Despite “significant improvements in the scope and depth of deadly force training," police training is inadequate in many smaller police forces.
Dr. Gregory Morrison, head of the Department of criminal justice and criminality at Ball University in Indiana, just finished leading a study on police training nationwide.
Among the findings in this unique study:
• Only a small minority of departments includes trainers in OIS investigations or provides them feedback about deadly street confrontations that might be useful in evaluating and enhancing the effectiveness of their teaching curricula and methods
• In terms of time allocation, “many departments still heavily emphasize requalifying over vital handgun/deadly force training” that introduces new skills and improves existing ones
• Despite their “vital role,” nearly 40 percent of agencies do not require firearms instructors to take refresher training once they have been certified;
• Larger departments, which statistically have greater exposure to armed encounters, tend to require fewer firearms training and/or requalifying sessions per year
• Officers on some agencies are able to pass requalification tests even though many of their shots miss the target entirely, and those who fail to qualify may be allowed to re-shoot until they squeak by, “sometimes without diagnostic and corrective intervention”
• On the whole, “the overarching characteristic” of in-service firearms training is the “wide latitude exercised by departments” — essentially a jumble of inconsistent standards and instructional modalities that too often works to the detriment of officers, agencies, and the communities they serve
“A paradigm shift” in firearms training is “long overdue,” states Morrison, who specializes in studying deadly force programs and instruction.
“I agree with the thrust of Dr. Morrison’s findings and conclusions,” says Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, which was not involved in the survey. “It’s tragic that the vast majority of firearms training today is not preparing officers for the brutal dynamics of real-world encounters and the sophisticated decision-making we hold them accountable for.”
Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, Morrison notes, there have been “significant improvements in the scope and depth of deadly force training.” His survey indicates that “several general characteristics associated with officer-involved shootings have become relatively common elements to handgun training: dim light, officer movement while firing, multiple targets, and moving targets.”
Also “most departments have introduced some form of scenario training,” in part in response to three landmark Supreme Court decisions (Tennessee v. Garner, Graham v. Connor, and Canton v. Harris). The formats employed include role-playing exercises with marking cartridges, live-fire range training, and computer-based, projected-image technology.
The devil, however, is in the details of just what these “relatively new dimensions to police handgun training” actually consist of.
Read further with Dr. Morrison's recommendations:
New survey exposes 'disturbing' shortcomings in firearms training
Apart from creating moral godly families, living moral godly lives, and raising moral godly children one area that can yield desirable results is to take up the task of analyzing, designing, implementing, and assessing innovative training programs which “will improve police practices of benefit to both officers and public safety.”
I concur. This is the cop's problem.
Imagine being the cop on a street, the crowd is looting and rioting, a lot of screaming, violence and ongoing gunfire. It is a chaos. It is like a killing field. Suddenly, somebody is failing to do what he been told, maybe he is approaching you, maybe he is making moves you dont have any time to analyze, maybe he is just not doing what he is supposed to, and you, you are the law enforcer, the one to protect and to serve, you've got no more than a second or two to decide...maybe less...in your hand there is a gun...and you know that using that gun probably will save your life...you might would stay safe not using it...but you cant know for sure...now, you gonna pull that trigger or not? Honest answer's only.