In order to get over to the firearms unit in my department you have to have at least two certifications. The first being ITW and the second being FIW (Firearms Instructor Workshop). I’ve got the FIW certification as of 2008 so I only needed the ITW class.
ITW is needed to teach anything at the police academy. My interview with the Firearms division is coming up and I needed to get in this ITW class. Long story short, a few phone calls were made and I got into the class.
As it stands, 4000+ officers are currently employed by my department and the class is only held twice a year with a maximum occupancy of 15 officers.
Day 1
Sitting in the computer lab in a dimly lit room, I sat in the front row mostly because I can’t see well in dim lighting and wanted to miss nothing.
The first instructor was a LT who talked about Sexual Harassment as it relates to teaching for the first 2 hours. This was only one in a string of classes that would project the image of extreme liability in every action you took.
After those first two hours were up we had another instructor come in. She was going to be the lead instructor for the duration of the two week course. She made us one by one pull a piece of paper from an envelope and one by one stand in front of the class to give a 1 minute presentation on the topic listed on the paper.
When it was my turn, I stood up, grabbed a random paper from the envelope and read the words, “WINE”. Knowing nothing about Wine aside from it being White or Red, I did what any rational person would do; fake it if you must but look good.
I started out with giving my name and unit and proceeded to talk about Wines origins and how it related to foods, the use of the old barrels to make beers, ect.
I did fairly well compared to most of the class, where some people stood up with something as simple as given a minute speech on ‘Dolphins’ or ‘Football’ and they couldn’t get past their names..
After that we had basic instruction on the ‘hows/whys’ people listen to instructors and whatnot.
To close out the day we had another woman come in and talk about presentations for two hours. You know, things like how to open and keep interest in a topic.
Sometime next week I’ll have to give a 50 minute Presentation on a topic of my choosing. I was mulling around giving a lecture on “Ways to survive the Post Nuclear Zombie Apocalypse” but decided I’d be better off with a “History of Rifles” topic as I could bring in some rifles of mine and at the very least show and tell.
I’ll let you know how day two goes.
Day 2
Same as Day 1.
Day 3
I had to give a 5 minute speech today on Louis Armstrong. I made a short power-point presentation in 15 minutes and ended up actually presenting for what seemed like only a few minutes but turned out to be… 17 1/2 minutes.
Yea, apparently I talk a lot.
The instructor said I have a melodic voice and sound like I’m telling a story which kept everyone engaged even though I was almost 3 times over my time limit.
Skipping to the last day.
My presentation on the ‘History of the Modern Rifle’ went very well. I spoke for 53 minutes without a hiccup and will be going back to the Training Bureau Monday morning to see how soon I can start teaching to get the hours required for my certification to become active.
Sooner I get all this done, the sooner I can get over to Firearms Full time.
Whew, with four out of five days completed, I felt just about nothing could stop this train of motivation.
The day started as soon as we got into the instruction room.
The LT for RID told us to break into our teams. Each team was going to get into their cars and head to a certain location where a suspect vehicle was. We were to follow the car without being seen and eventually we’d end up at One of Four Scenarios.
Cool.
The first car we had to find was a red Chrysler Sebring at a gas station. My team immediately targeted it and we followed it around for 15 minutes until it lead us back to the Training Facility.
Apparently our first Scenario was “Vehicle Containment” which we did very well. So well in fact that all of our cars had nice little scratches.
Not bad at all.
Next, we had to once again go back on the road and find a white Ford Taurus at a different gas station. We picked it up and after 10 minutes of following it my partner and I (we were in the same car) rolled up on an accident with injuries that just occurred. I saw a kid that looked to be at least 14 sitting outside of the car holding a very broken arm and bleeding profusely from his head.
Holy shit.
We stopped our unmarked car and rushed to give what First Aid we could to the kid and on the radio we started rescue. The LT heard what was going on and immediately told us to get the hell out of there and head back to the Training Facility… I couldn’t leave a kid like that but he turned that yelling into an Order.
Fine, we went back to the Training Facility.
We were told to get the Simunitions gear on and that we’d be doing a Building Search after an armed subject. No problem. We got our gear on and stacked up in formation. I took position 3 in the stack.
Entry was made to the house and all of the lights were off. We had only small ambient light to go by but no time to draw flashlights. The first room was cleared but it opened up into a hallway to the north and a small room to the west.
I told the Point (Position 1), “Room Left, 3 and 4 will clear, hold point on the hall”.
Now me and the fourth person in the stack, the short girl that couldn’t shoot the other day, needed to make entry into this room.
I knew she was nervous so I told her exactly what to do and then asked if she was ready.
She said Ready and I flew into the room, expecting her to cover my right flank as I cleared the ‘greatest unknown’.
About 5 steps into the room I realized I was all by myself and had that been real life, I’d be dead.
Pissed I started cursing, “What the fuck are you doing?! Cover my damn flank.”
Lucky for me no one was in that particular room.
She yelled back, “I needed my flashlight and its dark in there.. its your fault for going in so fast when I wasn’t ready!”
Oh hell no.
The instructor called ‘TIME!’.
He started telling her that was total bullshit and no matter how WRONG I could have been, her only job was to cover my flank. If nothing more then to shoot back in the direction the muzzle flash was coming from.
He told us to start over and made her be the first person in the stack and made me person four.
We made entry and she got lit up like a Christmas Tree. The rest of us neutralized the threat and completed the Scenario.
After a quick lunch was started our third ‘following’.
That lead us back to a Defensive Tactics Scenario.
The guy bailed out and ran into a back room at the Facility.
Outside of that room another Instructor stopped us and told the first ‘two people’ to come with him.
Me and my partner stepped up to the plate. That instructor then made us run 2 laps around the court yard, do 20 pushups, situps and jumping jacks and then run into a room. He told us that the person in the room was wanted for murder and we had to take him into custody.
Upon entering the room I saw several people sitting down ready to ‘watch’ the fight that was surely about to ensue. The room was 40×40 with a huge blue mat laid out and in the center was a monster of a man. He stood at 6’3 and at least 260lbs of solid muscle.
Holy crap. I looked at my partner and he knew we were about to get our asses beat.
The guy started yelling as soon as we walked up to him. We were maybe 20 feet away when I started talking, “Hey man, listen up. I’m going to be frank, you’ve got a bullshit traffic warrant and we’ve got to take you into custody. We’ll give you some time to call your people and you can bring some cash with you so you can bond out as soon as we get there. Relax and lets do this without any problems.”
I tried lying to see if that would get him to think he was going for a bullshit warrant so he would offer less resistance.
He said, “Man, I killed a guy. You aint taking me alive.”
With that, he rushed us and the fight was on.
Somehow I got pinned on my back and my partner was grabbing the guys legs.
Me and the subject were chest to chest, face to face and he was trying to choke me out.
Not going to happen, I swam through his hands and started a forward choke on him, aiming for the blood ways and not the air ways as to make him pass out, which works a lot faster. He subject realized what was about to happen and managed to kick my partner away and he removed his hands from my neck and instead put them behind my shoulders.
Oh no.. I knew just what was about to happen.
He stood up with me still wrapped about his torso with my legs and holding onto his neck…
Then slammed me so hard into the floor I though I cracked a tooth.
The way we landed, I was able to recover and throw my left arm around his neck and get him in a headlock while my partner re-established a hold on his legs. The guy was so strong that with only his right arm, he was able to fling me off, seriously injuring my left shoulder.
I felt fire run down my arm. Crap, this guy was really fighting.
He mounted me again with my partner still trying to maintain control of his legs and this time got over me and tried to unholster my gun.
Wrong move, I wormed my way out and got onto my right knee, drawing my firearm and screaming BANG! at the side of his head.
Scenario over.
The instructor stopped and said to us, “Why do they always shoot me?!”.
Ha.. har har.
Back into the cars we followed another car back to a Paintball field where we simply played one last game of paintball and then went back into the class room.
They handed out the Certifications to those who passed. I was one of them and the 12 of us decided to go out to a local Pub.
On the way out of the class one of the SGT’s stopped me and said that I was phsyco but if he needed a ‘shooter’ on his team, I’d be his pick.
I enjoyed a nice Guinness with my class mates at the Pub and went home beaming with confidence.
Waking up was a lot more painful then it should have been.
I rolled out of bed around 1030AM and immediately felt three days of constant PT catch up with me.
I thought to myself, “Today’s gonna be rough…” while taking my aspirin.
Showing up to the facility I was 30 minutes early at 1PM and just sat in the class room, still in awe that I hadn’t been one of the people to get a broken arm, leg or worse. Hell, I hadn’t even been shot with a paintball/simunition round hard enough to leave a mark.
The class and instructors showed up on time and we started an instruction block on Active shooters. For example, the kid that killed a bunch of people at the Virginia Tech school was an Active shooter situation. The first Officers on scene SHOULD have armed themselves with some sort of rifles and went into that school to neutralize the threat.
After that hour long lecture the class broke up into our teams and we headed to different locations.
The 400 squad, my team, started off at the Active shooter scene. We went to a hallway and formed up into a Diamond. We were given blue plastic guns and told what was ‘going on’. The instructor said, we were in a building and that someone was killing people inside. He left it at that and said the scenario was on.
The diamond formation covers 360 degrees visually, assigning each member a 90 degree angle that they are solely responsible for. If a threat engages one of the members, they are to engage the threat and every other member is supposed to maintain their area of cover at all times.
No problem, I’ve done this before. I took the hardest spot, the rear guard.
The team started down the hallway we came up to a junction that went left. We moved as a unit left.
Then we heard a lot of automatic gunfire. I heard the primary lead member scream BANG BANG! (simulating firing his weapon), Subject Ahead!
Apparently the subject ran into an open doorway which was about 40 feet ahead of us. We double timed it in formation to the door and stopped. The team leader counted to three and we did an explosive entry into the doorway.
I saw nothing until after we cleared the door area. Immediately I noticed an armed subject standing to my right. I yelled BANG BANG! Contact left flank! After engaging that target, which the left guy missed, I saw another subject with a shotgun hiding behind some bleachers. I looked at him, pointed my firearm and yelled BANG! Contact rear neutralized.
The guy holding the shotgun looked me dead in the eyes and fired the shotgun at the team anyways. The blank round scared the shit out of the other three members and that RID member got a seriously dirty look from me.
If you make a situation to train people, do not make it unwinable. I killed both guys but he decided to fire anyhow.
The instructor said, “Scenario over!” and started the critique.
He said no one engaged the shotgun threat, even though I clearly did. I didn’t argue or even offer protest.
A few minutes later we went on to the next station.
We were told to go to Survival City and dawn some face gear for a Simunitions event.
Several two man teams had left the room we were all sitting in and done the event, they stayed outside as to not give away the Scenario.
My Two man team was sent out to sit in a squad car, which was parked behind an SUV with three people inside. The instructor gave us (Me and my partner) each a Simunition gun and only told us, “You guys did a traffic stop on a car possibly used in an armed robbery”.
Great. I leaned over to my partner, look, lets approach this car like we do on the street. He knew what I meant.
He was the driver and I was passenger.
We both exited the car at the same time with our guns drawn and pointed at the windows, arching out into a V formation around the back of the car. My partner yelled for the driver to roll down all of the windows. The driver did not comply. We advanced on the SUV and my partner pulled out the rear passenger at Gun point as I walked up to the passenger side front seat screaming, “GET YOUR HANDS UP, YOU MOVE, YOU DIE!”
The driver and passenger both threw their hands up. The passenger had a bag in his hand with what appeared to be a gun. I had a point on these two guys while my partner started a pat down on his subject. The passenger decided he didn’t want to stay in the car and tried to open the door. He got it halfway open when I kicked it back into his face, then fired two rounds at his face mask. Then pointed at the driver and yelled “You’re next pal, don’t move”.
My partner then opened fire on his subject, who apparently tried to pull a gun.
The instructor yelled, “Scenario Over!”
The guys got out and we were told we did an excellent job. We walked over to the group of guys who’d finished the exercise and they started asking questions. Apparently, these guys from the county north of us let people get out of the cars and walk up to them. If they run, they’d rather setup a perimeter then engage a threat immediately…
I got to witness this first hand as the next group came out. They told the guys to step out of the car and the guys all took off running. The Officers didn’t chase them, instead they started searching the car… which lead to the bad guys doubling back and killing both of them and stealing their car.
So much for that system.
The SWAT guy from the county north of us walked up to me, “Hey man, I saw you guys walk up the car, what if they had an AK? You could have been killed.”
I told him, “Yea, and if I allowed that same armed subject with an AK to run 100 yards, stop and fire at me from a place where my handgun is basically useless, I’d be dead with no fighting chance as opposed to engaging the threat head on.”
He didn’t understand my point but I suppose that the training we received was vastly different.
We broke for lunch and returned a half hour later.
My team met up with a SGT in the same hallway we had initial Active shooter course. The instructor gave us plastic blue guns. He then PT’d us for 20 minutes until we were tired and then said, “A rookie cop just got into a foot chase with an armed subject. Go”.
And we saw the ‘rookie’ run ahead of us and around the corner. We took pursuit as we turned the corner we heard several loud gun shots and a door slam.
The ‘rookie’ was screaming he’d been shot. My team of four made a stack outside of the door and did a dynamic entry. We saw no shooters so we then started an extraction under possible fire. The ‘rookie’ was dragged out of the room by myself and another Officer as the other two team members covered.
Once outside we assessed his injuries, I saw he’d been shot in the stomach and I put my hands over the ‘wound’ (which was a blood bag under his shirt) applying pressure. Another member elevated his legs as another one checked his pulse. The last guy was getting on the air asking for the ‘world’ to show up and covering the door.
Several seconds went by and I said, “Fuck this, Rescue takes to long, load him up in a cruiser and lets drive him there!”
The instructor yelled, “Scenario Over!”
He told us we did an excellent job and the medical care we provided was excellent and the decision to drive him instead of waiting those 5-15 minutes for rescue to arrive was a good call. It’ll take us 1-2 minutes to drive him to the nearest hospital in the county so waiting that time could mean his life.
Onto the next station.
The sun had finally set and now it was really dark out. We arrived at Survival City and were told that this would be a simunitions / paintball event. The instructor gave four of us simunitions guns and radios. He said that a bank robbery was in progress and that’s all we knew.
Great, in real life I’d be carrying an AR15 or M1A and posting up across the street, but I could make due.
My team came from behind the building and we made that our base point. One Officer was in front of me along the back wall of the bank as another team mate was watching our rear. The female decided to run across the street out of Line of Sight and feed us information. Good idea.
I saw a shadow approaching and trained my firearm at the corner of the building we were facing. The gunman turned the corner holding a Paintball Marker (rifle) and we started to shoot at him. My partner fired a few rounds, missing and getting hit. I pulled the trigger of my handgun but didn’t hear a bang. I realized the guys at the start station never gave me any bullets…. I was then shot at least 3 times in the hand. The guy covering my rear turned around and used my BODY as a shield. I wasn’t too happy, since I was now being shot repeatedly at close range (within 10 feet) with a paintball gun head to waist as my partner killed the threat. I got hit about 15 times total and have the welts to prove it.
A little pissed off but not showing it, we went back to the critique. The instructor told us what we did wrong and whatnot. I made a comment about my firearm having no bullets in it but that was over looked and my team went to the next station.
We ran over to the firearms range.
The instructor there lead us about 100 yards south of the range to an area where there were 4 walls setup. He said that we’d have to chase a subject, then get onto the range and do a course of fire. I told my partner, who I’d been in the academy with, “Hey, I know you can’t shoot worth a damn and you know I can’t run half as fast as you can. You keep up with the subject and I’ll shoot the targets.”
It turned out to be an excellent plan.
The event started and the Subject took off running, hopping all four walls.
My partner and I took pursuit and hopped all the same walls with little trouble. On that straight away I was dying though. Four days of this RID school, I’d be lucky if I had enough left in me for a fight.
We got to the range and another instructor explained the course of fire.
We’d have to start in a patrol car which was at the 100 yard line. When he tapped the trunk we were to open our doors and from the door jam, fire at three metal plates about 15-25 yards in front of our car. Once those plates were down, we were to exit the car, run 25 yards south and east to a wall with a doorway opening. Then we were to do a dynamic entry into the doorway and engage any threats. Once we completed that, we had to run 10 yards west to some cones and low crawl another 50 yards to get behind a barricade. At that point, we had to shoot a bowling pin off of a ledge at 50 yards then get up and run 20 yards east over to a station that had 6 metal plates setup, sort of like you see at a carnival. The first shooter was supposed to hit all 6 plates, which would immediately reset for shooter 2. After all of that we then had to carry a 185 lbs dummy all the way back to the 100 yard line to finish the event.
Damn.
We got in the car and the instructor tapped the back.
Instantly I was upholstered and shot all three plate targets down in less then 5 seconds using one round a piece. We ran to the next area and did a dynamic entry. Getting into the room I saw three targets. I shot 2 rounds into each, reloading as we left that area and started the low crawl. Totally out of breath still from the walls/run I was trying my hardest to stay focused and calm. We got to the next station and I laid prone on the floor taking careful aim at the Bowling Pin. My partner was cranking round after round.
I took a deep breath, let it out half way and squeezed the trigger focusing on keeping a good sight picture.
The pin dropped and we stood up, running to the next station.
I got into position and went from right to left, hitting every steel target like I was firing a .22 caliber handgun. The instructor reset the targets immediately with a lever and my partner then spent at least 10 seconds hitting the plates. BANG BANG BANG DING! BANG DING! BANG BANG DING!… Not a good shot by any measure.
Then we got to the dummy. I tried to lift it but damn.. my partner picked it up like it was a balloon and RAN it down to the end of the field with me trying to keep up.
The instructor yelled, “TIME! Wow.. Congrats, you guys beat the course record. It took you 1:14 seconds to complete the course, good team work.” That record was later crushed by the SWAT guys from the county north of us, with a total time of 94 seconds. Those guys are seriously impressive I have to admit.
Then we went back to the classroom to finish off the day. The instructors talked a bit and then we did the inevitable PT for 45 minutes. One of the instructors decided to single me out since I was already totally drained and he got in a pushup position in front of me and started trash talking.
Instructor : “Dash, you can’t keep up?! Get your chest on the ground and give me some pushups”.
Now, I’d already done the first 75 they’d asked and was totally spent but instead of arguing or saying I can’t, I replied with a little phrase I learned from one of the SWAT guys.
I replied, “Hokie Pokie you can’t smoke me, TOO EASY!”
The instructor laughed at me, knowing I was totally smoked but that his job was to play a mind game and he got the point that I understood the mind game.
He said, “Alright! Since Dash says I can’t smoke him, we’re going to do Flutter Kicks! Everyone on your backs!”
And we went through the rest of PT doing very well. The line worked so I was surprised.
Tomorrow is the last day of Hell week. I’ll keep you posted.
I showed up early at the training facility hung out inside the lecture room.
The LT and Sarge came in at 1300 (1PM) and we had an hour long lecture on Building searches.
Now, I’ve down many many building searches. It’s part of my current job and I’ve taken enough training courses in it that this was fairly dull.
They class divided into its 4 squads going to two separate locations. Squads 100, 200 went to Survival City, a small city block which our department has that has several buildings in it, all designed for training, to do Building Searches.
The 300 and 400 squads went to the Range #3.
The first even for the day was CQB (Close Quarters Battle) Paintball. The range, which is 100 yards long and 50 yards wide was divided into 2 halfs, down the middle. We placed barricades around the field and went in teams of 4 people out onto the field in only our normal clothes, a small mask and a Paintball Marker with 50 rounds.
The instructor came out, “Gentlemen, I want you all to start in the middle back side of your area behind a standing barricade facing away from the other team. When I say GO, you WILL engage your opponents. I want cooperation, teamwork and good verbal commands. If you get hit, put your arm into the air with the Paintball Marker up and walk off of the field”.
He yelled go and my team turned around. I ran towards the middle of the field to a barricade that was laid down longways, shooting as I ran and diving into position. I creped out to the side and started working an angle of view, cutting a pie as best I could. I saw a member of the opposite team and lit him up like a Christmas tree.
My team mates were yelling out locations and I was facing the wrong way. As I turned around, I got shot in the foot.
Damn.
I threw my hand up with the Marker and walked off of the field. My team proceeded to win the battle and we went several more times.
Then the instructor said, “I need 2 guys for a suicide mission. It’ll be 2 on 4.”
I stood up, “Too easy. Let me at it.”
He looked at me like I was crazy but told me to gear up. A fellow teammate, who is a SWAT member in the County to the north of ours also volunteered.
The instructor said, “Anyone on the 4 man team that gets hit owes me 50 pushups. If all of you get hit, you owe me 200.”
If that wasn’t incentive to tag me and my partner, I don’t know what was.
We took the field and went to our rear back side to take position while the other team mirrored.
I turned to the SWAT guy and said I was going straight up the middle and for him to take the left flank and that we’d work our field of fire right. He agreed knowing it was a sound tactic.
The instructor yelled, “GO!”
I ran up to the middle barricade, which was about 5 feet wide and 1 foot long, sliding up to it in the wet grass. I saw my fellow teammate get to his position. I started creeping out to the left of my cover and spotted 2 people running towards the same side of their field, effectively trapping my partner.
I started laying cover fire, screaming for him to move up and flank.
Pop Pop Pop fizzle fizzle click.
What the..
My Marker started to not cycle. I looked at the gas pressure reading, no CO2.
Shit.
“Hey SWAT! I got a malfunction and I’m out of gas!”
He was overwhelmed and got marked.
Shit..
The instructor saw my malfunction and paused the match.
“Dash, grab another marker, return to your position and do not look at the enemy locations.”
I replied with a hearty, “Sir yes Sir!”
I ran and got another marker, laid back down behind my barricade.
I thought to myself, I have no idea where these guys are now, they know where I’m at. What the hell do I do? I decided that they’d expect me to peek out of the sides of the barricade, as I had done for several matches. I also kept thinking about how I had no idea where they were. I was at a severe disadvantage.
Then I had an idea. Hmmm..
I had a wide barricade and they weren’t allowed past a central line, so I was safe if I stayed in the very middle of the barricade and didn’t expose my flanks. I laid on my back, sitting with my legs crossed at the very center of the barricade middle. I took a few deep breaths and did a sit-up, quickly scanning the area and then threw myself back down to the floor.
I saw every last one of them and I knew I was going to get tagged no matter what.
The easiest target was on my right side, so I rolled out from the barricades cover, fired at least 10 rounds at the guy who was exposing his left leg from behind his covered and tagged him.
The Paintballs started raining down on me and I was definitely tagged more times then I want to remember, but I got one.
Good deal.
The block of instruction was now over and we headed to Survival City for the block of instruction on building searches. That went well as I’ve done it so many times that I basically walked my team through with no problems.
We had a 20 minute lunch break and had to be back for a Defensive Tactics course.
No problem, I ate light expecting to fight.
The instructors brought us upstairs on the only two story building the in facility. They took us to a back room that had Wall to Wall padding.
Holy crap, I was about to get my ass kicked for sure.
The instructor said, “Okay, we’re going to do a scenario. You’re the first unit on scene to a call at a convince store. The owner called the police because a guy that robbed his store at gunpoint last week returned and was sitting in the back of the store casing the place. The instructor will be acting like a normal subject so talk to him like you would on the street.”
Thats it. That’s all they gave us.
We all went back downstairs and the first Officer was up. He walked up the flight of stairs and 7 minutes later, returned sweating and with several new bruises on this neck.
Man… just what I thought.
He wasn’t allowed to say anything to us as to not ruin the training but it was fairly obvious what happened.
11 more officers went upstairs and came back the same exact way.
Then it was my turn. I mentally prepared myself for a total beat down.
I walked up the stairs and entered the main room. An instructor was there who handed me a fake plastic gun to put into my holster and then I went into the small 15×15 padded room. I immediately noticed a camera in the top corner of the room and a guy posted up against the back wall with his arms crossed over his chest.
I said to him, “Hey man, whats going on?”
He replied back with, “Nothing, the fuck you talking to me for?”
I snapped back with, “Relax man, I’m not here to mess with you. Let me do my thing and you’ll be on your way home soon. Partner, how long have you been here?”
He said, “A while”.
Hmm. “Okay, well did you buy anything?”
The subject said, “No, why the fuck are you bothering me. I ain’t done nothing”.
So that’s how it was going to be. I was still standing 10 feet away from him. He started lifting up his shirt and saying he had no weapons on him. That was the dead giveaway.
I said, “Look, I don’t care if you got some fire on you, I’m not looking for that. If you do that isn’t an issue just let me know about it and you’ll be alright.”
He looked at me for a second blankly. Then he started yelling about some non-sense trying to distract me when he reached behind his back and started to pull a gun on me.
He didn’t make it past the brim of his pants before I had already unholstered, pointed my firearm at his head and yelled, “BANG”.
The subject / instructor looked at me puzzled for a few seconds. Apparently no one had shot him yet, let alone not fought with him.
He said to me, “On the street that quick draw may not always work. You got lucky son.”
I told him, “Hey now, I’d rather not fight if I don’t have too. I’d rather talk to someone and get them to calm down and submit first from a distance and I am always ready to engage if they decide to escalate. From the second I walked in this room I knew that you were going to die and I was going to draw my firearm. I knew exactly where you had it when you posted up on the wall, I was only waiting for you to go for it.”
The instructor thought about that for a second and then walked up to me, “You know what, that’s the best damn reaction to this scenario I’ve seen yet. Good job young man.”
I walked back downstairs without so much as a drop of sweat. The guys that had already finished were standing away from the people that didn’t go yet, out of ear shot.
I went up to them and they looked at me completely confused. One of them said, “You can’t be over here if you didn’t go yet.”
I tried not to smile, these sort of things make me seem cocky when its really just confidence.
I said to him, “I went already. I never got within 10 feet of him. I shot him when he went for his gun.”
They all started telling me their horror stories about being thrown around, being killed with their own guns, having to fight that monster of man for several minutes…
Wow. All it took was some simple thinking, that brute force non-sense should be left at home.
Time was up, we headed over to the Range for some shooting drills.
The 14 of us were paired up into groups of two by the instructor, who walked down the line assigning us numbers, “You’re 1, You’re 2, You’re 1, You’re 2” and so forth, and told to stand at the 7 yard line.
The Instructor said, “When I say Go, I want the 1’s to run back to the 50 yard line, give me 10 pushups and run back to the 15 yard line. Then, we’re going to walk forward while engaging the target in front of you. Every time I say FIRE, I want you to shoot a round. Number 2’s, hold your partners back and look right. I want to see ALL of the 1’s in formation as they go, evenly.”
… this could get ugly.
He yelled GO! and I ran my heart to 50 yard line, immediately dropping into the ‘Front leaning Rest position’, IE: Pushup position.
Down up! Down up!…. 10 pushups done in unison between all of the 1’s and then we ran to the 15 yard line.
My heart was pumping and my brain was telling my lungs that Oxygen wasn’t as important as hitting that target. I calmed myself down a lot in the 2 seconds it took for the Instructor to yell, FORWARD!
We started walking forward slowly, not allowed to stop and shoot, we had to keep walking forward.
FIRE! ………. FIRE!………… FIRE!…………. FIRE!………. FIRE!…… STOP!
I placed all 5 rounds center mass. I thought to myself, Too easy.
I thought way to soon.
We did that RUN 4 more times, including the pushups. By the 5th time my heart was pumping so hard that it took all I had in me to keep my gun on point.
At the last cycle I was able to see my work. I had every single round in the peanut. Holy crap.
The instructors in the back started whispering my name around. Apparently I was the only one to keep the bullets in the peanut and grouped, even under the heavy physical stress.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. My strong point is shooting. I may not be the best fighter, the best runner or the best report writer but when it comes to making the rounds go where I want them, that’s my role.
The 2’s then did the same rapid action drills and then we moved on to a timed course of fire.
The instructors set up 3 targets next to each other. He said, “When you hear the buzzer go off, draw you weapon, shoot two rounds into each target, right to left. Then do a magazine exchange and fire left to right, two rounds into each target. The course record is 11.54, all hits in the peanut.”
I was 2nd in line. The first guy took 19 seconds and missed 3 rounds.
I was up now, I took my shooting stance and focuses on the right targets middle.
BUZZ!
My quickdraw didn’t fail me, I was tossing the lead down range right to left hitting center mass with each round. My reload took at most a second and I went back firing left to right. I holstered and the instructor yelled TIME!
9.13 seconds.
The RID LT and Sarge were there and gave me that look. I didn’t smile. I simply looked at them, nodded and went to the back of the line.
The average was 15 seconds with 2 misses.
Did I mention I love shooting?
We went back to the class after everyone finished and they told us what to expect tomorrow.
Then of course we did the ‘voluntary’ 45 minutes of PT (Physical Training) after our 8 hours was up.
All in all, not a bad day and I got to display some of my better skills.
I can tell you for sure though, push-ups aren’t one of them. I was absolutely dying to complete 20 of them out of the 100 or so we did at the end. My flutter kicks were more like bicycle peddles and my jumping jacks were a mix of arm flailing and momentum. I’m not in bad shape mind you, just after such a hard workout through the course of training, my body isn’t in great shape. I’m sore, bruised, cut up and I hurt in places that I’ve never hurt in before.
The motto of the day was, “Too easy!”
Motivation was key to keeping the instructors off of our backs and with every exercise we hustled.
Time to hit the sack.
So 21 of us showed up on day 2 to a class room lecture about containment.
I can’t really go into details about it since its a form of operations, but it was an extremely informative class that we’d practice later on in the day.
They bought the class out to the Killhouse and kept us in a large room with chairs.
The instructor told 4 people to put on helmets with neck protection and that we’d be using Simunitions.
Awesome, Simunitions is like Paintball but better. The guns are real, the rounds are real but with a little less powder and paint filled caps as bullets. They fly about 450-500 FPS and can / will break exposed or thinly covered skin.
I was up first, no problem since I’ve done this sort of thing many times before.
They brought me to the front of the Killhouse and had me face away from the door. The instructor said, “When you hear the buzzer go off, turn around and handle business.”
Okay, I’m thinking I’m going to do a solo Building search and inevitably get shot, as is usually the case.
BUUUZZZZZZZZZ
I turn around to see three people standing 10 feet from me.
The first person I see is pointing a shotgun at me, I fire 2 rounds at his chest and 1 at his face mask. The second person I see, who is standing maybe 2 feet from the first guy has his hands up in the air like a victim but he’s holding a gun. He wasn’t an immediate threat so I looked a guy number 3, who was holding a Tazer.
Guy number Three fired his Tazer about the same time I shot him in the head.
Good times. Scenario 1 was over.
The rest of the class went through the same thing, some people killed everyone, others didn’t shot a single person. It’s training and is to be expected.
Back into the waiting room we were sitting down talking about the first shoot scenario and the instructor came in and asked for two people.
Of course, I went first with my partner.
They lead us back into the Killhouse into a small 15×15 room.
Walking into the room I immediately noticed that there was a balloon taped to the east and west walls…
As I took that image in, the instructor then said, “Okay, this time your going to have to stand next to these ballons, opposite each other. I want you to engage the balloon first when you hear the buzzer and when you pop the balloon, you must do a magazine exchange and then I want you to shoot your partner. First person to hit the partner wins.”
I looked at my partner and said, “Sorry man, I won’t hit anything exposed” jokingly. He didn’t find it too funny, knowing how good of a shot I am.
BUUUZZZZZ
I drew the gun from my holster and from the hip, shot the balloon hearing a satisfying POP!
I then immediately did a magazine exchange and fire three rounds into my partners chest.
He was still trying to shoot the balloon, and wasn’t very happy. Shooting isn’t his strong point.
The rest of the class went through the same thing and then the people that “won” their first engagements went on to face people that also “won”.
For my second turn I was matched against a girl that on the range barely hit the target, let alone the peanut.
Being a good sportsman I told the instructor that it wasn’t a fair matchup and that maybe I should go against the next person in line. He didn’t seem to happy about that and said he’d make it even.
No problem, it’s his course, his rules.
I saw him take both of my magazines and unload every single round. He put 2 rounds back into each clip and handed me the firearm.
Alrighty, I suppose that evens some ground.
He handed me the gun to holster and I noticed the gun he gave me wasn’t the same color as the rest of the guns. I didn’t think much of it but I took a mental note.
BUZZZZZZZ
I fired round one at the balloon and the firearm stovepiped… which is when the round gets stuck as it ejects and jams the weapon.
Crap, I cleared the malfunction and inserted my new magazine into the gun.
Upon making the weapon hot, the magazine feed two rounds into the gun, jamming it up again in a “Double Feed” weapon malfunction.
The picture became quite clear to me then. I looked at my opponent and said, “Just shoot me in the chest and don’t miss.”
She took her time, popped off her rounds at the balloon and then reloaded, shooting me 3 times in the chest.
On the way out of the room, the instructor looked at me and smiled, “Hey Mr. Weapons guy, that gun malfunctioned a lot didn’t it? Yea, we use that in training since its meant to do that and we need to clear it as practice. Better luck next time.”
Hmmmm.
After that was all over we went to the Defensive Tactics course.
Todays main event, after an hour of seriously hard Physical Training, was wrestling with a subject.
The instructor told us, “Subjects, if you get arrested, you do 25 pushups. Officers making the arrest, if you fail to arrest him and he gets away, you do 25 pushups.”
I can only tell you that I got hit in the face, neck, groin, back, arms…. and this was a real fight. Every single person went all out… someone even got a bite mark to take home from the same girl that shot me.
So now we finished that lovely brute fest and went outside to do the containments.
I can’t go into details about that but long story short, every single car that was driven left with front end damage.
And of course, on the way out of training they PT’d us for another 45 minutes.
After PT my Sarge showed up for whatever reason, “Hey whats up Dash!”…
I looked at him and smiled, “You’re such an Asshole”. Now I was mocking him, “Oh it’s a great class, lots of fun. You’ll have a blast”. He started laughing and said I need to work on my pushups, which I already figured out since I could only do 40 or so. I’m a shooter, not a workout buff. I’ll hit a target every time where I want too, that’s my role on a unit. I understand that role and know my limitations. Pushups isn’t my thing.
I got home and had a nice dinner, Excedrin and now I’m about to fall out.
Night.
The first half of the day was what I expected it to be.
We sat down in a ‘class room’, all 30 of us, and got nothing but lectures for 4 hours.
We were told that we’d have an hour long break and then half of us, squads 100-200 would be sent to the range and the other half, squads 300-400 would be sent to the Defensive Tactics room after our lunch break was over. They stressed eating light. Hmm.
So my entire squad decided we’d all goto a really close sit down food spot and eat a small meal.
Good deal. It was yummy and I had a normal sized plate.
Arriving back at the school my team went straight to the Defensive Tactics Gym, since I was on the 400 squad. The Gym was basically a Basketball court with a huge pull out soft mat.
The Instructors were looking at us with a gleam in they’re eyes, almost like we were prey. That feeling was soon acknowledged as they told us to remove everything but our shirts, pants and socks.
We were told to pair up into groups, which was fine. I happened to have a guy in my squad that I went to the academy with, same exact build and size as I was. 6’00, 185lbs.
We got into our groups and then one of the Instructors said to belay that order and instead we’d start off with a Light Warm up.
When he said “Light Warm up”, he really should have said, “We’re going to start you off with an Ass kicking session were you’ll be numb at best if you can keep up”.
Now, by no means and I superior in the fitness department. Sure, I can run with the best of them, but my strengths are shooting and fighting, not push-ups and flutter kicks.
In total we did about 300 pushups, 100 flutter kicks, 200 Side straddle hops (jumping jacks) and countless “fall on your front/back and get back into ready stance immediately” drills. Needless to say, I was already out of gas by the end of that little “Warm Up”.
Next we went into Ground Fighting.
They showed us a few moves I already knew and let us alone to fight our partners. When it came to that, I severely out skilled my partner and I kept using some more advanced techniques which the instructors yelled at me for doing.
My partner mounted me while I was on my back and I simply grabbed an armed and hooked the same side leg, tossing him off. Instructors told me that we weren’t up to ‘that level’ move yet.
I mounted my partner while he was on his back and his objective was to toss me, I just swam through his arms and laid my stomach flat on this chest while keeping my legs hooked between his, effectively suffocating him into submission.
Instructors said I was jumping the gun again.
Finally, an instructor decided to show me up and made me fight him.
Long story short, I did my best and came out with Five separate bruises on my arms and legs, and very sore at that. He not only ‘really fought’ me, but he also used pressure points… Yeap.. my 100% was his 30% I think.
So, utterly exhausted we were then sent to the gun range.
Excellent, something else I enjoyed.
We started off standing at the 7 yard line doing rapid action drills. Based on accuracy, the Instructors would move us left or right down the line, left being skilled, right needed help from an instructor.
Long story short, I ended up third man in line on the left with the two SWAT guys.
That’s when I started having magazine failures. I purchased 3 new magazines from a different company then normal since they had the ability to hold 17 rounds instead of 15… big mistake. I was down to one functional magazine almost immediately with the other two only able to hold 4 rounds before the follower, the thing that leads the bullets up and to the top of the magazine, would tilt forward causing the next round not to feed into the gun…
I managed but it was hard. My fingers we’re almost bleeding from having to reload so fast I barely had time to reinsert the magazine.
That’s when the range PT started..
Now, I was already out of Gas from the Fighting and now I had all of my gear on, Vest, Gunbelt, and TONS of ammunition in my pockets (at least 100 rounds). Now, ammo is VERY heavy… and I had so many rounds that getting up and sitting down were made ‘that’ much harder.
Instructor told us to get into a push-up position and then barked the normal, DOWN UP, DOWN UP. I was burned already so I tried and tried but soon my arms wouldn’t move anymore. I held my ‘up’ position and fought hard not to let my chest hit that dirt.
The instructor singled me out, “Hey Dash! Something the matter? You better get your ass in gear and get with the program! I see you didn’t prepare for this class!”.
I thought to myself, “I’m going to kill my SGT, would have been nice to know about this little PT aspect”.
I responded, “Sir I can do more Sir!” and tried my little heart out, pushing out half of one more.
He screamed, “Since Mr. Dash can’t do a f—-ing push-up, maybe we should do some flutter kicks”
Whew, I could do those..
PT continued like that on the range for another 30 minutes and then back to shooting.
Man of man.
Upon finishing the shooting session we were told to go back into the starting classroom.
They gave us a lecture on what to expect for ‘tomorrow’ and the lead Instructor stood up and pointed to 9 people in the class.
He said, “Everyone I just pointed too, don’t come back tomorrow.”
I was not one of those people.
In RID, everyone has their own roll. Everyone. Some people are runners, others are fighters, and some are shooters. I am definitely a shooter and I know my role, I think the Instructor saw that and let me slide on the Physical aspect.
Then, when it was time to leave, they told us to Form up outside and PT’d us for another 45 minutes.
I got home hurting all over and in a good amount of pain.
Four full days of this abuse left and I’ll be certified. I can do it and I’m going to complete the training. I’ll write about todays events when I get home.
I am now currently assigned to the Jump Out Unit (CPU – Crime Prevention Unit) of my district.
Basically what that means is that I will no longer be handling calls for service.
Instead, I will be pro-actively looking for robbery/burglary subjects, drug dealers/traffickers and responding to all priority violent calls in order to apprehend a subject.
I start that next week and will be wearing a raid gear uniform instead of my normal police uniform.
This whole week I’ve been in Firearms Instructor training and I’ll let you know how that went when I finish.
Passed Firearm Instructor School and can now teach Handgun, Rifle and Shotgun.
