrary Opinion

I think the overwhelming majority of LEOs are adequately trained in the use of lethal force to perform their duties.

I am a firearms instructor for our agency. Our policy was shaped by very dedicated instructors, and is constantly evolving. Our officers are trained to meet that standard. We qualify and perform an additional course at least quarterly with our handguns. Long guns must be fired in at least two quarters per year. Additionally, there are annual requirements for night shooting, BUGs, etc.

Safety is constantly stressed. Each range session begins with a recitation of the firearms safety rules. Officers are monitored at the range for unsafe habits. Proper technique is trained. All weapons are inspected annually, and get a detailed disassembly and cleaning by a trained inspector.

We get force-on-force training at the academy, and periodically in the field (not as much as we'd like, maybe every couple of years). Money is tight, but time is the real restriction. Just staying within policy on training takes lots of effort.

The skill level of individual officers runs the gamut. A few are second-to-none, a few are pretty clueless, most are in between. All are within policy (well, mostly, most of the time...).

I think this is about the best one can reasonably ask for. As far as training resources go, I think Defensive Tactics is far more perishable and far more difficult to train, not to mention medical, driving and legal training, and those skills are used much more often than lethal force.

LEOs are only human. Violence is not pretty, and it is easy to armchair quarterback something on YouTube. Finally, even the best of us makes mistakes. In an extreme situation, there is little margin for error, and great consequences if an error is made. However, patrol officers are not going to be able to maintain levels of training achieved by selected elites, and it is not efficient to attempt it.

Going back to the original post, cops handle shootouts by calling for backup, establishing containment, and sending in the experts. It always works, in the end, and for the vast majority of incidents, this is the best course of action. Clearly, there are times when more offensive tactics would better protect life, and doctrine is evolving for active-shooter scenarios.

Anyway, this country has the most professional, honest, best trained and just law enforcement in the world, given the level of violence in the society at large. I guess the scrutiny and lawyers keep us on our toes, so it's good, but when I see a post denigrating the skills of LEOs, I think the burden of proof rests with those bringing it into doubt.
 
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MLeake

I see your point. And I believe that it's valid one. I agree the average firearms enthusiast fires probably thousands of rounds more than the average police officer. Unless of course he's a firearms enthusiast also.

You can fire live ammo during training. But firing live ammo dont equate to training. It's practice. Practice is great. As others have stated... Firearms related tasks other than training and practice takes up probably less than one percent of the average officers time. Firearms are most officers least used tool... But it's the only one that MUST be right each and every single time...

Contrary to popular belief, Police hit their intended target a heck of a lot more than they miss. But only the misses and mistakes are news so thats what we hear about.

Glenn D.
 
The main reason most Police Depts. do not receive enough of any kind of training is because of one thing.MONEY. You get what the Dept. can afford and if you are smart,you will practice on your own and take any kind of class that will help you out in your performance.
TV cops shoot someone every week.In 32 years I shot nobody.No shots,no misses.I handcuffed thousands,struck with a baton hundreds,and sprayed dozens.I wore out countlass holsters drawing and holstering but never had to pull the trigger.The same goes for most of the folks on my Dept.
 
Glen Dee...

I agree there are differences between practice and training.

I've also had training from firearms instructors from all four service branches, at one time or another. (I was Navy; served in a few Joint environments, and over the years got to qualify, re-qualify, or fam-fire on a bunch of stuff.) In training environments, got to shoot while wearing armor; while moving around barricades; while doing 4-man forced entries (not fun, and I'm pretty happy I don't do that for a living ); and on night courses of fire. Plus some full auto, and a grenade launcher.

Martial arts have been my other major hobby since the mid-90's, so I've played around a lot with weapon retention, too. Even have the blue plastic Glock, and a couple of training knives (wood and hard rubber) for those drills.

Some of the guys I shoot and work out with are LEO. They seem to think most of their co-workers don't get enough training, or practice for that matter.

I know several of them have tried to get their buddies interested in coming to the dojo or coming to the range, but there are some guys out there who just lack the interest.
 
I voted yes. Compared to most perps, police are far better trained. I am sure that limits in funding prevents the police from receiving as much training as they would benefit from. We should be willing to spend whatever it takes to give the police the maximum amount of training that would benefit them.
 
Contrary to popular belief, Police hit their intended target a heck of a lot more than they miss. But only the misses and mistakes are news so thats what we hear about.
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True, the media does emphasize the mistakes and errors. However, every study and report I've seen indicates that police MISS between 60% and 70% of the shots they take (outside of training and ranges). Thats indicitive of either poor training or a lack of emphisis (and therefor training) on shooting skills. About 5 years ago, NYPD reported that over 70% of the rounds officers fired in the streets of NYC were unintended- I read this as negligent discharges.
I have little confidence in the abilities of a "trained" police officer when in comes to firearms
 
Speaking for how it is at my agency, no, it's not good enough. You really can't call what we do "training". We "qualify" with our Sig P220s once a year, 50 rounds in daylight, 50 at night. This is utilizing the state-mandated course of fire that is actually geared toward revolvers, never having more than 6 rounds in an 8 round magazine. Time limits on each string of fire are way too generous. We stand square with our B-27 targets, with no emphasis on seeking cover, starting at the 3 yard line and working back to the 25 [only in daylight, at night we only go back as far as 15 yards]. I almost always score 100%, but I don't pat myself on the back...anyone with a modest amount of skill could easily do likewise.
 
I have no experience in le, but in combat most of the shots taken by the marines I served with were not hits. When it comes down to it, no amount of training can make you steady your nerves, if you ain't cut out for it. Most men just aren't able to shoot straight when the other guy is shooting in their direction, myself included. Someone comes into my place that doesn't belong; I ain't waiting for them to start shooting. I know once that happens I am gonna hit the deck, better to shoot first.
 
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As far as what could be done to alleviate it..our respective agencies should maybe send us all to Blackwater [or whatever they call themselves now]. Or Thunder Ranch. Or Gunsite. Or, since we all know that will never happen, maybe have some of their personnel come and give us a few days of instruction....and, as long as I'm engaging in hopeless fantasy, I'd also like a bright red Lamborghini. :rolleyes:
 
All good insight. I just want to be clear that I was in no way bashing LEO's or Government Agents. I just thought it would be interesting to hear it from the source, and it has been. I'll agree that mindset and attitude play a big role in how effective training can be. When we trained there were always those soldiers who didn't want to be there, and they were rotated out of the platoon pretty quickly, so we were left with a good group of high speed guys who wanted to do nothing but train. I guess I was lucky, scratch that, I know I was lucky.
 
In my earlier post, I made the statement:
I fully expect (and train for) protecting myself and family.
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I am very willing to pay from my own pocket to take private classes.

The courses I have taken over the last few years average 20 or so students per class. Usually only 1-2 will be LE and 1-2 will be Military. The rest are always Joe Citizen like myself.

Things like groceries, car repair, dental bills get in the way of many taking private classes, but you can save up for the things you really want. Most will opt for a boat or ATV over training classes.
 
I think that LEOs can be divided into two groups (I’ll discuss the Brass in a minute). One group of LEOs are very concerned about officer survival and will religiously train, whether on their own or through a combination of others (department, other departments, reading, practicing, etc.). The other group is just plain lazy and thinks that if my department wants me to shoot better, or save a life, they need to train me more than 4 times a year. This group will not shoot on their off-time and most probably will not own any other guns.

Brass, on the other hand, only cares about the bottom dollar of their budget. I was in a department that shot 4 times a year. I spent a lot of time and money to better educate myself and my familiarization with firearms and tactics. When I became a Firearms Instructor, DT Instructor and Officer Survival Instructor, I finally was able to change the program course and the time and quality of our shoots. We were mandated to shoot 4 times a year. I used this time to first qualify all, and then I set up tactical courses with instruction on officer survival. I worked simunitions, RedMan, etc. in these classes, and about ½ of the officers wanted to stay and learn more. Others bitterly complained about having to clean their gun, wanting to go elsewhere, etc. Gradually, through some innovation and “fun” exercises, was I able to get more and more officers to stay and shoot. I worked the firearms training up to 6-8 times a year.

To train LEOs better, you need qualified leaders at the top, making sound and realistic decisions about the officer survival training. This includes DT, Firearms, EVOC, etc. You need to train officers in realistic situations, so they react under stress EXACTLY as they have been trained. Standing on a firing line and waiting for the whistle to blow and putting two rounds in the paper target and re-holstering fast is NOT realistic training. This just gets more officers killed or wounded.:mad:
 
it ain't the brass; it is the system they are forced to make work as best as they can. In the service we always looked to blame the 'brass' for all the stupid things we saw, but after a time I came to see that they were more frustrated by the sytem then we were and even if few of them were in the field, most had been there.
 
Morning Gents...

Mad Hatter...
being an NYPD alumnus I'm thinking you may have misread those stats. 70% of all shots fired in the street are N/D's? Ummm If thats true they all may as well pack up and go home. First off... during the time period you present the NYPD had about fourty thousand gun toting sworn members. If they fired 10 shots in the street amongst them 7 of them were n/d's? I'm going to have to look into that stat... I just cant see it. I could see 70% misses on a bad day.... but N/D's?.. I dont know.
More on this later.
 
Big Dog, I agree with you to an extent, and also agree with you Nero, to an extent:) As I said I was lucky, I was blessed with the best chain of command a soldier could ask for, from the buck E-5 all the way to Capitan. I can't say the same for the other platoons in the company, but that proves both points. My noncoms and officers were all very well trained, and had the "I won't ask one of my soldiers to take a bunker without beating him to it" attitude. OTOH, the other platoons weren't so lucky. 90% of their leadership was completely worthless. Because of that those platoons suffered. I hate tootin the horn but my platoon was the best in the battalion, and it was because of good leaders. So I do think that good brass would make better cops, but also think that no matter where you go there will always be those in charge who don't give a damn.
 
True, the media does emphasize the mistakes and errors. However, every study and report I've seen indicates that police MISS between 60% and 70% of the shots they take (outside of training and ranges). Thats indicitive of either poor training or a lack of emphisis (and therefor training) on shooting skills. About 5 years ago, NYPD reported that over 70% of the rounds officers fired in the streets of NYC were unintended- I read this as negligent discharges.
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NYPD did not have 70% of their shots fired on the streets as unintended or negligent discharges. You either misread, misunderstood, or the person who conveying the information presented it incorrectly.

As for 60-70% missing, that is true. But what counts as a miss? A miss is anything that doesn't hit the perp. Here is an officer who missed something like 14 or 15 times, landing only one hit. Poorly trained and a poor shot? Not necessarily. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tBFXLNR2kI

The police need to do better, but number of shots fired versus impacts on the suspect is not always an indicator of how well they did. Sometimes your shots just aren't going through the barricade. Sometimes the shots aren't even meant for the suspect.

LAPD fired something like 600-800 rounds during the North Hollywood bank robbery. Poorly trained and poor shots? Mostly, no, just not trained for that sort of long range engagement.

Lubbock SWAT, sniper shoots two of his own officers, killing one, resulting in both teams present at scene to open up on the barricaded occupant who was hiding inside (in a closet as I recall), striking him once, never having seen him during the shooting, resulting in radio calls for more ammo to be brought to the scen after close to 400 rounds were expended. They had less than a 1% hit rate of which one shot struck two of their own and 1 shot hit the suspect who never fired at them. Poor shooting? Abysmal.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=75603
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=74939
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89932
 
The spectrum of police agencies is so wide, it's impossible to say yes or no.
My (Federal) agency required 4 shoots a year, at least one at night. Shot the qual course and a tactical problem each time.
We could have a shotgun, rifle, or both. 50 rnds per month if you wanted them. If you did not qualify, you lost your take home car. If you could not re mediate to qual, you lost your job!
Many of my co-workers were 'gun buffs', who also shot on their own time and dime.

Another agency in the Treasury Dept required their agents to get supervisor approval to take a handgun out of the office safe!

I saw a local SWAT team shoot where one member emptied 5 (repeat 5) Glock 9mm mags and still had not hit all 8, 8" plates, the furthest at 20 yards.

Most state mandated qual courses train on the wrong things (too long time limits, too many rounds from too far away), so everyone can ""qualify"".

In the "new generation" of officers, many are way too 'touchy feely', not gun oriented, and think they can ""establish empathy"" with the bad guys. Many only carry guns because they have to.

And one more thing - I have proven to my satisfaction that short, frequent range sessions, as short as 50 rounds, are better than 500 rounds in one day, but infrequently. The few rounds tend to 'focus the mind!
 
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The latest statistics from a professional LE magazine:

Hit ratio to rounds fired: 17%

80% of shootings at 7 yards or less

So, the need to make 50 yard shots is minimal. Close, fast, at bad breath distance is where we need to train!
 
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