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Marksmanship of Police Officers

When I worked for a armed security company in AZ back in 2011/12 ... On armed qualifying day. It was a myself and another non LEO background who were the top qualifiers .... Only about 5/40 in the class that didn't have some law enforcement background. About 10 were bad enough to not qualify.
 
My academy was in Colorado, by my agency. We shot a lot. Yearly we shot a lot and we even had open range days. Then I went to the State.

With the State we shot twice a year. We were not allowed to fire our duty guns outside of an approved range.

I would go through any door or into any situation with most of the guys and several of the gals from my original agency. I can the number of people I would trust from the State on one hand.

Military (USAF SFS) was worse than the State. I think that is why they put 3-round burst and auto on most systems.

My current agency... they are slightly worse than the State. Which is sad. Their fitness level, tactics, common sense and combatives skills are also lacking.

Very sad. Mostly distressing.
 
HansGruber said:
Interesting thing I forgot to add about that study I mentioned earlier, about numbers of rounds fired going up and % hits going down since the ‘80s in regards to LE shootings…

One of the the conclusions drawn was that the introduction of large capacity sidearms (greater than revolvers or single stack autos) was very much a cause; having 2-3x the rounds led to officers being more willing to take marginal shots that they likely wouldn’t if they only had 6-8 rounds in their weapon.
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Different people nowadays. When I started in 1971, almost all of my Academy class were Nam vets. Today, I imagine vets and those with shooting skills are frowned on as being prone to violence.
 
3L120 said:
Different people nowadays. When I started in 1971, almost all of my Academy class were Nam vets. Today, I imagine vets and those with shooting skills are frowned on as being prone to violence.
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May be true. But honestly I think it's more that vets/conservatives, etc....aren't applying becuase they see the politics in a lot of cities and don't want to do the job becuase there's no support and flat out animosity
 
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My wife and I have lived out at our place in the country for a little over three years now. My closest neighbor to me is a Border Patrol Agent. I talk with him every once in a while. He is a combat wounded former Army Infantryman veteran. He has gone through all the federal law enforcement courses required for the Border Patrol. There was an incident between him and another neighbor further down the road. Nothing serious, but it brought up a discussion about self-defense and defense of your home. It turns out my Border Patrol neighbor had zero experience with firearms before his Army days. And none after his Army days. He and his wife own no firearms. His only experience now comes from whenever he has to train or qualify for his Border Patrol Agent job. He has absolutely zero interest in firearms. I do know he is allowed to bring his Border Patrol issued sidearm home while off duty, but I'm not sure if he even does that. I did put a thought into he and his wife's head about what she would or could do for home self-defense while he was away at work. Sometimes he is gone for days, and sometimes he has to work night shift. But my whole point to my response is don't assume every law enforcement type is proficient with firearms.
 
I was in the Military in the 50s and 60s and when I got out needed to be in the outback but when I returned to the city. I went to work for a small sheriff department, every 3 months we warmed our 357s and excersized our dumps and if you meet the qualifying standard you were not on patrol,you had a desk and dispatch. In later years I worked for other agencies and then became a training officer in my last days. Today I still practice loading magazines and have 2 revolvers with several speed strips in case of having only one hand operating. In our small we have a safe room and a choke point where meet and greet intruders. Nothing high tech or fancy,just trying to stay alive because we are not mobile.
 
Biggfoot44 said:
Rephrased another way :

Revolvers give better hit percentages than semiautos.
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As someone that started in Revolvers let me add to the why!

I was a FLETC certified and SORT instructor for a Federal Agency am a state LE Academy Instructor as well as Range-Master Advance

In the revolver days thwre was incentives to become better. 1 you had to shoot at a higher level, 2 it was drilled into your head uiu had to get it done in 6 rounds.
Parking lots were full of cars with NrA match or PPC stickers and Saturdays were packed at local PD ranges for matches.

Over time we got away from that and have not failed folks for failing allow those shokters multiple attempts to pass a state watered down minimum standard no cop left behind course.

There’s a 10-80-10 breakdown top 10% are what most were in the revokver days they shot in their time to always try and improve. The 80 are your average shooters many barely passing and quip “good enough til next year” and this are the ones that get in the mag dunp abortion on body camera shootings.

The. The bottom 10 is why we have eased qual courses and huge targets.

The national average is actually been around 20% NYCPD shoots 2 times a year and have around 20% LAPD every month and have around 68%

Bakersfield CA and Kern County use to do the Bakersfield Qual and they shot it in demand cold and had to score an 80 or were answering phones until they passed. They also had an 85% hit rate in fights and the phrase was “Bakersfield is where LA bank robbers go to die”

Until you have all departments have every member to shoot an 80 or above on the Bakersfield, 5 yard Roundup or Assessment on smaller B8’s we will keep having lackluster averages at best. Red Dots or not

The problem with minimum standards is everyone passed a drivers test but look at any given street! What do you call the person that was last in theor class at Medical school?…Doctor etc etc etc

I tell folks where agencies act broke on practice ammo if you shoot 100-200 rounds a month you can do 10-20 of the various Bakersfield or assessment drills and that’s worth a lot more than flat range B27 shooting!

The other issue is back in the day thwre seemed to be more desire to do the profession of LE just because. Now folks get into it because they want to be high on authority, score Nurses or play cosplay all while making TicTok videos in uniform on duty getting clicks and likes to get their shallow ego validated instead of catching criminals!
 
"No cop left behind"... :ROFLMAO: That is so true. I literally snorted when I read that.

On another note, where I am at now, which will remain nameless. We shoot a state qual every year. Literally the State LE Training Center sends out people to do mass quals to areas all over the state.

This is a good thing. Several areas are very rural. We have one county with three sworn officers/deputies to cover 1800 square miles. I don't know their budgets, but they cannot be great. Making them pass the minimum is practically a necessity.

Now a momentary segue. They focus on something called “skip-loading” at our state academy. It ensures that you get a good trigger press and good sight alignment. I’m not going to compare my academy with this one. However, I am a lateral here and reciprocity was a benefit.

What I say next might be incorrect. It is based off of being a range instructor here (and formerly) and learning “the way”. You know, skip-loading. I also spoke with FNGs who just graduated, officers who graduated here but had that rare opportunity to go to outside tactical training, and laterals who, for whatever reason, had to re-do the full academy.
Me, I just showed up, drove for a few days with a practical at the end (this was awful. Lame and awful), shot a qual course, did some FATS simulations, sat through some case law and was done.

So, skip-loading. They focus on it so much that the other tactics commonly used in a gun fight suffer. You know, combat reloads, tactical reloads, shooting with movement, use of cover and concealment, knowing the differences between cover and concealment, transitioning (not that, I mean going from a handgun to a rifle), more. So as long as you have time, you are not being shot at, your gun doesn’t malfunction, and you are indoors with eye and ear protection, you will do just fine. But you know what. The training academy has one of the highest range qualification rates anywhere, so I am told.

Anyways, moving back to my initial rant, here is my issue. Catering to the lowest common denominator is never a good thing, but on the opposite end of the spectrum if you only have a bare handful of sworn, certified people and you are DQ'ing them you have no one. It’s fine if you are a part of a good-sized agency and can take downing the ones who can’t cut it. We are trying to grow, and we are not getting the cream of the crop applying. We take real talent when we can, but there are a few that were hired because there was no reason to disqualify them. If that makes sense.

At the end of the day I wish that everyone had to pass a harder shooting course. Also an actual difficult fitness test, at least annually. A real one, not one of the 2-3-minute O-courses, also built off of the "no cop left behind" philosophy.

I also would like to see better training in. Combatives/Defensive Tactics. Then add in Basic SWAT tactics (again, rural, no SWAT team for hours, maybe days), Basic crisis intervention & negotiation, more case law (that is relevant), Search training, Situational awareness training, Intel and more.
 
UC_Guy 1971 said:
"No cop left behind"... :ROFLMAO: That is so true. I literally snorted when I read that.

On another note, where I am at now, which will remain nameless. We shoot a state qual every year. Literally the State LE Training Center sends out people to do mass quals to areas all over the state.

This is a good thing. Several areas are very rural. We have one county with three sworn officers/deputies to cover 1800 square miles. I don't know their budgets, but they cannot be great. Making them pass the minimum is practically a necessity.

Now a momentary segue. They focus on something called “skip-loading” at our state academy. It ensures that you get a good trigger press and good sight alignment. I’m not going to compare my academy with this one. However, I am a lateral here and reciprocity was a benefit.

What I say next might be incorrect. It is based off of being a range instructor here (and formerly) and learning “the way”. You know, skip-loading. I also spoke with FNGs who just graduated, officers who graduated here but had that rare opportunity to go to outside tactical training, and laterals who, for whatever reason, had to re-do the full academy.
Me, I just showed up, drove for a few days with a practical at the end (this was awful. Lame and awful), shot a qual course, did some FATS simulations, sat through some case law and was done.

So, skip-loading. They focus on it so much that the other tactics commonly used in a gun fight suffer. You know, combat reloads, tactical reloads, shooting with movement, use of cover and concealment, knowing the differences between cover and concealment, transitioning (not that, I mean going from a handgun to a rifle), more. So as long as you have time, you are not being shot at, your gun doesn’t malfunction, and you are indoors with eye and ear protection, you will do just fine. But you know what. The training academy has one of the highest range qualification rates anywhere, so I am told.

Anyways, moving back to my initial rant, here is my issue. Catering to the lowest common denominator is never a good thing, but on the opposite end of the spectrum if you only have a bare handful of sworn, certified people and you are DQ'ing them you have no one. It’s fine if you are a part of a good-sized agency and can take downing the ones who can’t cut it. We are trying to grow, and we are not getting the cream of the crop applying. We take real talent when we can, but there are a few that were hired because there was no reason to disqualify them. If that makes sense.

At the end of the day I wish that everyone had to pass a harder shooting course. Also an actual difficult fitness test, at least annually. A real one, not one of the 2-3-minute O-courses, also built off of the "no cop left behind" philosophy.

I also would like to see better training in. Combatives/Defensive Tactics. Then add in Basic SWAT tactics (again, rural, no SWAT team for hours, maybe days), Basic crisis intervention & negotiation, more case law (that is relevant), Search training, Situational awareness training, Intel and more.
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I completely understand the concern of DQ ing folks In a Small department. That said that should not be a big deal to correct quickly and without a lot of $$ compare dto a 300 person agency.

Town leaders rely on agency heads to produce the standards. They do not realize the state bases the standards on out dated things and trends and a lot of times the folks promoted to run teainjng and firearms programs are the least knowledgeable firearms and tactics folks in the department or yeh chiefs pet.

Until they do away with rubber stamped everyone gets a certificate Insteuctor schools and make folks earn them firearms instruction will not improve. All most chiefs want is someone to administer a minimum standard shooting test and those same folks have to be a safety monitor where most have zero ability to diagnose shokters problem other than “don’t jerk the trigger” or “well just aim high and right”

Make everyone get a Rangemastwr Basic Insteuctor Development or the like and that will show who knows what they are really doing and them agencies will see marked improvements!
 
Firearms training in LE is (pardon me) "hit or miss." PD I worked for was twice per year, qualification based with no real training. Investigative agency was twice per year with an annual week of training on use of force and tactics, medical etc.

My retirement career was with an agency that had a "range day" each month. For two of those we shot a state approved qualification, 1 of those was vehicle inspection and "armoring" where your issued gun was stripped and inspected and your assigned vehicle and issued equipment was inspected and you took your freshly "armored" gun to the range to confirm it still worked. 2 of the days were dim light qualifications. The rest of the monthly range days would be building search practical training or more esoteric range work such as multiple targets, longer distances, shooting from odd positions. There was also opportunity to take a 4 level "shoot house" training which was taught by instructors on the fugitive unit and was excellent. Only about 15-20% of the sworn staff ever availed themselves of that training from what the instructors said.

For most of my 27 years I paid my own way to a one or two day firearms or DT training class each year. Sometimes the supervision would make the class paid training, one particular supervisor asked if I was trying to "get better at killing." My response to her was 'no, I'm just trying to ensure only the right folks get killed if needed.' I believe LAPD and LASO give a small monthly pay stipend for officers who shoot well and I think that is a good use of funds considering what the cost of shooting poorly can amount to!
 
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