William R. Wilburn
New member
"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."
With the above statements as preface:
We seek "correct" techniques through teachers, classes, and independent study of various media, however I find the errors made by myself and others to be equally instructive.
Example:
This week a nearby city's SWAT team was called out to arrest a young man suspected of a double homicide. Informants placed him in a cheap motel "across the tracks." Upon arriving at the scene the officers established a perimeter, moved back the the civilians, fired seven rounds and tear gas into the room through a window, and spent 25, yes twenty-five, minutes performing a dynamic entry with a battering ram through the door to the room. The episode ended when an officer (who shall remain nameless, lest he be singled out for thinking) broke the remaining glass from the low-silled window, adjacent to the door, through which the tear-gas had been fired, stepped through, entered the room, and unlocked the door from inside.
Not SOP.
Yes he could have made a great single target. But, the element of surprise had been lost, and The BG was not known to be armed.
You may have guessed: the BG was long gone.
Point is training is great, but if training isn't getting the job done we should rely on those rare flashes of inspiratation that come along, in my case, once in a great while.
Maybe they should have just backed off and waited the BG out, but sometimes you got to go with your gut and do what it tells you.
Second Incident:
Last week a neighboring county's Sheriff's Department was conducting training for it's Deputies concerning an "Officer Ambushed Scenario."
Three of the Deputies shot holes in their perfectly (until then) cruiser immediatly upon exiting their vehicle.
These are professionals who handle firearms daily. We all make mistakes, and under stress, in a shooting situation, I think shooting your car (George Hill's GEO excepted) can be forgiven. I learn more from my mistakes than from my successes.
Yeah, perforating a car may look bad, but at least they did return fire. Freezing up and not reacting would have been a lot worse.
So, fess up. Any body know of any good "experiences" while training that we can learn from? Maybe it happened to "someone you know."
William
With the above statements as preface:
We seek "correct" techniques through teachers, classes, and independent study of various media, however I find the errors made by myself and others to be equally instructive.
Example:
This week a nearby city's SWAT team was called out to arrest a young man suspected of a double homicide. Informants placed him in a cheap motel "across the tracks." Upon arriving at the scene the officers established a perimeter, moved back the the civilians, fired seven rounds and tear gas into the room through a window, and spent 25, yes twenty-five, minutes performing a dynamic entry with a battering ram through the door to the room. The episode ended when an officer (who shall remain nameless, lest he be singled out for thinking) broke the remaining glass from the low-silled window, adjacent to the door, through which the tear-gas had been fired, stepped through, entered the room, and unlocked the door from inside.
Not SOP.
Yes he could have made a great single target. But, the element of surprise had been lost, and The BG was not known to be armed.
You may have guessed: the BG was long gone.
Point is training is great, but if training isn't getting the job done we should rely on those rare flashes of inspiratation that come along, in my case, once in a great while.
Maybe they should have just backed off and waited the BG out, but sometimes you got to go with your gut and do what it tells you.
Second Incident:
Last week a neighboring county's Sheriff's Department was conducting training for it's Deputies concerning an "Officer Ambushed Scenario."
Three of the Deputies shot holes in their perfectly (until then) cruiser immediatly upon exiting their vehicle.
These are professionals who handle firearms daily. We all make mistakes, and under stress, in a shooting situation, I think shooting your car (George Hill's GEO excepted) can be forgiven. I learn more from my mistakes than from my successes.
Yeah, perforating a car may look bad, but at least they did return fire. Freezing up and not reacting would have been a lot worse.
So, fess up. Any body know of any good "experiences" while training that we can learn from? Maybe it happened to "someone you know."
William