ILEETA, Last Day

05 Apr 08

ILEETA, last day:

Today, we had a Panel Discussion, featuring a number of working trainers, including Vicki and me.

My friend and colleague, Ed Sanow, active trainer and editor of L&O Magazine, told us all that the four-man, "diamond" formation that is currently being promulgated as the local PD's standard response to "active-shooter" calls is indeed an effective and powerful, tactical tool. It is also mostly wishful thinking!

By the time we get four, plain-vanilla patrolmen, let alone four SWAT-Team members, to the scene and ready to make entry, nearly a half hour will have elapsed since the first 911 call. By then, there is every chance the entire event will be long-since over! Ed suggests we need to be training with two-man teams, even one-man entry, if we expect to act in time to save any lives. Even then, he tells his school administrators that they will be on their own for at least the first six minutes. There is virtually no possibility even the first beat-car will get there any sooner than that.

In the majority of recent school shootings, perpetrators have committed suicide when they first saw officers approaching. We should provide them with every opportunity to do so, assisting them when necessary, as soon as we can!

Dr Jim Williams, also our old friend, in his wonderful Class on Tactical Anatomy, talked about an interesting, recent phenomenon that is now being reflected in shooting statistics. American police have been trained to use their sights and engage bad guys as close to the body midline as possible, firing multiple times. The result: a sharp increase in bad-guy fatalities, combined with a parallel increase in acute spinal injuries, with the upshot that many bad-guys, who do survive police gunfire, are permanently paralyzed. Nothing not to like!

My friend and colleague, Vince O'Neil, like all of us, uses the term " trigger control," but he also uses the term, "front-sight control" to describe to necessity of training shooters to aggressively drive their front sights to the target. I'm going to steal it from him!

My friend of many years, Dennis Tueller, reminded all of us that the word, " fair" is used almost exclusively by children and Democrats!

There were many other wonderful Classes that I didn't get a chance even to look in on. A virtual cornucopia of subjects, all being expertly taught by veterans who know of what they speak! Next year's Conference will be at the same time and, again, at the wonderful Westin Hotel in Wheeling, IL. All serious Operators and trainers need to attend!

/John