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By Gary Davidson, Special to Police1
PIO, Volusia County (Fla.) SO
A police shooting range is designed to do more than just ensure that officers are proficient at firing their issued weapons. Ranges should also train deputies to think tactically while mentally preparing them for the split-second, deadly force decisions they could encounter in the field.
Unfortunately, realism is a feature that’s lacking in most law enforcement ranges.
For instance, the terrain at police ranges is almost always flat. A vertical 2x8 is a fairly standard feature used at ranges to teach deputies how to take cover during an active shoot-out. However, when the bullets fly in the real world, varying terrains can totally disrupt commonly-taught shooting stances and techniques. And deputies caught in a real firefight are unlikely to find any 2x8’s to use for cover and concealment. And that was precisely the motivation behind the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s new real-terrain range. With everything from curbs, bushes, walls and patrol cars to telephone poles, fire hydrants, fences, and mail boxes — not to mention virtually every conceivable type of terrain — the Sheriff’s Office’s new range is designed to make live-fire training as close to the real thing as possible.
Traditionally, the primary emphasis of police shooting ranges is to move a large number of officers through weapon qualifying as efficiently and rapidly as possible. And that usually means a flat range with nice, level sidewalks positioned 7-, 25- and 50-yards away from paper targets. With the new range, the Sheriff’s Office’s training staff wanted to give deputies something more. Led by Training Director Chuck Habermehl, the Sheriff’s Office’s training staff wanted to arm deputies with real-world instruction to fall back on in case they find themselves in an actual gun battle.
“This isn’t just qualification,” said Habermehl about the new range. “You have to take the officers to the next level and better prepare them for what happens on the street. If all you do is basic qualification, I think you really do your officers and your agency a disservice.”
But exactly how do you make the shooting experience at the range more engaging and realistic? That was the challenge facing Habermehl and his training staff. For starters, the staff had already transitioned to pneumatic, knock-down steel targets. The metallic, clanging sound of the impact gives officers instant feedback on their shooting prowess. The next goal was to simulate real-world shooting scenarios that officers would be likely to encounter in the field. That was accomplished by establishing shooting stations with a variety of terrains, such as cement, asphalt, grass, river rock, gravel, sand, and uneven ground. And each terrain includes different objects to use for cover, including a patrol car, the front of a house, a curb, fence, bus bench, telephone pole and the corner of a building. Deputies must shoot and move through the course, stopping at each station and finding the safest and most effective technique for protecting themselves while firing on the targets. Successfully completing the course requires a combination of quick thinking and unorthodox techniques that go beyond the typical standing, sitting, kneeling or prone shooting positions.
For instance, one section of the course requires the deputy to use a curb as cover and shoot while lying on his or her side. That’s something that’s not even taught by trainers. But it’s also something that could save an officer’s life in a real shooting. “Every shooting position is different,” explained Habermehl. “And that’s what makes this range so much more realistic.”
It’s also standard procedure for most police ranges to use barrels or other props to simulate a police car. At the new range, deputies will use a real patrol car and shoot at several targets while using different parts of the car — the hood, door frame and rear bumper — for cover. It’s a scenario that has played out in many actual police shootings. “We don’t want to practice shooting behind a barrel. We want to shoot behind the patrol car,” said Habermehl. “The reality is that the car isn’t a barrel, and the telephone pole isn’t a 2x8. If you get too used to using those props, then you run the risk of compromising yourself in a real-world shooting. When the deputy gets behind a telephone pole during training, there are telephone poles in real life. He’ll know how to position his gun and how to stand appropriately behind that particular terrain feature. That’s the whole idea behind the real-terrain range.”
Habermehl is rightly proud of his training staff, which built the bulk of the new range in-house. In addition, the staff also stays current on modern training techniques and best law enforcement practices. A big part of the job is to closely study police tragedies around the globe. For the sad legacy of each tragedy are lessons learned. “You have to look at what’s getting cops hurt or killed,” Habermehl explained. “That’s how we do it. We see that and ask how it could be prevented if the same situation were to occur here.”
Sheriff Ben Johnson praised the new range as well as the entire training staff. In fact, the Sheriff recently awarded a Unit Commendation to the staff, due in large measure to their ingenuity and resourcefulness in developing the new range.
“The range is extremely innovative, and I’m very proud of the hard work and dedication with minimal expense that the Training Section put into making all this happen,” said Sheriff Johnson. “For our Deputies as well as all of the other officers who use our range, the training is a lot closer to what they might run into on the street. It’s hard sometimes to quantify the success of our training, but I’m certain that there have been a whole lot of bad things that haven’t happened because of it. And this new range just makes the training that much better and more effective for the deputies who rely on it in order to do their jobs and keep them safe in the line of duty.”
The difference between the old and new range is like night and day. Just ask those who’ve shot the course. The SWAT Team was the first unit in the Sheriff’s Office to give the range a try-out after it came on line in September. SWAT Commander Eric Dietrich was impressed with the realism of the real-terrain range. The Winter Springs Police Department’s SWAT Team also was one of the first users. Soon, however, all deputies in the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office will shoot the course as part of their mandatory, annual stress shoot.
“The new shooting range provides a more realistic urban training,” said Lieutenant Dietrich. “Most police ranges seem to focus on the traditional standing position while firing at paper targets. But with our new range, there’s no question that it increases our level of training and instruction by forcing us to shoot in positions that are more realistic to what we might encounter in the field. It’s definitely a lot closer to what we would experience in an actual shooting encounter.”
As with all training, the objective is to ingrain the deputies with the best practices and techniques so that they’ll hopefully become instinctual when needed. In the field, to hesitate — even for a fraction of a second — is enough to get a cop killed.
“That’s why doing everything as real as you can do it in training is so important,” said Habermehl. “They won’t have time necessarily to think out all of their options. Their options are going to have to occur to them automatically. If they’re spending time thinking, then that’s time that they’re not spending responding to the situation confronting them. And now they could be in trouble. It can happen in a split second.”
In the world of police shooting ranges, the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s real-terrain range is about as cutting-edge as it gets. There might be some that incorporate a telephone pole or others that include a fire hydrant or a bench. But the training staff hasn’t found another like it in the country that includes all of the different terrains and terrain features along with the pneumatic targets. “I don’t think you’re going to find this anywhere else in the country,” said Habermehl.
Most importantly, according to Habermehl, the real-terrain range is something that could save a cop’s life some day. “I think it could. I surely think it could.”
For more information regarding the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office’s real-terrain range, contact Training Director Chuck Habermehl at (386) 239-6523. Director Habermehl also can be reached by e-mail at CHabermehl@vcso.us.