Editor’s Note: In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s feature is from PoliceOne Member Mark Schraer, who last year at this time contributed a First Person Essay you can read here. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an e-mail with your story.
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By Mark Schraer
Police1 Member
As long as there are men and women willing to seek out the most violent in this society, it is inevitable that law enforcement officers will be murdered. However, all of us have a responsibility to eliminate those homicides which can be attributed to inadequate training, especially inadequate or infrequent firearms training.
Providing firearms training once or twice a year should no longer be viewed as acceptable in our profession. We are kidding ourselves if we believe that someone who last trained with their pistol in January is fully prepared to win an unexpected gunfight six (or more!) months later.
In the first of a two-part article, I will offer a few recommendations on ways to improve either your own training or your agency’s training program.
Training Based on Costly Lessons Learned
The annual Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted report (LEOKA) researches the facts surrounding every law enforcement homicide. Over the past two decades, LEOKA has also conducted three comprehensive studies: Killed in the Line of Duty (1992), In the Line of Fire (1996), and Violent Encounters (2006).
LEOKA studies have identified the common factors that exist in most law-enforcement homicides. While there are a number of facts to be learned from these studies, I believe two facts stand with regard to firearms training:
• Most murdered officers are killed by a suspect using a handgun
• Most murdered officers are usually within feet of the suspect when the attack is initiated
Between 1980 and 2010, 1,889 American Law Enforcement Officers were murdered by suspects with firearms. Of these nearly 1,900 murders, almost 1,600 were at distances within 21 feet. A more detailed review of the distances involved is equally sobering:
• 240 officers (12.7 percent) were murdered within 11 to 20 feet
• 353 officers (18.8 percent) were murdered within six to ten feet
• 1,004 officers (53.1 percent) were murdered at a range of five feet or closer
If 85 percent of police officers were killed within 21 feet of the suspect, and more than 70 percent were murdered within one foot to three yards; officers, instructors, and agency leaders should be asking themselves the following:
I. Why isn’t every law enforcement training program focused on the development of firearms skills in proportion to the likelihood they are needed?
II. Are we investing enough time into the training needs of our officers, particularly training on the skills needed to prevail in gunfights at these distances?
III. How prepared am I and the partners I work with for such a fight?
Training Based on Priorities
LEOKA statistics make it clear that our first training priority should be the development of the shooting skills necessary to win a sudden gunfight. Therefore, I believe that officers should regularly train on drills that develop a fast and formidable reaction to a sudden attack.
Officers should also be provided with firearms training that is proportional to the percentage of law enforcement gunfights at the distances mentioned. In my opinion, the majority of firearms training should be conducted at distances of one foot to five yards, and at a variety of angles to the target or targets. Just as a fighter spends countless hours developing and maintaining their speed and power, law enforcement officers should frequently drill on the development and maintenance of a lightening fast draw (speed) as well as accurate shot placement (power).
Establishing Agency Standards — We cannot debrief officers who have lost their lives in gunfights. However, many officers who have won close-quarter fights have attributed their success to the effective shooting skills and mindset that they were either forced to develop, or chose to develop on their own.
Shooting standards should be challenging, at least as challenging as the actual fight you or officers you train may face. However, you should not expect mastery overnight. Over time — months, rather than years — you should have a personal or agency standard which includes the ability to draw and shoot three to four hits into the upper chest of the suspect in under two seconds. I believe that the following expectations should also be a part of this standard.
Lateral Movement — As with any fighting system; officers need to learn to move (in this case laterally) while drawing their weapons. Certainly an officer may still be shot, but by moving laterally as they enter the fight, they may be less likely to sustain multiple hits or an incapacitating hit to the brain.
Combat Accuracy — Due to the limited stopping power of the pistol, “combat accuracy” should once and for all replace “center mass” as a law enforcement standard. When it comes to stopping a suspect’s ability or will to fight. I believe that there can be a significant difference between hits to the areas of the body that control blood-pressure and breathing, than to areas that control blood sugar and digestion.
Accountability
Law enforcement officers who train once or twice a year may meet the shooting standards of their agency or state commissions, but are they really meeting the standard for winning an actual gunfight? LEOKA makes it clear that officers most often face attacks from armed suspects at what Instructor Dan Gray refers to as “bad breath distances.” Police officers, managers and trainers need to accept a greater sense of responsibility and accountability, for their agency’s firearms training standards. Instructors and officers can do their part teaching and training in skills that are at least as challenging as the fights that so many officers have lost; the fights that one of our officers may be faced with tomorrow.
About the Author
Mark served as a California police officer and sergeant for 25 years and has been a law enforcement instructor for 20 years. Mark currently serves as an adjunct instructor for the NRA’s Law Enforcement Training Division, where he provides instructor-level firearms training to law enforcement, security, and military personnel throughout the country. Mark is also the co-founder of Blackrock Firearms Training, a training and consulting company dedicated to providing effective firearms and tactical training, with a focus on the physical and mental demands of armed encounters. Mark can be reached at blackrock-usa.com.
