Deadly Expectations

As some may know, I founded a nonprofit that assists working canines. Most canines we assist are law enforcement canines that work at local police departments throughout the country. As a man who has been the product of good policing, I feel it necessary to share my feelings about the massive imbalance between what we expect of Police and what we train them for. I'm going to talk specifically about the lethal force part of policing. I spent 26 years in the military and 22 years in the SEAL teams. I participated in over 150 direct action missions throughout my deployments to combat. Not all of those resulted in a gunfight, but many did. I can tell you the hardest gunfights that exist are the ones that occur in three-dimensional spaces with innocent people running around in between those needing bullets in them.

Isn't this the same environment in which we ask the Police to conduct lethal force on our behalf to protect us and, of course, themselves from violent offenders who wish to do more harm? As a metric, there were times in my former life when each man on my team shot between 5000 and 7000 rounds a week. I asked the law enforcement folks here in the town where I presently live what their annual bullet count is for training. It was less than 500 rounds per year! It is absolute insanity that there are Police Officers out on our streets protecting us in the most challenging environment with such poor training. I believe it is immoral to put these officers in these types of situations with the lack of training that they have. We expect the cops, who get roughly 500 practice shots annually out of the gun that they're supposed to use in an emergency, to be perfect every time. If they aren't perfect, they are fired or killed. There is reason to have serious discussions about policing in our nation. Those discussions should begin with the lack of resources and training that we give these Americans who choose to stand in the breach for the rest of us so that we can be protected.

Imagine you've had six months since the last time you shot your weapon, and an active shooter shows up in a shopping center. You are the first Officer on the scene, and people are running around screaming; you can hear the concussion of rounds fired from a gun. You have your gun in your hand, and you're searching for the shooter.Then you think you see the shooter, but people are running around. You have to make a difficult shot before the shooter kills more people. With not having trained with your weapon in over six months, the odds of you making that shot are horrific. Suppose that an officer shoots and misses the active shooter and hits an innocent bystander. In that case, we call her a shitty cop, unprofessional, a disgrace, and so on. We need to look at ourselves because we are the ones who put that officer in that situation. It isn't the officer's fault they're not a great shot. We accept the lowest level of training for the most challenging task we ask of them. We ask so much of these police officers, and we don't give them what they need to be successful. It should enrage everyone in this country that the people we ask to protect us don't receive the training they need. I know that there are special tactical teams who do have better training and more resources, but guess what? The first cop on a scene in the event of an active shooter is a street patrol officer, and I'd bet my next VA disability check that she or he hasn't put more than 500 rounds through their gun in the last six months. If soldiers went to war having not been thoroughly trained to use their weapons, there would be a national outrage. Why is it different for the Police in their job of protecting our communities from violent people bent on causing harm? We should be ashamed of ourselves for not demanding that the people who have volunteered to protect us, are not sufficiently trained. If you are keen on changing this, here is list of the mayors of the top 100 cities in the US. Give them a call or an email - demand that they allocate the resources needed to get our protectors the training they, and we deserve.