MinnMooney
Member
I hope that this is an OK topic for General.
Do any of you have a class put on by your police or sheriff's dept that is like the following? It is way cool!
Several years ago my friend & I signed up for "Citizen's Police Acadamy" which was given by our county sheriff's dept. It consisted of 10 evening class sessions of 4 hours each. Every night was a new subject from drugs to jail tours to gun handling and swat team gear/experiances (my favorite).
I never wanted to miss a session because every evening was so different and interesting. One evening, we were given a lesson on the rules pertaining to "use of force" and "degrees of force". After the class room session, we went into another room with a huge, wall-sized screen and a projector pointing at it from the opposite wall at ceiling elevation. There were 2 instructors. They explained that each of us was going to use a special "gun" that looked, weighed and felt almost exactly like their own duty pistols EXCEPT that it shot an invisible (to our eyes, anyway) beam of light which would be recorded as to timing and where it hit. The lead instructor held up both so we could see that, indeed, they were nearly identical.
He holstered his duty piece and pointed a finger at me, "Here.", he said and had me come up and pick up the pistol off the table. "You'll be our first shooter. You'll see a situation unfold on the screen and all I want you to do is react to the scenerio as you would as if you were a deputy."
I looked at the pistol and asked, "Is this the laser gun or your duty pistol?" He got a really questioning look on his face and said, "Please put that one down and I'll double check." He checked. He'd gotten it correct. The sheriff told the class, "In the 5 or 6 classes that I've taught, I've never had anyone ask that question before................ but it'll be in every class from now on!" Needless to say, I felt pretty good.
In my scenerio, my partner walks up to a not-very-suspicious convertable with a girl in the driver's seat (only occupant) and is about to ask her what she's doing parked in this warehouse district when up comes a handgun and the driver shoots my partner twice from about 10' and instantly floors the already running/in-gear car. I'm about 10' behind the parked car and draw my "weapon". I take fairly careful - but quick - aim and shoot, once. End of scenerio.
Now comes the critique.
The sheriff asks the class how I did and no one can really think of anything that I did wrong but the sheriff then said that I should have emptied my gun at her because she's an obvious threat to anyone from now on.
He replayed the scene but this time my beam dot would show up on the screen. As she gets about another 20' from me (35'-40' total) my "shot" shows up on the screen and the scene freezes. I hit her in the neck right along side the headrest post. You could have heard a pin drop......... then I got shot down. The sheriff said, "If that shot had hit 2 inches right, you'd have hit the post and she would had lived to kill again. Next time, empty your gun.
So much for being Wyatt Earp.
The whole purpose of these classes was to help the local citizenry understand the duties, fears, responsibilities and problems associated with being a L.E. officer. They also wanted people to be less afraid of and more accepting of self defense and weapons as tools.
Do any of you have a class put on by your police or sheriff's dept that is like the following? It is way cool!
Several years ago my friend & I signed up for "Citizen's Police Acadamy" which was given by our county sheriff's dept. It consisted of 10 evening class sessions of 4 hours each. Every night was a new subject from drugs to jail tours to gun handling and swat team gear/experiances (my favorite).
I never wanted to miss a session because every evening was so different and interesting. One evening, we were given a lesson on the rules pertaining to "use of force" and "degrees of force". After the class room session, we went into another room with a huge, wall-sized screen and a projector pointing at it from the opposite wall at ceiling elevation. There were 2 instructors. They explained that each of us was going to use a special "gun" that looked, weighed and felt almost exactly like their own duty pistols EXCEPT that it shot an invisible (to our eyes, anyway) beam of light which would be recorded as to timing and where it hit. The lead instructor held up both so we could see that, indeed, they were nearly identical.
Don't get ahead of me now.
He holstered his duty piece and pointed a finger at me, "Here.", he said and had me come up and pick up the pistol off the table. "You'll be our first shooter. You'll see a situation unfold on the screen and all I want you to do is react to the scenerio as you would as if you were a deputy."
I looked at the pistol and asked, "Is this the laser gun or your duty pistol?" He got a really questioning look on his face and said, "Please put that one down and I'll double check." He checked. He'd gotten it correct. The sheriff told the class, "In the 5 or 6 classes that I've taught, I've never had anyone ask that question before................ but it'll be in every class from now on!" Needless to say, I felt pretty good.
In my scenerio, my partner walks up to a not-very-suspicious convertable with a girl in the driver's seat (only occupant) and is about to ask her what she's doing parked in this warehouse district when up comes a handgun and the driver shoots my partner twice from about 10' and instantly floors the already running/in-gear car. I'm about 10' behind the parked car and draw my "weapon". I take fairly careful - but quick - aim and shoot, once. End of scenerio.
Now comes the critique.
The sheriff asks the class how I did and no one can really think of anything that I did wrong but the sheriff then said that I should have emptied my gun at her because she's an obvious threat to anyone from now on.
He replayed the scene but this time my beam dot would show up on the screen. As she gets about another 20' from me (35'-40' total) my "shot" shows up on the screen and the scene freezes. I hit her in the neck right along side the headrest post. You could have heard a pin drop......... then I got shot down. The sheriff said, "If that shot had hit 2 inches right, you'd have hit the post and she would had lived to kill again. Next time, empty your gun.
So much for being Wyatt Earp.
The whole purpose of these classes was to help the local citizenry understand the duties, fears, responsibilities and problems associated with being a L.E. officer. They also wanted people to be less afraid of and more accepting of self defense and weapons as tools.
