As officers we all know the rising risk we take on a daily basis with our chosen profession. We can never prepare enough, train enough or be vigilant enough in our endeavor to keep the communities and citizens we serve safe. It is truly hard to replicate the emotional and psychological responses we’re going to face in the event it happens to us. The closest we can come to mimic this environment is scenario-based training provided by a certified instructor within our agency or jurisdiction. It is not about the quantity of training but the quality as I’m sure most would agree. Oftentimes it’s difficult to find the nexus that connects the philosophies of soft control tactics up to lethal force decisions into one training program that facilitates a realistic training environment to reflect the day to day events we commonly face.
I recently attended a pilot course, provided by TeamOne Network in Sebastian, Florida where the two philosophies met and provided the delicate interaction of Simunitions with the Redman instructor. I have been a law enforcement officer for approximately 16 years and during my time, I have participated in a wide variety of training courses. Throughout these courses I have found the ones that you “show up to” and pass, along with others that require sweat and intensity to earn your passing score. TeamOne Network has always provided the intensity myself and others have desired and transformed two separate courses into one dynamic training session.
Integration of the Redman suit along with Simunition training is not an unheard of theory. However, TeamOne and their instructors demonstrate decades of experience and help make the end product (training) better. The instructors were very well versed in the subject matter, and participation was a must. Everything from liability concerns to dynamic simulation training was thoroughly covered. The course was structured in a way to provide even exposure to both facets of the training program and allowed the dynamic portion to lead the way. With the ever growing concern of officer safety and use-of-force agency liability issues, instructor certification is a must. I think we can all agree the “we’ve always done it that way” theory is not working. It is rapidly catching up to modern law enforcement practices that inherently make officers apprehensive to deploy tactics in the camera era, even when they are doing the right thing.
This training was invaluable to me, and as I conversed with the other attendees we all found large value in the training along with the dual instructor certification. We must take the educational value from every course we attend and develop our own ideology of how it will best serve us, our agency and the community. With that I ask ‘Is today your day?”
About the Author
Sergeant William Luther is currently the supervisor of the training unit at the Indian River County Sheriff’s office. During his time he has been involved with training since 2002 and has continued to expand his subject knowledge. He has been a part of the agencies SWAT team and FTO program. He is a graduate of the Hathcock sniper school and Force Science institute, Sgt Luther always looks to improve the training he provides to his agency by expanding his knowledge.