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The following articles have appeared on: SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Using the 'Tactical Battle Swarm' in SWAT operations Tactical Battle Swarming is a deliberately-structured, coordinated, strategic way to strike an adversary from all directions inShare1 Imagine your SWAT team responding to a terrorist attack in a large shopping mall. The attack is well-planned and coordinated. There are several small, roving cells of terrorists attacking mall shoppers in different locations throughout the structure. How would your team respond? I bet many teams will roll out their version of a linear stack or formation. There isn’t anything wrong with the many versions of linear stacks. However, in a Mumbai-style attack in a mall or any large structure, you need to get at your adversaries quickly. The Tactical Battle Swarm During the past two years I have had an opportunity to develop a tactic with the men of my Special Response Team to further enhance our response to various tactical challenges such as acts of terrorism, active shooters and locating suspects in large structures when locating the suspect needs to be done quickly. My goal was to find a way to minimize the time it takes for a tactical element to cover ground in a large facility — such as a mall or large commercial building — when the urgency to locate an adversary’s location or position is time critical. After spending some time analyzing battle tactics from the military and getting valuable input from my SWAT operators — along with much practice in the field — the “Tactical Battle Swarm” was born.    Tactical Battle Swarming is a deliberately-structured, coordinated, strategic way to strike an adversary from all directions using the deployment of small, dispersed, networked, tactical squads known as “Stinger Squads” — fast moving and coordinated strikes conducted autonomously. This tactic is much different than the common linear style formations most SWAT teams currently use for active shooters and the like.  Communication and Coordination Like bees and wolf packs, engaging an adversary from all directions simultaneously, using nimble maneuvering and rapid communications is a highly effective way of fighting. The Bee will typically employ “swarming” tactics when foraging outside the hive striking at their prey from all directions as they attempt to overwhelm their prey’s defenses. Tactical Battle Swarm characteristics can transition quickly from a linear formation into a “battle swarm” to contact using several autonomous stinger squads assaulting a common target. These squads must communicate and coordinate with each other as well as provide intelligence to command as needed. The Tactical Battle Swarm provides a smaller span of control for your tactical team leaders so that they have a greater ability to mass over their adversaries to provide maximum shock and firepower.  We like to use four-man squads — which allows our team to field five total stinger squads. It’s critical that one person from each stinger squad takes command as the team leader. It will be his responsibility to focus on the intelligence as received from other squads and incoming data from dispatch and other radio traffic. The team leader will also navigate the squad inside the objective and determine its direction of travel. Two of the stinger squad members are required to clear rooms as they proceed through the objective. The third member will provide security for the team leader as he maintains optimal situational awareness and one person should have a breacher pack or breaching tools on him. During the development of the Tactical Battle Swarm, my initial concept was based on a military “pincer” maneuver. The stinger squads will simultaneously attack the objective in a pinching movement, surrounding your adversary’s flanks and ultimately containing him from several directions. When tactical commanders arrive to any SWAT call one of their first objectives is to establish an inner perimeter as quick as possible, from all directions using sniper observer teams and containment teams. The Tactical Battle Swarm establishes a quick inner perimeter or containment needed, just like when we respond to a typical SWAT call in a neighborhood, but this inner perimeter is inside the structure and done in quick time.  While my team worked on this tactic we discovered that it was actually faster to locate a suspect hiding inside a large structure using the Tactical Battle Swarm then the typical linear formations by significant time margins. When the stinger squads locate the suspect inside the objective they have the option to make contact and apprehend, make contact and negotiate a surrender — or simply hold their position and advise the SWAT commander that they have located the suspect and they have him contained. The tactical commander will now assess his tactical options of a hostage rescue or now treat the incident as a barricaded gunmen depending on the circumstances. Keep in mind that these stinger squads may locate the suspect and he may not even know it. The initial deployment of the stinger squads should be from various positions on the outside of the structure. Upon assigning stinger squads entry points provide them some direction of their movement once inside. They should be briefed and tasked with an objective like the west side of the building, or the first floor, etc. Try and plan your attack in a organized flow of the structure so you maximize your pincer movement. Building on Historical Success Some of you might say that the Tactical Battle Swarm is too dangerous because of the possibility of cross fire or blue-on-blue fire. However, I would like to remind you that SWAT officers are highly trained to recognize and assess threats quickly and correctly. Let’s say your SWAT team is clearing a large office building and there is a man inside thought to be homicidal with many officer workers available as victims. Your tactical commander decides he wants this suspect located as quickly as possible and your team starts to clear the office complex. Will members of your SWAT team shoot at innocent office workers as they come across them just because they are in front of them? The answer is no, we train SWAT operators to identify a threat before he is engaged. That is why for decades SWAT teams have proven to be the safest option to defuse critical police problems.   Military battle swarm tactics have been used for hundreds of years and will always be a valuable asset to combat units. The “Tactical Battle Swarm” can be a valuable tool that has the potential to save lives when a homicidal suspect(s) needs to be located quickly. This is just another tactic to add to your current tactical options. The linear formations are still very important and we still use them. Try this tactical concept with your team, make adjustments as needed and see if it works for you. SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French     Combat stress in law enforcement: Does it exist? Command officers must anticipate an officer's reactions to stressful conditions inShare13 Combat in law enforcement can be sudden, intense, and life threatening. However, does "combat stress" exist in law enforcement? The stresses of combat experienced by officers can be substantial. Commanding officers of an officer exposed to a traumatic incident are duty bound to anticipate, recognize and evaluate an officer's ability to perform his job when exposed to combat stress. Command officers must first understand this human dimension and anticipate an officer's reactions to stressful conditions for the welfare of their officers. Expert Analysis Signs of combat stress in individuals and organizations By Sgt. Glenn French The Army Field Manual states, "Combat stress causes battle fatigue. Battle fatigue is the broad umbrella label for the physical, mental and emotional signs that result naturally from facing danger or from performing dangerous missions under difficult conditions." (6-22 and FM 6-22.5.) Army Field Manual further says that battle fatigue is a simple condition which is not medical or a psychiatric illness. (6-22 and FM 6-22.5) Signs of Combat Stress in Individuals There are some obvious signs of stress that may help you recognize it in yourself and others so that an early detection can be to help minimize the effects of stress. Physical signs of stress: • Dry mouth • Fatigue  • Inability to move muscles • Forgetfulness • Inability to concentrate Continue reading Signs of combat stress in individuals and organizations Law enforcement must first recognize the possibility that "combat stress" even exists in our profession. Combat stress usually is a term associated with military veterans fighting a war. Here is a classic definition of combat stress as provided from the Department of Defense. Combat Stress: The expected and predictable emotional, intellectual, physical, and/or behavioral reactions of service members who have been exposed to stressful events in war or military operations other than war. Combat stress reactions vary in quality and severity as a function of operational conditions, such as intensity, duration, rules of engagement, leadership, effective communication, unit morale, unit cohesion, and perceived importance of the mission. - Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, U.S. Department of Defense 2005. Police officers are exposed to dangerous situations on various levels and duration dependent on assignment, and working conditions. However, at some point most police officers are exposed to some type of traumatic incident. I think we can all agree that responding to a domestic call is stressful. We have been conditioned to respond to these runs in the highest state of situational awareness our minds will allow. It’s not a far reach that big city and suburban officers respond to unpredictable and dangerous domestic calls every day. When we effect arrests and resolve these situations, our emotions fluctuate from a stressful peak, which keeps our situational awareness in its clearest form, to a less stressful and more relaxed tempo. This type of exposure to stress moving through your emotional, intellectual, physical, and behavioral reactions, is in my opinion, similar to the military's "combat stress." The difference being, law enforcement's exposure to combat stress isn't on a military battlefield; it can come from the many and various types of police calls for service we deal with on a daily basis. I am not a medical professional, nor do I profess to be an expert in any form on this subject. However, I have spent enough time on this job — and seen everything under the sun that cops deal with on a regular basis — to recognize the parallels that exist in how the military prepares for and treats combat stress. This is where we as police trainers, commanding officers and even partners can learn from our military comrades to possibly prevent an officer from falling victim to combat stress, which can ultimately lead to depression and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. As we all know cops are reluctant to admit they have fallen victim to stress. Men and women of law enforcement sometimes will hide and suppress their fears, anxiety and stress, which can lead to a dangerous mindset while working the streets. Police trainers and command officers must thoroughly condition their officers to deal with combat stress before incidents occur, during these stressful incidents and after any traumatic event. Traumatic incidents don't just apply to domestic calls that I mentioned previously. A traumatic event may include responding to a child that drowned in a swimming pool, an infant that died in a crib while sleeping, a CPR run on a young father as his family stands nearby while expecting the Super Man cop to save the one they love (and even though you did all you could he still dies). • How many fatal accidents have you been to where teenage girls are mangled beyond recognition? • Have you ever been assaulted on a patrol run or traffic stop? • How many homicides have you responded to or investigated? • Have you ever been shot at or ambushed? • How many autopsies have you attended of not just adults but children also? I think you get my point by now: How do cops NOT suffer from combat stress? Why does the military have a system in place for preventing, recognizing, and treating combat stress and many law enforcement agencies don't? We have all gone home after our shifts after dealing with the previously-mentioned traumatic incidents, only to act is if nothing even happened on our tour that day. We are expected as fathers, husbands, wives and citizens to go to Johnny's soccer practice, to see a movie with a girlfriend, attend a family BBQ and every other daily function without any emotion or reaction to what we have just dealt with on the previous tour of duty. The fact is many police agencies only send officers to see a counselor or therapist only after an "officer involved shooting" or an officer's death. Somehow we are expected to navigate through all the other traumatic incidents as a matter of routine. That philosophy is where we fall short in law enforcement in keeping the welfare of our officers.     08/07/2012   SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Tactical lifesaving in active shooter incidents Every law enforcement officer in this country should be trained in these life saving Tactical Life Saver skills   A single man, James Holmes, walks into a movie theatre prepared to inflict death and carnage on innocent victims sitting in disbelief as he unleashes his vicious attack. This Lone Wolf meticulously planned his assault as he tossed smoke or gas devices into the crowded theater, and then fired his 12-gauge shotgun at the ceiling before turning it on the crowd. As panicked movie watchers raced for the exits, he switched to a .40 caliber pistol and a .223 caliber rifle to further his devasting murderous assault. Then Holmes exited out of the back of the theater and was removing his body armor beside his car when he was confronted by officers who took him into custody. This coward left in his violent wake 12 innocents dead and at least 58 others injured at the midnight showing of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" at the Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado. We Have More To Do During the past several dozen years, law enforcement has had the unfortunate task of responding to many of these horrible events. We’ve developed and continously improved our active shooter response models. Most officers get active shooter training and many now carry patrol rifles. It’s common to see a “go-bag” on the passenger floorboard of a police cruiser driven by a well-prepared Warrior. Where law enforcement is still slow to catch up with our military counterparts is combat casulty care. Imagine that this movie theatre was in your town and you were the first responding officer, are you prepared to start treating 58 gunshot wound victims? Do you have the training and first aid equipment needed in such an event? The fact is most EMS will be overwhelmed during the initial response to this event no matter where you patrol. The active shooter incidents in this country time after time occurr in suburan cities and leave mass casulties. We can make a small difference in the survivability of these victims and perhaps our own with some simple training and first aid gear. Tactical Life Saver training or Tactical Combat Casulty Care is not expensive. Many organizations provide this type of training throughout the country ranging from a single day to a week. This training isn’t designed to make you a Paramedic, Tactical Medic or any other EMS responder. TLS provides every first responder the ability to treat a gunshot victim with some basic life saving first aid tactics “until” paramedics, tactical medics, or other EMS can provide the life-sustaining advanced medical care to keep these innocent victims alive. Don't Tell Me Cops Can Do This Stuff! Every law enforcement officer in this country should be trained in these life saving Tactical Life Saver skills! The TLS training should be as routine as the basic first aid instruction such as CPR and AED that officers receive annually. I am tired of the EMS community saying that patrol officers can’t perform these functions. Any person sworn to uphold the laws of this country, trained and graduated from a police academy, is smart enough to be taught how to place a pressure bandage on a gunshot wound. My six-year-old has helped me apply tourniquets to training simulators while preparing for a course. The fact is, every law enforcement officer in the United States can perform these simple, life-saving tactics to help prolong a victim’s life until advanced medical personel can take over. This is proven by the Military’s TCCC data since they started training every combat soldier in Tactical Combat Casualty Care and the battlefield deaths have significantly decreased. Surely, we are just as capable as any military recruit in basic training to learn and perform this skillset. Many police agencies like mine are providing this training to their officers. However, you may not be aforded that opportunity and your next option would be to attend a training session from a local police academy or police trainer. A few objectives that you will want to make sure the training provides are: 1.) Priorties of the Tactical Life Saver 2.) Outfitting your “go-bag” 3.) Remote assessment operations 4.) Officer rescue tactics 5.) Airway management for massive facial & neck injuries 6.) Penetrating chest trauma such as sucking chest wounds from gun shots 7.) Hemorrage control for bleeding victims 8.) Hemostatic agents use 9.) Tourniquet use 10.) Shock control These are some of the basic skills and tactics used by our Armed Forces to help save the lives of there combat buddies. TCCC does not take the place of combat medics, it simply enhances the soldiers ability to mimimize battlefield deaths. The same applies for law enforcement, it’s not meant to replace tactical medics, paramedics or EMS, it is meant to provide a chance that an officer can sustain life of a gun shot victim or any other victim for that matter, until advanced treatment arrives. History Lessons May 22nd 2011, Joplin Missouri a tornado levels the small town of 50,000 residents. First responding officers arrive to the devastating scene and soon discover that they are overwhelmed with injured people, dead bodies, walking wounded, trapped victims in buildings, multiple fires and much more. Many police and fire personnel found themselves victims of the tornado as well, which further hampered first aid response. Police officers and rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars searching for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that ultimately killed 162 people when it blasted much of this Missouri town and nearly destroyed its hospital. You can listen to the first responders and the radio traffic of that incident on-line. Listen for yourself and then ask the question, am I really prepared for such an event? There are many resources available such as books, training manuals, courses and trainers available on the subject. The necessary equipment will cost you anywhere from $50 to $100 and in no time you will be ready to save somebody’s life. The skillset used in TLS is useful at home, on accident victims and in the outdoors. Make the investment in somebody else’s future and get the training. They will be grateful and you will be prepared. Stay safe. 07/20/2012   SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Colo. massacre: Chemical smoke in active-shooter response If our vision is obscured or our breathing is labored, our effort to stop the active shooter and rescue victims will be difficult   Another mass murder has attempted to threaten our country’s security. A Lone Wolf gunman entered an Aurora, Colorado movie theatre and reportedly shot more than 50 people — killing twelve. This Lone Wolf entered the theatre through an exit door, stood near the screen, threw two canisters across the theatre and started shooting. Moviegoers began to flee from the shooter and what they thought was “gas” coming from the canisters. However, it’s being reported by officials that a chemical smoke was dispersed from the canisters.  The Fog of War Chemical smoke and gas can be a battlefield problem for the first responder. If our vision is obscured or our breathing is labored, our effort to stop the active shooter and rescue victims will be difficult. The gunman in the Aurora incident was taken into custody in the parking lot outdoors, so the chemical smoke inside was most likely not a problem for first responders there. However, copycats and terrorists are gaining intelligence from this event, so prepare your self to see this battle tactic again. Lone Wolves and terrorists can use chemical smoke and gas to their advantage and uniformed first responders need to understand how to safely respond to combat environments where they have been deployed. Obviously in a gas munitions environment your protective mask will need to be utilized and it will afford protection during the operation. However, the focus here is on the use of chemical smoke which can be a greater tactical challenge. Chemical munitions such as smoke are used for a variety of reasons in law enforcement and in the military. Police use chemical smoke in mostly in crowd control however, tactical units will use smoke to obscure a tactical movement, float chemical munitions, mark medic evacuation operations, verify wind speed and direction, distraction and psychological operations. Chemical smoke will have a very slight sweet odor. OSHA has designated many law enforcement smoke products to be non-hazardous and non-carcinogenic, as long as it is used outdoors. However, a real danger exists with the use of chemical smoke indoors. Smoke will displace oxygen at a quicker rate than CN, CS, and OC munitions. Smoke munitions used indoors may cause chlorine pneumonia and has caused more deaths in the United States than the other chemicals due to its improper usage. Therefore, venting an objective where smoke munitions have been deployed is critical prior to responding to neutralize your adversary. This can be achieved by propping doors open as you respond into the stronghold. Tactical officers keep rubber door wedges in their vests, which wedge between the floor and door base to keep doors open as they clear an objective. You can purchase these wedges for less than a dollar and I recommend keeping a half a dozen in your “go-bag.” Larger areas like malls — or large movie theatres — may have the ability to vent themselves depending on the amount of smoke deployed and the buildings ventilation system. Keep in mind that a gas mask will not provide oxygen in a chemical smoke environment! Chemical smoke munitions come in a variety of colors for law enforcement and the military. The most widely used is the color white and other colors include red, green, yellow, blue, violet, and black. Chemical smoke munitions can cause irritation to the eyes and respiratory system, dizziness and sensory deprivation. A Hodgepodge of Hazards Chemical smoke munitions are also a fire hazard and should not be deployed onto rooftops, crawl spaces or indoors. The first responder going into an active shooter event may want to grab the portable fire extinguisher from the trunk of the cruiser and place it at the door of the building (or somewhere close where you can grab it), if it becomes necessary to fight a small fire while saving a victim or during an officer rescue operation. Be mindful that most firefighters won’t respond to a fire if there is a threat of an active shooter inside the objective. Many fires have been started by tactical teams using gas inside buildings, and chemical smoke is just as dangerous, so don’t hesitate to be prepared to extinguish a small fire. Chemical smoke may develop fear or anxiety due to lack of visibility. This can cause orientation difficulties and can isolate individuals as well as groups, degrading their ability to fight. Officers in this situation are vulnerable to deception through other sensory perceptions such as sound and you can suffer mental exhaustion in a short time. Immediate physiological effects to extended exposure to large concentrations of chemical smoke may produce secondary effects such as shortness of breath, inflammation of the respiratory system, dizziness, vertigo, and vomiting. Because of this, the military requires troops to be masked whenever they are exposed to smoke. Simply leaving the smoke area and sitting on the ground may overcome vertigo. Chemical munitions such as CS, CN and OC may also be delivered with smoke. Therefore, it is wise to mask when chemical smoke is present. Your agency should have issued you a mask and it should be in your “go-bag,” but if not, it may be good to find an intersection to direct traffic while the properly-prepared officers handle the emergency. Moving Through Smoke The first responder’s primary objective is to make contact with the active shooter and stop his actions. Forming a contact team is the preferred method if it can be done quickly otherwise a solo response will be necessary. Moving through the smoke is tough. You will navigate the stronghold as a blind man in your attempt to locate the shooter. A solo first responder will have to be able to move and identify the shooter, discriminating him from innocent persons. If you can form a contact team I suggest you form a wedge, much like a “V” formation of flying geese. Each man has to stay in sight of just the man in front of him, typically an arms length away as they move. He then must provide fire cover to his left or right side depending on which side of the “V” formation he is on. The point man will try to navigate the formation to the shooter based on intel from dispatch, intel from fleeing victims, and noises he hears. Another important factor moving through chemical smoke with a formation is you must have a tight perimeter around the smoked area and the stronghold because the formation may not encounter the shooter but they will most likely flush him out of the smoked area and officers must be ready to intercept. A diamond formation may be used in this manner but since the formation is much smaller it is a more dangerous option. When you locate your active shooter in a chemical smoke environment remember there could be innocent people in close proximity. Therefore a “contact” shot to the head is a safer option to help minimize the possibility of other persons that you can’t see getting injured. A couple points to consider (which I don’t have the time to discuss in detail here) are: • The Aurora active shooter was wearing body armor, so take headshots (and train for it!) • Prepare for the unexpected and carry a weapon — with extra ammunition — off duty One last thing — and this is important.  Thee tragedy in that Aurora movie theatre had around 70 total victims, so be prepared to utilize your combat casualty care tactics to help EMS treat victims. Any EMS responding to this tragedy would likely be overwhelmed — as a matter of fact, in some metro areas EMS responding to a single gunshot victim takes 20 minutes to respond. Can you live with yourself if you’re not prepared to treat a teen-age gunshot victim and he or she ends up dying? Get some Tactical Life Saver training or at least educate yourself, as there are plenty of resources out there to read. Stay safe! SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Four-ever warriors: Fallen warriors of OPD Mark Dunakin, John Hege, Ervan Romans, and Daniel Sakai hit the streets every day, willing to keep the citizens of their city safe from criminal enterprise   Mark Dunakin, John Hege, Ervan Romans, and Daniel Sakai — four warriors forever etched in our hearts and memories. These warriors were professional lawmen, working the streets of what can be a dangerous town, even when faced with mounting resistance from groups of anti-police radicals that have tormented the Oakland Police Department. Expert Analysis We are still, and always, all OPD By Doug Wyllie, PoliceOne Editor in Chief Today is a day of solemn remembrance.  Today marks one of the most tragic days in the history of the Oakland Police Department — indeed, in the history of law enforcement.  Three years ago today, a paroled felon and rape suspect murdered four law enforcers from the Oakland (Calif.) Police Department.  Officer John Hege and Sergeant Mark Dunakin were gunned down just feet from their motors during a traffic stop.  Sergeants Daniel Sakai and Ervin Romans were shot to death as their SWAT unit assaulted the apartment in which Lovelle Mixon — armed with an AK-47 — laid in ambush.  Today, the Oakland Police Officers Association will unveil a new memorial sign to be placed along the 580 Interstate on the Keller Avenue overpass.  Today, a special ceremony will be held at OPD Headquarters for the families and friends of the fallen four.  Today, we take the sacrifice made by these wonderful warriors and we go forward in their mission — in their memory.  Two years ago, my friend Glenn French wrote, “Today, we are all OPD.”  I humbly submit that three years after that evil event — and for countless years to come — we’re still, and always, all OPD. Continue reading We are still, and always, all OPD A member of Oakland Police Honor Guard stands at his post near the four caskets of Mark Dunakin, John Hege, Ervin Romans, and Daniel Sakai, during the funeral on Friday, Mar. 27, 2009, at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. Thousands of officers and firefighters from around the nation and overseas along with mourners turned out for Friday's funeral for the four veterans. The four officers were shot in the line of duty Saturday, the biggest single day, gun-related loss of life for law enforcement since four federal agents died 15 years ago during a raid on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas. (AP Photo) Related Feature: The OPD Four: PoliceOne Columnists' comments I recently asked a few of my friends to furnish me with comments they’d like to pass along to PoliceOne Members on this solemn anniversary. Here’s some of what they said. Related content sponsored by: These warriors hit the streets every day, willing to keep the citizens of their city safe from criminal enterprise. They did this at the expense of their own lives. That day, my heart was with Oakland PD and the families of these American heroes. The aftermath — as spelled out in the Independent Board of Inquiry — serves as a constant reminder to me as a tactical commander and law enforcement trainer to maintain situational awareness when faced with great adverstity.  A Heavy Burden We all understand how hard decision-making can be in the face of chaos. The after-action report details the mistakes made at the scene. We must also acknowledge that the men who made these decisions had good intentions and will live with those decisions for the rest of their lives. That is a heavy burden to live with — knowing that perhaps, we could have done things different. Perhaps the outcome would have been different if these men recognized all of their tactical options. Perhaps if upper command wouldn’t have taken 90 minutes to respond to the scene they could have helped these leaders that at least attempted to apprehend a cop killer. I have been involved in the pursuit of a cop killer. I understand the personal emotions related to this incident that these commanders where given. I know what it’s like to want revenge on a man that murdered one of your own. There is a potential for personal emotions to influence your decision-making process. A good leader will separate his anger, rage, and desire to get even with good tactical decision-making.  When your command decisions influences the outcome of a critical incident, it’s in that hour that your decisions affect the safety of your men. You have an obligation to your officers to have exceptional situational awareness while navigating the fog of chaos. As a commander you must recognize your abilities, resources and authority to act and then have the humility to empower yourself with these resources. There is no hurry to act unless faced with an active shooter. Exploiting time is an advantage that we tactical commanders utilize without hesitation. When practical, uniformed commanders should use this to their advantage also.  From a tactical perspective, don’t let these heroic men die in vain.  Don’t let their memories be forgotten.  Celebrate them for the warriors they were. Take the lessons learned from an inquiry board that had months to deliberate and pick apart decisions made by commanders that were made in an instant, so that commanders in the future don’t make the same mistake. The concept of command and control is crucial on the military battlefield. Using that philosophy will keep your officers safer. Here are some simple principles that may help you if you find yourself confronted in a similar situation as the Oakland tragedy.  Command and Control 1.) “Incident Command System” should always be used in large critical incidents, no excuses. 2.) Ad-hoc tactical teams, should only be used for active shooter events, even then there should be some training and tactics. Never take command of tactical team (outside of an active shooter) unless you have the authority and experience to do so. 3.) Tactical control must be gained to exploit time, as time is our greatest ally. 4.) Tactical planning must provide the safest strategy for the men making the entry into your adversaries’ stronghold. 5.) Maintain “Tactical Strategic Priorities.” Contain location, place arrest/react team, deploy sniper observer teams, establish negotiations, tactical planning, entry team brief and rehearsal, execute tactical plan. Keep in mind that each of these objectives have various options and nuisances that are specific to that objective i.e.; use of gas, robots, explosive breaching and various other tactical options. Again, if these options are outside of your authority be mindful of the consequences if they fail.  Lastly, consider eliminating the use of the “dynamic entry” by all officers as a squad movement option. Test and evaluate the use of a “deliberate entry” in place of the dynamic entry. When faced with a barricaded gunman time and tactics will allow us to apprehend the subject without the lose of an officers life. As tactical commanders we should not allow a single barricaded gunman to defeat us. OPD should be proud of their brave warriors. These men took on a dangerous man with courage and resolve. Don’t let the negative overshadow the sacrifices of Oakland’s finest. Take the lessons learned and use them for future successful tactical operations. Do this in their names as they watch over us with pride. Again today, we are all OPD... 02/28/2012   SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Command and control in tactical environments The lack of command and control we saw in Mumbai is a classic example what can happen without a clear mission with objectives to achieve.   Automatic weapons, armored vests, 148,000 rounds of ammunition, small squad military tactics and a plot to assault and kill Americans. What foreign terrorist organization could have this type of resolve to harm Americans? This terrorist cell is currently in Federal court in downtown Detroit facing charges of plotting to kill Michigan Law enforcement officers and their not a foreign terrorist organization. This group is from Michigan and they call themselves the “Hutaree” which they claim, means Christian warriors. The plan was to murder a local police officer in an ambush. Then at the officers funeral they were to attack the police procession in a military style assault. This small force was well equipped with explosives, sniper ghillie suites, ballistic helmets, and night vision. They planned on devastating the police with an ambush that included improvised explosive devices, small squad battle tactics with a well trained militia. We can only speculate what would have occurred as the funeral procession proceeded into the Hutaree ambush. This type of assault isn’t an active shooter response that a diamond formation or MACTAC-style response will resolve. This assault is similar to the Mumbai attack which will require a coordinated tactical response from a dominating force.  Hutaree was preparing for what they believed would be an apocalyptic battle with forces of the Antichrist, whom they believed would be supported and defended by local law enforcement. The following statements were introduced into a Federal trial this week, “we are willing to go to war” and “welcome to the revolution”. Imagine your SWAT team responding to such an attack with an enemy equal to an al Qaeda force. Does your team have the capabilities to respond to a force with this type of training, equipment, and motivation? The most important factor in responding to this type of assault is “command and control” of the responding tactical forces. The lack of command and control we saw in Mumbai is a classic example what can happen without a clear mission with objectives to achieve. When this occurs, friendly forces will most likely suffer greater losses. Mission Command I have used the military model of “mission command” for command and control within my Special Response Team since its inception. What I have found is the team has a greater capability to function in the chaos of combat on its own. They can respond to tactical challenges as they arise on the battlefield without compromising the tactical advantage of time, speed, surprise, and violence of action or shock.  Successful mission command rests on the following elements: the tactical commander’s intent, subordinates initiative, and tactical operation orders. Under mission command, tactical commanders provide team leaders with a mission, their commander’s objectives, initiatives, concept of the task, and resources adequate to accomplish the mission. The tactical commander empowers team leaders such as the Entry Team Leaders, Assistant Entry Team Leaders, Sniper Team Leaders and Crisis Negotiator Team Leaders to make decisions within the commander’s intent and objectives. I commonly leave details of execution to the team leaders and require them to use initiative and judgment to accomplish the mission. I expect these team leaders to identify and act on unforeseen circumstances, whether opportunities or threats, while conducting their tactical operations. Seizing, retaining, and exploiting the operational initiative requires team leaders to exercise individual initiative and they have the authority to do so. Training team leaders under mission command develops disciplined initiative and skilled judgment. It also gives tactical commanders the confidence to delegate them the necessary authority during operations. Mission command enables tactical commanders to use the unprecedented agility and flexibility of the modular force to take advantage of the chaos of war. It allows SWAT teams to rapidly adapt to changes in the situation and exercise initiative within the tactical commander’s intent to accomplish the mission. Operational Concept In this style of command seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative with speed, shock, surprise, depth, simultaneity, and endurance are key. Initiative: in its operational sense, is setting or dictating the terms of action throughout an operation. The side with the initiative determines the nature, tempo, and sequence of actions. Initiative is decisive if retained and exploited. In any operation, a tactical force has the initiative when it is controlling the situation rather than reacting to circumstances. The counterpart to operational initiative is individual initiative, the willingness to act in the absence of orders or when existing orders no longer fit the situation. Speed: the ability of tactical squads to act rapidly. Rapid maneuver dislocates the enemy force and exposes its elements before they are prepared or positioned. Rapid action preempts threats to security. It reduces suffering and loss of life among noncombatants or victims by restoring order. At the strategic level, speed gives tactical forces their expeditionary quality and allows tactical forces to keep the initiative. It contributes to their ability to achieve shock and surprise. Shock: the application of violence of such magnitude that your adversary is stunned and helpless to reverse the situation. Shock entails the use of an “overwhelming dominating force” at the decisive time and place. Surprise: involves the delivery of a powerful blow at a time and place for which your adversary is unprepared. When combined with shock, it reduces friendly casualties and ends opposition swiftly. Depth: the ability to operate across the entire area of tactical operations. It includes the ability to act in the information environment of the tactical operation as well as the support elements.  Simultaneity: a function of time, confronts opponents with multiple actions occurring at once, disrupting their cognitive function as they process through the OODA loop. Multiple actions overload adversaries’ control systems and this provide a tactical advantage to the tactical forces.  Endurance: the ability to survive and persevere over time. Swift tactical response may be desirable; however a swift response is the exception for most call outs. To succeed, tactical forces must prepare to conduct operations for protracted periods. Command and Control Development The concept of mission command requires good policy, team structure, strong leadership and training. Policy: tactical teams must operate under department policy which is the foundation for clear function and operations. These policies must be provided to each individual officer and they must be held accountable when they act outside of these policies. Overlooking a minor offense may bring you a larger problem in the future if left uncorrected. Act upon any recognized deficiencies your tactical officers demonstrate. Addressing your officer’s deficiencies should be done in a positive manner, as your goal is to improve the officer’s capabilities. Officers from your team will appreciate this approach since it is fair and keeps everybody safer. Team Structure: it is very important to provide a foundation of structure to your team. This includes a clear chain of command. Teams should be designated into multiple squads. Many teams operate as one squad and I have seen this system fail more often than not when responding to terrorist attacks in large scale training exercises. The reason is a single tactical commander won’t be able to deliver the same level of planning and execution as a team with a deep command structure. My tactical team for example has multiple layers of command in the structure of our team. It was designed to mirror the Army Platoon system. Here’s how our 23-officer team is structured: • Executive Commander: administrative function. • Team Commander: responsible for all tactical planning, training and team functions. • Entry Team Leaders: there are two team leaders and two assistant team leaders, one team leader for each squad, two squads of ten officers. Each Entry Team has an Assistant Team Leader whom may be the Team Leader on any tactical operation. Responsible for tactical execution of their assigned squads. • Sniper Team Leader (1) and Assistant Sniper Team Leader (1). Responsible for tactical execution of their six officer sniper/observer teams.   • Crisis Negotiator Team Leader (1) and Assistant Crisis Negotiator (1). Responsible for negotiations operations of their eight-officer team. Strong Leadership: some individuals appear to be “born leaders” while other individuals can be developed into leaders, but a solid foundation of “character” is essential in any successful leader. Some qualities in an individual’s makeup, particularly those concerning his integrity and ethical foundation are absolutely essential in the potential leader, and which cannot be added through schooling or experience. Good judgment, and common sense, is an absolute requirement for successful combat leadership. The ability to perform well in formal training, while not a negative characteristic, is a less important factor for a combat leader. In particular, the leader must have a well-developed and practiced ability in making decisions under pressure. “Leadership is intangible, and therefore no weapon ever designed can replace it.” — General Omar Bradley Training: develop your team leaders and officers by allowing them to do their jobs. When a subordinate is free to do his job, he perceives this as trust and confidence from his commanders and takes more pride in his job, himself, and the team’s goals and objectives. Delegation of tactical authority, training development and implementation and the proper use of personnel develops future leaders. This should be the goal of every commander. “I would caution you always to remember that an essential qualification of a good leader is the ability to recognize, select, and train junior leaders.” — General Omar Bradley When confronted with a tactical crisis such as the one the Hutaree planned on Michigan’s law enforcement officers you must be prepared. We train in many different tactics, we have many different tools that provide numerous options that give us a tactical advantage. We train hard, but all of that won’t make a difference if you don’t have “command and control” of your team and the tactical crisis you are confronted with. The experience I gained in the Army and the lessons I have learned over the years as a SWAT commander taught me one thing, the United States Military knows how to fight an enemy. Consider doing what I did and apply the military’s mission command to your team and watch them all grow as leaders. Stay safe. 01/27/2012   SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Ambush on America: Are you ready to fight? As we patrol the streets in 2012, let Commander Davis and the men and women of the Detroit Police Department remind us that the will to survive is the cornerstone to survival in an ambush “More young men are killed each day on the streets of America than on the worst days of carnage and loss in Iraq. There is a war at home raging every day, filling our trauma centers with so many wounded children that it sometimes makes Baghdad seem like a quiet city in Iowa.” — Dr. John Pryor, U.S. Army Surgeon, KIA Christmas Day 2009 Related Articles: Detroit police shooter was in sexual assault probePrecinct shooting forces look at Detroit police security4 Detroit cops shot at precinct Related Feature: Precinct invasion: 5 lessons learned from a bloody attack Two IACP panels were dovoted to debriefing what happened in Detroit when an armed offender walked into the 6th precinct and opened fire on officers in the front lobby. Much can be gleaned from this incident. Related content sponsored by: On Sunday January 23rd 2011, Lamar D. Moore calmly walked into the Detroit Police Department’s Northwestern District station just after shift change, and approached the front desk. Concealed from view was a pistol-grip shotgun. 37 Seconds Within moments, he began firing, striking officers with his shotgun at point blank range. The calm Sunday morning at the desk turned into a gun battle in an instant. Moore ambushed the DPD precinct while officers went about their Sunday morning routine. Commander Brian Davis stopped into his precinct to check on his officers that morning and to get a briefing on an unrelated incident which had occurred the previous night. He was wearing his church clothes with a small backup weapon strapped to his ankle. The officers working the desk were going about their business as they normally do on a Sunday morning — until Moore approached the desk and ambushed those officers. Moore had been implicated in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a runaway teenage girl. She escaped Sunday afternoon from Moore’s house and police responded — it was after this that Moore shot up the station. Moore walked into the station and approached the desk. Before anybody could even greet Moore, he pulled his shotgun and starting shooting at officers from a distance less than six feet away. Commander Davis, Sgt. Ray Saati, Sgt. Carrie Schulz, and Officer David Anderson dropped to find cover behind the desk. Two of these officers had already been struck by Moore’s shotgun fire. Moore took a couple steps back toward the door as officers started to return fire, but in an instant, Moore charged the desk and leaped over the high counter like something straight out of a Hollywood movie. Commander Davis couldn’t believe what was happening — after all, it was just another Sunday morning. Moore was now behind the police desk shooting at the officers. Commander Davis took a handgun from one of his injured officers lying next to him. He then engaged Moore in a gunfight that lasted 37 seconds from the time the first shot rang out — at a distance starting out around fifteen feet — until the finally volley at each other barely two feet away. As Moore stood up and continued to shoot at the officers lying on the floor, another officer covered Commander Davis to protect him. That officer fired upon Moore, until Moore shot him. “Prep him...” Moore approached Commander Davis’s position behind a small partition, Commander Davis stood up and greeted his adversary with the desire to neutralize his threat at all costs. He found himself only a couple feet from the shotgun barrel Moore was pointing at him. The two engaged each other and both were struck by bullets. Davis fell back, and Moore ran around the partition and continued to shoot Davis. Commander Davis even threw a trash can at Moore as he fell back onto the floor. Shortly after the two fired upon each other, Moore fell to the ground mortally wounded. Four of Detroit’s finest laying wounded from shotgun blasts, clutching the will to survive. Commander Davis was hurried to a chair in an adjoining office. As officers checked Davis for wounds, they found his hand had been shot up and a finger was destroyed. Then, all of a sudden, the officer checking Davis for injuries yelled for another officer to help him. They whisked Davis out of the office — still sitting in the chair he’d been sitting in — and outside to a patrol car. Davis, still in shock, wasn’t clear on the need to hurry and wondered why his officers were driving so fast to the hospital. Once in the emergency room, as the medical staff was frantically working on him, he eventually overheard the doctors commands to “prep him for surgery.” Davis asked a nurse “Why am I going to surgery?” She replied that he had been shot in the back. He later would learn that there was a hole the size of a softball in his back from one of the shotgun rounds. The Cornerstone to Survival I am happy today to report that all of the DPD officers and Commander Davis survived the ambush that day in January. Commander Davis embraced his warrior spirit as his adversary sought to kill him and his officers. That spirit is the cornerstone to survival in an era when more officers are ambushed than in recent history. I believe strongly that the will to survive is embraced by some officers and is nothing more than a statement to others. Tactical self talk can help you in such an ambush — as well as its aftermath. Try living this statement as you patrol the streets of your city: “Through practice and repetition I will survive and I am in control.” Training your mind to battle an ambush provides the necessary information that your brain will seek in that short instant you’re compelled into a fight for your life. Repeat this statement every day — often — until the day you get your retirement watch. When it’s Time to Fight, Fight! There is an element in many humans that chose flight over fight. Time and time again I watch videos of officers being confronted by an armed suspect and they choose dialogue first over lethal force. The fact is that many police agencies have plenty of officers who — for various reasons — will choose dialogue first and combat second. While conducting Close Quarter Battle Tactics training over the years, I’ve observed an increase in the number of officers yelling for their adversary to “drop the gun, drop the gun” during a scenario in which the bad guy has a gun pointed at the officers. The target is clearly a deadly threat, and yet too many cops are choosing to yell “drop the gun, drop the gun” before they engage and shoot the target. That apprehension clearly gets officers killed. I understand the various components that create apprehension in an officer’s mind. Law suits, criminal charges, disciplinary actions and the media all lend to the desire to verbally resolve a conflict. Let’s be clear about one thing, when an officer is confronted with a deadly force situation he/she must respond quickly and decisively with deadly force to swiftly neutralize the threat. That means, in some cases, you must neutralize your threat immediately which means there will be no time to yell “drop the gun”. The point I am trying to convey is simple. Your mindset should be to fight when it’s time to fight, talk when it’s time to talk, and — when needed — transition from talk to fight quicker than your opponent can comprehend (much less respond to). Come to terms with the fact that we can’t talk every situation into a successful resolution. Train yourself to strike quick and decisively. We always speak of the fact that your adversary has to process through the OODA Loop. Well guess what, so do you. You must process the information and respond quicker than your adversary. This alone will increase your chances of survival. Commander Davis chose to strike his adversary quick and hard. He didn’t hesitate to obtain an injured officer’s gun, or stand up in civilian clothes and shoot as many times as he could at a man wanting him dead. Imagine the confusion as the battle instantly unfolded and then consider how long it would take you to process the information. You must be able to react as Commander Davis did or you may end up on the losing side of this fight. After all, any hesitation from him that morning most likely would have enabled Moore to murder those officers lying on the precinct floor that quiet Sunday in the Motor City. As we patrol the streets in 2012, let Commander Davis and the men and women of the Detroit Police Department remind us that the will to survive is the cornerstone to survival in an ambush that sadly, some unsuspecting officer(s) will face in this New Year. “An Army stronger in soul, will be victorious over the army of lesser...” — Unknown Greek Army General Stay Safe, Sgt. Glenn French ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French Training to enhance "Tactical Situational Awareness" "Repetition in training develops memory — memory fosters confidence, decisiveness, and decision-making speed in combat"

Whether you’re responding to patrol runs or you’re out on SWAT operations, understanding how to manage situational awareness can greatly maximize your chances for success. Situational awareness is one component of what I refer to as the “Strategic Thinking Triad.” It can be applied to all tactical training including SWAT operations and patrol response. The “Strategic Thinking Triad” consists of: Related Article: Making SWAT: 4 vital components for making the team Related Feature: Cognitive thinking and the tactical warrior Cognitive thinking may be the single most important trait of a SWAT warrior. Related content sponsored by: 1. Situated cognition 2. Cognitive thinking skills 3. Situational awareness While I addressed “cognitive thinking skills” in a previous article and will discuss “situated cognition” in a future article, here I will focus on the third item — “situational awareness” as it applies to police operations and training. Defining Situational Awareness In the Army Field Manual, situational awareness is defined as “knowledge and understanding of the current situation which promotes timely, relevant and accurate assessment of friendly, competitive and other operations within the battle space in order to facilitate decision making. An informational perspective and skill that fosters an ability to determine quickly the context and relevance of events that are unfolding.” So how does this apply to the uniformed officer or SWAT cop? In the context of SWAT operations, situational awareness refers to the unit’s ability to determine the relationships of the factors that are present — such as perception, comprehension, and projection — and form logical conclusions concerning any threats to the individual officer or team, as well as to the mission objectives. Simply, situational awareness is a process our minds go through for just about everything we do. For example, when you’re involved in a high-speed chase you are cognitively processing numerous pieces of active intelligence simultaneously. As the chase continues, you act on the decisions you make from that information. During a high-speed pursuit, you may process information such as: 1. What dispatch is conveying to you over the radio about the car and suspect 2. The orders your command officers are providing over the air 3. Your conveyance to the dispatch center of information relevant to the chase 4. The speeds which you are chasing the suspect 5. The intersections and signals you are approaching and passing 6. Officer safety concerns and various other parameters In this scenario, your ability to process various and numerous pieces of active intelligence is your situational awareness. Some officers have a natural ability to manage their situational awareness. From participating in (and listening to) these pursuits unfold, you know that it’s usually obvious just by their radio brevity that a particular officer is just as smooth as if you were speaking to them in the coffee shop. However, other officers lose their cool and find it necessary to yell or scream into the radio, pass the lead chase car, or even try and take over the pursuit entirely. These officers have lost control of their situational awareness and tend to make a stressful situation even worse. When an officer loses the ability to manage their situational awareness they can create more problems than they’re already dealing with, simply because making incorrect tactical decisions can endanger other officers. At a minimum, they can create (or contribute to) other factors which would then have to be mitigated as well. The good news is that through training, officers who lack the innate ability to manage their situational awareness can be trained to a higher level. That doesn’t mean that all officers can be trained to an acceptable level but that is an entire different problem in itself. As tactical commanders, team leaders, patrol sergeants, uniformed command officers, and trainers we can attempt to bring these guys up to speed. When you encounter an officer who doesn’t respond to the training, they should be identified as a “potential hazard,” and if they’re involved in a critical incident later, the commander will hopefully take the necessary precautions to minimize that officer’s ability to lose situational awareness, potentially jeopardizing the safety of the other officers involved in the incident. Command officers, you must keep in mind that it’s your responsibility to recognize when an officer is a danger to himself and other officers. You must not hesitate to mitigate the problem. To improve officers’ situational awareness through training you will need to take your training objective such as “decision-based live fire” or “SWAT operations” or “patrol response” and identify “objective measures” and “subjective measures” to monitor. Objective Measures Objective measures can directly asses situational awarness by comparing an officer’s perceptions of the situation to the reality of the sitauation or training objective. By evaluating objective measures from the officer’s perceptions of the situation and comparing them to what is actually happening, you can score the accuracy of their situational awareness at a given moment in time during the training scenerio. Thus, the assessment provides a direct measure of situational awareness and does not require operators to make judgments about situational knowledge on the basis of incomplete information. Training objective measures can be gathered in one of three ways: 1. Ask questions related to the training objective in real-time, without stopping, as the task is being conducted 2. During an interruption in the training, stop and ask questions about the task 3. After the training objective is complete, conduct a critique of the performance Subjective Measures Subjective measures directly assess situational awareness by asking individual officers to rate their own situational awareness or by the observed situational awareness from other individuals watching the officer in the training scenario. Subjective measures of situational awareness are relatively straightforward and simple to conduct. However, several limitations should be noted. Individuals making subjective assessments of their own situational awareness are often unaware of the information they do not know. Self-ratings may be useful because they can provide an assessment of the operator’s degree of confidence in their situational awareness and their own performance. Measuring how situational awareness is perceived by the operator may provide information as important as the operator’s actual “situational awareness”. Over confidence or lack of confidence in situational awareness may have just as harmful of an effect on an individual’s or team’s decision-making as errors in their actual “situational awareness”. Subjective critiques of an individual’s situational awareness may also be made by experienced observers such as peers, commanders, or outside experts. These observer critiques may be superior to self-ratings because they have more information about the true state of the training scenario, objective, and environment than the operator who is performing the training. When an officer encounters a situation that offers multiple cues to its meaning and consequences, those that are relevant to our accessible concepts tend to be noticed more easily, and the situation tends to be interpreted in terms of that concept rather than another one. Basically, we see things as we want to see them. The officers “situational awareness,” depends on knowledge, motives, emotional state, experiences, expectations, fatigue, and other variables. SWAT operators with a keen sense of situational awareness have the ability to put their “game face” on prior to any operation. This holds true for uniformed officers responding to high-risk patrol runs. This process of putting your game face on is actually an individual’s ability to heighten their senses and alertness to the task at hand. Some operators may mentally rehearse their individual roles in the operation. Some may listen to music on the way to the scene and others can make the transition at a moments notice. Once you’re in this heightened state of situational awareness, you’ll have the ability to pick up on bits of intelligence that you may have missed otherwise. When conducting training you will witness this firsthand as you observe the operator work through the training objective. However, keep in mind that the reinforcement from the objective and subjective measures must remain positive to be effective. When in training we all make mistakes, and some officers’ mistakes create negative emotions that can interfere with learning and also lead to withdrawal. Some officers become anxious at the thought of doing any training at which they may be viewed as “failing.” Teaching situational awareness can increase the officer’s performance and confidence. The key to success is to slow the officer’s response to a speed in which he can process the information, prioritize the information, and then act decisively. Once the officer develops this skill, even his perception of slowing the decision-making process actually becomes faster. Imagine yourself involved in the high-speed pursuit as mentioned earlier and you have all those active bits of information to process as the pursuit continues. Officers must prioritize each bit, process it, and not hesitate to act upon those decisions. Sometimes not choosing a course of action can be worse than making the wrong decision. Take any training objective and introduce stress and multiple problems at once for that objective. When you introduce those problems provide several potential options to solve them. Identify the objective and subjective measures and create the critiques and questions for the officer’s measures. Give the officer a short period of time and force them to make decisions based on the information that you provided. Afterwards, critique their performance and discuss all of their options. Remember, to keep it positive! Continue this style of training and make it very repetitive — repetition in training develops memory. Memory fosters confidence, decisiveness, and speed for making decision in combat. Once this training becomes repetitive to your officers then you have helped them develop confidence in the face of adversity. From this comes increased situational awareness. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

A SWAT officer’s guide to tactical leadership:

Tactical leadership is an art that requires personal attributes to inspire and motivate others toward a common mission. Leadership is the ability to inspire people to do what needs to be done, even if they don’t necessarily want to do it.

A great leader will solicit input from his officers. It doesn’t matter if it’s at a critical incident or a training event. When you do solicit input you will discover different concepts an ideas you were sure to miss. This also develops trust and a bond that only SWAT officers experience.

Tactical leaders should empower your SWAT operators with tasks and objectives allowing freedom for creativity, granting the authority to make decisions and to act upon them. Also, the leader should provide direction and support depending on the SWAT operator’s experience.

The next component of great leadership is to “grow” future leaders. This may be the greatest challenge to the tactical leader but as the commander you are responsible for the over-all operation of your unit. It will take a significant amount of time and effort, but the unit’s future successes will depend on your efforts. Provide opportunities to all your SWAT officers, so you avoid favoritism.

When growing future leaders consider challenging every individual, everybody will benefit, and the sharpest SWAT cops will rise to the top. Identify leadership potential early, and challenge appropriately. Encourage SWAT operators to make decisions, experience leadership, and take risks. Officers will learn from both successes and failures. Provide opportunities for professional growth and promotion.

To identify and develop future leaders, team commanders should know your officer’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals. Create an environment that encourages officers to take reasonable risks and treat setbacks or failures as opportunities for learning and improvement.

When the officer’s initiatives fail, commend the attempt and turn it into a learning experience. A lot of younger officers have a fear of failure, which often prohibits him or her from achieving their full potential.

Practice what you preach. SWAT cops are observant and can see through a leader in short order. Expecting your officers to perform in one manner and you doing something other than what you expect of them will foster animosity. Eventually, you will lose their respect and their confidence in your leadership. Once an officer loses respect for his leadership the success of SWAT operations may result in failure. Lead by example with character, confidence and loyalty.

George Washington required of his officers in the Continental Army; character, professional ability, integrity, prudence, and loyalty. He provided a concept or platform for his leaders to command by, rather than stringent rules that could get misinterpreted by individual leaders and ultimately causing failure. Use Washington’s concept to allow your team leaders to command with confidence without the fear of breaking policy in lieu of sound tactical decisions.

A tactical leader should have the vision to see beyond the current dilemmas they are faced with and the strength of character to stay the course as they command in the face of adverse conditions.

Remember these principles to command by and enjoy your unit’s success:

• Empower subordinates to be creative
• Set standards that give SWAT operators goals to reach
• Provide challenging and enlightening tasks
• Identify and develop people with leadership potential
• Recognize unit and individual successes
• Encourage and facilitate professional growth
• Begin developing and training future commanders

Tactical leaders should work hard in the eyes of their officers. Gen. Colin Powell put it this way, "If you want them to work hard and endure hardship, you must work even harder and endure even greater hardship, they must see you sacrifice for them".

Worry about what your SWAT operators think of you — not what the upper chain of command thinks of you. If you are a great leader, with sound tactical decision-making skills with concern for your officers then the dedication and commitment your officers give to you will be the positive impression that the upper brass needs to form an opinion of your leadership skills.

Your officers must see you do the hard things, they must see you giving credit to SWAT operators when credit is do, and they must see you take the blame for something that they did wrong. It’s important that they feel you really care for them, that you will sacrifice for them, that you trust them. This can’t be achieved through words. Your actions as a tactical leader will provide the foundation for your officer’s trust and total commitment.

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SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

A police officer's Christmas message:

A joyful Christmas season is here for most of you brothers and sisters in blue but for some, a dreadful holiday season looms on the horizon. In the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre and the murders of four Lakewood Washington officers, too many families will experience a Christmas like no other.

However, the children, the wives, the parents, and families of these American Warriors will gather with heavy hearts and reflect on the lives of the men and women they loved so dearly. Their kids will not feel the joy that my children will feel as they open their Christmas gifts. Their widows will cook Christmas dinner, although filled with pain and sorrow. For these heroic families, this holiday season will be painful to say the least.

The grief these people will suffer is a subtle reminder of why I chose to serve. Just like their husbands, dads, sons, or brothers, we are all willing to make that sacrifice for people we don’t even know.

Sadly, the day has come where violence and mass murder has become a regular occurrence in American culture.

I wonder what the future holds for my youngest children. I’ve worked so hard to provide a stable environment for them. My wife doesn’t work so she can raise our children at home — like most families with a single income, we struggle. Like most of you I spent Christmas day in uniform for many years, answering calls instead of watching my kids play with their new toys. After all, it’s our children’s well-being and futures that we’ve chosen to work so hard for.

The personal sacrifices we make as parents and police officers will be treasured by our kids in their adult lives as they recall memories of their childhood long after we’re gone.

It’s with this sense of commitment that we provide our children a better life.

John Wayne was once asked what he wanted most for his new daughter Marisa. He replied, “I want her to be grateful as I am everyday for living in these United States. The first thing she’s going to learn from me is the Lord’s Prayer. I really don’t care if she ever memorizes the Gettysburg address just so long as she understands it and since little girls are seldom called upon to defend their country she may never have to raise her hand for that oath, but I certainly want her to respect all those who do. I guess that’s all I want for my little girl.”

It appears that the things that Wayne wanted for his children fifty years ago are very similar to the things that I wish for my children and all the children of this country. It’s why I’m willing to sacrifice my tomorrows for theirs. No matter who is in peril in the streets I patrol, I am willing to sacrifice my tomorrows for people I don’t know.

Every time that I pin my badge on my uniform shirt and kiss my children goodbye I accept the terms that face me on the streets, for God is my protector.

As you warriors celebrate Christmas with the ones you love take a minute and reflect on the victims and families from Ft. Hood and the Lakewood Police department. Remember Oakland, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Okaloosa County, Florida; Seminole County, Oklahoma; and the dozens of other cities and towns that have lost heroes in 2009.

It is our responsibility to provide these fallen Warriors’ children a safe and bright future. They are our brothers’ children.

The next time you report for another tour of duty, take this with you:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God"
(Matthew 5:9)

Merry Christmas,

Sgt. Glenn French
 
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Cognitive thinking and the tactical warrior

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

I would like to dedicate this article to Officer “Mark Sawyers” of the Sterling Heights Police Department. Badge “76,” your memory lives on.

As we all know, this week is National Police Week and as we reflect on our Warriors that gave the ultimate sacrifice I would like to share with you the importance of cognitive thinking as it applies to SWAT and to all police work.

Cognitive thinking may be the single most important trait of a SWAT warrior — when dealing with a deadly adversary in that dark moment of combat your success may hinge on your cognitive thinking abilities. The cognitive thinking process includes:

• Divided attention and your ability to manage it: Divided attention allows you to handle two or more tasks at one time.
• Working memory and your ability to utilize it under pressure: Working memory is the ability to retain information for short periods of time while processing or using it.
• Processing speed of the information presented to you: Processing speed is the rate at which the brain handles information.
• Long-term memory of past incidents and training: Long-term memory is the ability to both store and recall information for later use.
• Visual processing of the situation: Visual processing is the ability to perceive, analyze, and think in visual images. Visual discrimination is seeing differences in size, color, shape, distance, and the orientation of objects. Visualization is creating mental images.
• Auditory processing of the situation: Auditory processing is the ability to perceive, analyze, and conceptualize what is heard. Auditory discrimination is hearing differences in sounds, including volume, pitch and duration.
• Logic and reasoning of the information and situation: Logic and reasoning skills are the abilities to reason, prioritize, and plan.

SWAT warriors should focus on these cognitive thinking skills to quicken and more effectively respond to an adversary’s action(s). Creating training with realism is the primary factor that will help build better cognitive thinking skills so when SWAT cops are subjected to actual combat they will feel that they’ve already been there and been exposed to that environment.

There are several techniques you can use when training SWAT cops to achieve this, but introducing stress into all of your training is paramount. Stress can be as simple as physical activity such as running in full SWAT gear prior to engaging targets on the gun range, or performing SWAT tactics in full SWAT gear, with your protective gas mask donned, while being timed on the task. These are some simple ideas and obviously the list can go on and on — you’re only limited to your imagination in dreaming up different stress techniques. The key to introducing stress into your training is to make it applicable to what the training objective is and make sure you take your SWAT cops to that dark, uncomfortable place, over and over again.

Simunition scenarios are another great technique. Training on SWAT tactics using Simunition provides stress while conducting the training operation. The mere presence of the possibility you may be shot by simunition induces stress. Simunition induces stress on two levels. First is the fear of the sting when you’re shot but most importantly, SWAT cops do not want the stigma of being ‘the guy that got tagged’ by his adversary — it’s embarrassing. This is the time a lot of SWAT operators throw their tactics out the window and it’s a great time to capitalize on training points, as you will now have a captive audience. Processing speed, auditory perception, and divided attention are the focus of Simunition scenarios.

The best leaders in combat tend to be low motivators who can give instruction under perilous conditions. So try this technique to build leadership skills and induce stress for those who lack in leadership skills. Pick different team leaders for the day during training sessions, including less experienced officers. Then during the training day, throw challenging tasks at them that will incorporate some type of physical stress, with a deadline to complete the challenge and make the challenge some type of SWAT problem to work out like a hostage rescue, barricaded gunman, warrant service, or a physical challenge.

Incorporating a physical challenge into your training can be very simple. For example, take your two entry teams or split your team in half and have them compete against each other by pushing a police car up a hill for time and after they get to the finish line have them complete a SWAT tactic while being tired and winded. This is great for team building but when you add the SWAT tactic after they will be forced to use logic and reasoning under a great deal of stress from the competition and the physical aspect that was performed. On the gun range have the teams matched up in head-to-head competition, running and traversing obstacles while engaging targets. Range safety is paramount but head-to-head competition splits their attention, and they will train their auditory processing and visual processing skills while trying to move without endangering the other teams shooters. As the rookie team leaders command their team they will experience all of the above cognitive thinking processes and improve their cognitive thinking. The focus of this training is logic and reasoning as well as divided attention.

Observation training is another great technique that improves cognitive thinking skills. Give your SWAT cops a simulated scout mission during training such as a room in a building and have them proceed to that objective. Set up the room with items that are natural to that environment but also add things that can be critical pieces of intelligence to a SWAT commander. Give the scouts time to report to the team leader the intelligence they collect.

When they are finished you can evaluate the information — don’t be surprised by the difference in perceptions your officers will have. The focus to this training is the memory and the visual processing of the information.

The key component to training for cognitive thinking is repetition and intensity. You should strive to replicate the fear of the battle, the intensity, the uncertainty, the chaos, and the ambiguity of combat and repeat it over and over again until your SWAT warriors’ cognitive thinking process is as sharp as the knife in their pocket.


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How to save lives when an active shooter strikes

 

 

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

This month, children and young adults will return to their schools and universities from summer recess. It’s sad that we must prepare and train for active shooters and mass murderers in our schools, but unfortunately that’s the world we live in and this has become standard operating procedures for SWAT teams across this country. One mass murder was already attempted at a California high school.

So, are you prepared to deal with a life-threatening injury to another officer or an innocent victim if medical personnel isn't available? What if you’re in a combat environment, such as an active shooter incident, and your team leader takes a .223 round to the chest and suffers from tension pneumothorax? Do you have the training and equipment to save your team leader's life?

In 1997, LAPD officers responded to an active shooter incident in North Hollywood. Three civilians and nine officers were shot. The incident lasted 39 minutes and in the end, seven civilians and eleven officers were shot and injured. The suspects shot 1100 rounds from fully automatic AK-47’s, fully automatic Bushmaster .223’s and a .308 H&K semi auto. Besides having a trouble neutralizing the threats, officers were unable to get EMTs to the injured officers and citizens.

In this situation, most EMTs won’t deploy to render aid in an unsecure environment. Even if this situation occurs during a SWAT operation then a single TEMS operator won’t be able to handle the situation alone. What if the injured officers are cut off from TEMS personnel for some time?

The answer to this problem is tactical combat care training. This training isn’t new to the military, and all SWAT officers and uniformed officers can benefit from this valuable training.

The basics of tactical combat care training
The single most contributing cause of officer deaths is gunshot trauma. That being said, research indicates that most gunshot trauma victims have five minutes to be stabilized from life-threatening injuries. After the first five minutes, your chances of survival significantly decrease. That’s when tactical combat care training can save your life.

EMTs have been trained for years on the concept of the “golden hour,” however research from military combat indicates that most shooting victims with life-threatening injuries die within the first five minutes. Research also indicates that if a shooting victim is alive when EMTs arrive, he or she will most likely survive.

Tactical combat care training is designed to provide skills so that officers may may render life-saving aid while remaining in the fight. This training will not turn officers into medics, but it may allow an officer to stabilize an injured cop until medics arrive.

Tactical combat care will also train the officer to assess the situation and the victim needing aid. For example, 99% of penetrating gun shot wounds to the head are fatal. So, if an officer is an active shooter situation and he locates a civilian victim with a penetrating gunshot wound to the head, he may assess the tactical situation and make a logical determination if he should risk exposure to gunfire and aid the victim or not. Remember, an officer’s primary duty is to stop criminal behavior; their second duty is to render aid.

Approaching a victim in a tactical formation is another vital component of this training. Although most SWAT teams train for this procedure, uniformed officers are typically at a disadvantage and will find this training very useful. There are many other important nuances in the initial phase of assessment and approach training those officers will be taught to recognize and deal with.

Basic first aid training is another component, and will refresh the officer’s basic first aid training in areas like airway and breathing treatment as well as hemorrhage and shock treatment. These topics will be taught in greater detail than what officers might typically receive, but it will include performing the skills in a combat environment.

Learning how to prevent life-threatening injuries
The most significant component of this training will include life-saving skills that are not basic first aid, but instead techniques used by medical personnel that may be necessary to save your victims' lives in a combat situation where emergency aid isn’t available.

For example, officers will learn how to keep an airway open, which is critical to survival. One tool that officers will be trained to use is the Nasopharyngeal Airway tube. This flexible tube can maintain an open airway in a victim until medical personnel arrive so you can stay in the fight.

Tension pneumothorax is another life-threatening injury officers should be trained to deal with. Tension pneumothorax is a condition that occurs when a bullet or shrapnel penetrates a lung. The air from the lung enters the chest cavity and fills the space between the ribs and the lung. When this happens the lung no longer has the space needed to inflate the lung. Therefore, the lung may collapse and the heart can be shifted, causing blood flow to stop to the heart. Performing a chest decompression with a BD Angiocath Autogard Catheter can stop tension pneumothorax from occurring and provide immediate relief.

Massive blood loss is another life-threatening injury that can be prevented. Officers should be trained in the use of a blood-clotting agent like the CELOX Hemostat and the use of a tourniquet such as the CAT tourniquet. Although tourniquets can cause the loss of a limb, losing a limb is better than losing your life. Training in tourniquet application during a combat environment is a critical component in the combat care training. Modern tourniquets make the process simple.

The warrior spirit
Finally, the last component is the warrior mindset and how it applies to the officer’s survival during combat. I like to teach that the way to warrior supremacy is through preparation and training; the way to failure and defeat is through arrogance and indifference. Preparing the warrior spirit begins with confidence, confidence is built through training.

“In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace. The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected” — Sun Tzu

When the time comes, get your mind right, engage the warrior spirit, and stay in the fight. Tactical combat casualty training is an obvious asset to the warrior spirit.

Here are some items that I carry and train SWAT officers to utilize in emergency operations. Although these items may be a name brand, other variations are available. Also, if you purchased these items individually it would cost you less than $80. Obviously, bulk orders and shopping for low prices can cut the cost to less than $50 per officer. Most fire departments, paramedics and hospitals carry these items and you might be able to get them at no cost. Place these items in your tactical vest or back pack and have them available to you when you need them.

1) Asherman Chest Seal
2) Nasopharyngeal Airway Tube
3) BD Angiocath Autogard Catheter
4) CAT Tourniquet
5) CELOX Hemostat

As you prepare your SWAT operators for active shooter and mass murder incidents, prepare them by providing them the opportunity for tactical combat care training. Once you train your SWAT operators, encourage them to train fellow uniformed warriors as well.

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Patrol response to active shooter and terrorist incidents

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

As the children in our country return to school for another year of studies, millions of people in America are also return to the memory of 9/11. These two things will always overlap on our calendar, in part by happenstance. But for law enforcement, which still struggles with the concept of how to respond to an active shooter incident, these coinciding annual events serve as a reminder. Schools have been targets of active shooters who have not fully completed puberty (Columbine), and by mature terrorists set on their own strategic objectives (Beslan).

The ongoing debate about whether or not police officers should respond solo or in a tactical formation will be left to the discretion of the officer(s) on the scene who are working the problem as they formulate their response plan and put it into action. They will make the decision based on the limited information on hand at the time the problem is unfolding. Both concepts are proper measures of action depending on the situation.

I have watched this drama unfold for several years now and to me the answer is clear. The uniformed officers in this country need tactical options, tactical training, and tactical equipment available to them on the streets. We wouldn’t send our soldiers into combat without proper tactical training so why are we training our uniformed officers a single tactic and professing it’s the best tactic to neutralize an adversary that is hell bent on murdering innocent victims.

The Columbine incident was supposed to be a wake up call for law enforcement and yet we still struggle to grasp the true changes needed in law enforcement. The Columbine shootings started at 11:19 a.m. as the two murderers walked through the school, shooting and killing children. At 11:24 a.m. a Jefferson County Deputy arrived and engaged the two suspects standing at a door. Inside that door a student lay injured from gunshots. The deputy emptied his gun and radioed for assistance. The two suspects ran back into the school and continued the carnage. The injured student made his way to safety and lived. Three others would be murdered shortly thereafter. It’s apparent that the deputy’s actions of engaging the two gunmen may have saved that students life.

Both assailants ran back into the school, killing or injuring another 22 students. During the course of their terror they were able to set fires and ignite small bombs. At 12:08 the two cowards committed suicide. The first SWAT teams entered and started to clear the school at 1:08 p.m. and they found 12 dead students and 22 injured students.

So, let’s ponder the hypothetical idea that this Jefferson County Deputy would have had a level III tactical vest, a tactical ballistic helmet, a patrol rifle with 8-12 magazines and some tactical training. Let’s also assume that other responding deputies would have the same tactical equipment and training. Perhaps these officers are SWAT members but assigned to uniformed duties and carry all their tactical equipment with them.

Either way, they could have arrived on scene and assessed the situation. They could have prepared for combat like our military soldiers do on every mission. They would have donned their tactical gear, formulated a tactical plan and in a matter of minutes they would have been able to confront the two suspects with a clear plan of attack.

Hypothetically, the incident could have concluded in less than five minutes after arrival on scene and not an hour and ten minutes later. This level of response is where professional law enforcement needs to be. I would like to note however, that these deputies and officers at that time where acting as they were taught and as their department protocols demanded. They are not to blame for the response time into the school.

The response to the Virginia Tech massacre is another example of the standard that police agencies should set for their departments. The shooter in this incident entered Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus and killed 32 people.

The entire shooting rampage is estimated to have occurred within eleven minutes. From the time the first 911 calls were received from Norris Hall to the time the shooter kills himself fewer than nine minutes will pass. Blacksburg police and Virginia Tech police arrived at Norris Hall and made entry into the building in less than five minutes. Once entry was gained and the team moved toward the sound of shots fired, it took just 28 seconds for police to reach the second floor. Cho took his own life as the two teams searched for the killer.

The officers that entered Norris Hall arrived and assessed the situation, formulated a plan of action and began working the problem. They where equipped with tactical equipment and some were patrol officers that were also on the part time SWAT teams. They encountered problems like you will on any tactical mission but they overcame these obstacles and their presence neutralized the killer.

Another standard that police agencies should strive to achieve is the response to a gunman who burst into a North Carolina nursing home and started shooting everything, killing seven residents and a nurse and wounding at least three others. The lone officer has been praised as a hero and did exactly what he was trained to do. The Carthage police chief told reporters it is standard procedure for an officer to go in without backup for some emergency situations "where multiple lives are at stake."

The officer hit the suspect with the only round he fired. Within minutes, other officers responded to assist but the uniformed Warrior had already neutralized the suspect.

This incident is an obvious success from a law enforcements perspective. However, this officer still could have benefited from a level III vest, and a ballistic helmet.

These incidents are only a small sample of the types of responses to active shooters. There are many more examples that make the case for solo entry and small unit tactics. The common theme here that is being overlooked is that patrol officers need the same tactical options that are available to SWAT. If not, then SWAT needs to be held to a standard of response that is much quicker than the old way of doing business as it applies to acts of terrorism or an active shooter incident.

If the majority of the tactical teams in this country are part time and or multi-jurisdictional, I think it’s safe to say that the response time for these units probably average around an hour or more. Obviously, the active shooter incidents in this country prove that we only have minutes. So, why is an hour still an acceptable response time? The answer is: it’s not. Active shooters are a patrol problem unless patrol has tactical officers on the road.

Tactical officers that are assigned to the patrol division should be allowed to carry their tactical weapons and tactical gear in their patrol cars. Departments could also have one officer sign out and carry in their patrol cars various items such as less lethal munitions, chemical munitions, audio and video electronics for scouting, flash bangs, shields and any other equipment to support a small squad tactical mission. Uniformed officers would then be able to respond with more protective gear, better weapon systems and most importantly the tactical skills and knowledge that only SWAT has been getting for so many years.

SWAT has many and various options available to them for any given tactical problem to help them resolve it successfully. Each tactic is specific to that particular SWAT problem. You won’t hear from most SWAT cops that any “one” tactic is the only tactic to use. That’s because different tactics will net different results. That concept also applies to patrol responding to active shooter incidents. The mentioned active shooter incidents are proof of that.

It’s time we stop arguing about which active shooter response is best and train in all the various concepts. You Warriors can only enhance your response capabilities by educating yourselves in as many tactics as possible. Like any other call for service, it should be left to the responding officers’ discretion which tactic to employ when it’s your life on the line.

The single greatest factor that will change the way law enforcement does business with terrorists and active shooters is to change the current mindset of contemporary policing. While there’s no doubt that answering calls for service is the primary function for patrol, it’ll be patrol to be the first to respond to the terrorist or active shooter.

When the time comes for your agency to respond to such an event it is our duty to provide the innocent victims with the most professional police response available. That means giving the uniformed Warrior the proper tactical gear to protect himself as he enters into combat, the same way a firefighter putting on his protective gear to battle a fire. It also means giving the uniformed Warrior the training, tactics and skills to bring the incident to a successfully resolution.

Ultimately, success for the officer is success for his department and its image. Progressive police agencies are starting to slowly make this transition. They recognize the importance of giving their Warriors the proper tools for success. The day may be near when the debate on how to respond to active shooters will be a thing of the past.

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Honoring the warriors of Oakland PD

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

Today we honor four of the Oakland Police Departments finest Warriors. It goes without saying that these brave men are not just Oakland’s finest but are representative of Law Enforcement across the United States. These Warriors conducted themselves as professional policemen even in the face of mounting resistance from groups of anti-police radicals that have tormented the Oakland Police in the recent past. These Warriors hit the streets every day willing to keep the citizens of their city safe from criminal enterprise. They did this at the expense of their own lives.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that late afternoon Saturday, a group of about 50 people lined 73rd Avenue, a block from where Dunakin and Hege were shot. Some shouted obscenities at police. Others said the officers' deaths were retribution for the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant, the unarmed Hayward man killed by a BART Police Officer on an Oakland train platform New Year's Day. Shouts of, "They had it coming!" were heard in the crowd.

I would like the Officers of the Oakland Police department to know that during this time of grief and uncertainty that we are all OPD!

We see short glimpse's of the story on the network news and big city newspapers but certainly not the same amount of coverage that it deserves. Don’t let the lack of support in the media and insults hurled by small groups of radical citizens fool your heart into believing that you are going this alone. The Warriors that patrol every street in this nation grieve with you now. Every SWAT cop that dons his call out gear to bring a conclusion to violent situations grieves with you.

Today, we are all OPD!

I would like to remind all of you Patrol Officers, Traffic Officers, and SWAT Cops of the importance of being a well prepared warrior. A well prepared warrior anticipates that every time he is in contact with another person—whether it’s a traffic stop or a larceny report—he may have to engage the “Warrior Spirit” without a moments notice to survive an encounter that may take his life.

How do we capture that spirit? First, you must always approach every call as if your about to encounter a deadly force situation, no matter what the radio call is. It is most important however, to treat every citizen, victim, suspect, and witness in a professional manner. Treat them the way you would want to be treated if you were that person, but if the situation goes south, engaging the “Warrior Spirit” needs to be automatic. Your focus must teeter on that fine edge with every citizen encounter as if you’re preparing for a SWAT operation. Your focus needs to be clear and you must have the ability to switch to a fighting mode in a fraction of a second without any hesitation. You must always assume that every citizen contact can become a deadly force encounter and if it does you won’t accept failure.

In 1725 a Mohican Chief named “Aupumut” told his warriors:

“When it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home”.

Chief Aupumut obviously recognized that his warriors’ mindset was the first step in the overall preparation of their development.

The “Warrior Spirit” is a combination of confidence, concentration, and tenacity. Those qualities are worthless without the physical skill and ability to complete the task but so, too, are the physical abilities without the proper mindset.

Here are a few tips to help develop the “Warrior Spirit”:

• Be “aware” all the time and “anticipate” a threat
• Train like you fight
• Never quit
• Build confidence through training and fitness
• Fight chaos with chaos. Use speed, surprise, and violence of action
• Create the mindset that killing a homicidal adversary is an acceptable action

Here is a training principle that I like to use when training SWAT officers:

“Training should be designed to be uncomfortable, physically and mentally, it should take officers to stressful dark places where they have never gone before, under a controlled environment, so that if they are ever taken there by an adversary it won’t be their first time.”

An officer’s ability to react under duress, pain, and seemingly insurmountable odds remains the hallmark of the “Warrior Spirit.” Tenacity against an adversary must be trained, expected, and demanded from our officers.

This past weekend the officers of the Oakland Police Department fought like “Warriors.”

Today their “Warrior Spirit” lives in all of us.

Today, we are all OPD.

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Looking at the Virginia Tech massacre from a tactical perspective

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

On April 16th, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed two students in a dormitory room at Virginia Tech University. Two hours and 20 minutes later, Cho entered the Norris Hall engineering building. He then systematically assaulted five rooms on the second floor. In his wake, he left 30 students and professors murdered, and an additional 24 victims injured. Within minutes, officers from Virginia Tech P.D. and Blacksburg P.D. entered Norris Hall and forced Cho to take his own life.

Cho began planning and training for his attack in February 2007. He purchased a .22 caliber Walther P-22 handgun over the Internet and in March 2007 he purchased a 9mm Glock from a licensed dealer. Later that month, Cho purchased two extra magazines for the Walther and three extra magazines for the Glock on the internet. He also purchased additional ammunition, magazines, a hunting knife, several chains, four padlocks, and a multi pocket fishing vest. Cho would visit local gun ranges and a national forest shooting range to practice his shooting skills. He also started an intense workout program, which included a weight lifting regimen.

The morning of the massacre Cho shoots and kills his first two victims between 0702 and 0715 in a dormitory on the Virginia Tech campus and flees. At 0720 Virginia Tech police are notified that a female may have fallen from her dorm room bed and a rescue squad was dispatched. Shortly after VTPD respond and by 0730 the crime scene is secured and VTPD begins its investigation into the suspected homicide. VTPD and Blacksburg Police Department ERT officers begin to arrive at approximately 0815 and stage in different areas to assist in a warrant service or to make an arrest of the unknown suspect(s).

At approximately 0901, Cho mails a package to NBC news in New York from the Blacksburg Post Office. The package contains his manifesto, 43 photos of himself and a DVD of himself. He alludes to a “coming massacre” and expresses he wants to “get even” with his “oppressors.”

Construction workers outside of Norris Hall between 0915 and 0930 witness Cho. He then chains and padlocks all three doors to Norris Hall. A building maintenance worker discovers a note on the east breezeway doors stating, “If the chains are removed a bomb will go off.” The worker took the note to a Dean’s office and they were allegedly about to call the police when the shooting started.

Between 0941 and 0942 Cho begins his assault on Norris Hall shooting professors and students. The first 911 call reaches VTPD at 0942. At 0945 Officers from BPD and VTPD arrive at Norris Hall. They form up into three separate teams and plan on making entry at three different points of Norris Hall. They hear what appear to be shots fired while attempting to gain entry. They discover that all three doors at their entry points have been chain locked from the interior. A couple attempts at shooting the locks off with a shotgun fail but at 0950 VTPD officers breach a door with a shotgun that leads into a machine shop. The two entry teams enter the machine shop and are now inside the shooters stronghold.

The two entry team commanders determine the gunshots are coming from the second floor. One-team races up a stairway on the west side and another team races down the first floor hallway until they get to the south stairway and they proceed up to the second floor. Both teams are shouting “Police” as they maneuver up the staircase. The two teams now have Cho flanked and he is caught between them.

Cho shoots one last victim then turns the gun on himself and takes his own life. From the time the teams breach the Machine shop doors and get positioned on the second floor only 28 seconds pass.

At this point, the two teams are unaware that Cho has killed himself. Nor do they know how many gunmen there are. The gunshots have stopped and the team leaders fear the gunman may have taken a hostage or are planning to ambush the entry teams. The third entry team element now links up with one of the two entry teams on the second floor. They clear and secure as they move.

A student in the room where Cho is calls 911 at 1008 and advises the dispatcher that Cho is dead and his location. The two teams now receive info from dispatch where the gunman(s) location is but not that he is dead. They immediately close in on that classroom and discover the door is blocked from inside with two of the victims bodies lying against the door. One of the team leaders instructs anybody inside the classroom that can open the door to do so. The only two people not shot in that classroom open the door and the entry teams discover Cho is dead and advise that the shooter is down. The building is then completely cleared in case of multiple threats. Also, a massive evacuation of the wounded from the officers inside the building begins.

The entire shooting rampage is estimated to have occurred within eleven minutes. From the time the first 911 call was received from Norris Hall to the time Cho kills himself fewer than nine minutes will pass. Once the officers arrived at Norris Hall and make entry into the building, less than five minutes will pass. Once entry was gained and the team moves to the sound of shots fired and reach the second floor twenty-eight seconds will pass. Cho takes his own life within two minutes of the Machine Shop door being breached.

In that time, Cho fires 174 rounds of 9mm and .22, 17 magazines were found empty or partially empty and an additional 203 rounds were found in his backpack. Cho murders 30 people and injuries another 27 in Norris Hall.

It should be noted that the second floor has seven classrooms and four of those classrooms Cho breached and murdered innocent students. The doors on the second floor opened inward and had no windows.

So what tactical points must we consider for future active shooter responses?

(1) We must train for an active shooter incident or a terrorist event with other agencies that may respond to a critical incident in your jurisdiction. Blacksburg P.D. and Virginia Tech P.D.’s did and that was critical to their success.

(2) Breaching gear and training is crucial to have for SWAT and Patrol. Your departments must have several breaching options available, including shotgun breaching, breaching packs and explosive breaching. The shotgun breaching allowed the teams to make entry in the Machine Shop at Virginia Tech. Does your department have one or more of those options available to you?

(3) Get training to use your patrol car as a breaching tool. A simple slow push from the front of any roller will push in the doorframe of most buildings. Once inside turn on your sirens and lights to provide a safe passage for fleeing victims and it will alert the shooter that you’re inside and on the way to neutralize him. If your making a single man entry, this buys you time to gather intelligence and wait for back up while standing ready using the car for limited cover. Remember as soon as Cho knew that the police were in the building he decided to kill himself. If your entry makes him go to ground either by suicide, barricading him self or hiding then he has stopped the killing. That is your objective.

(4) Move to the shooter and bring him to ground quickly to eliminate the threat.

(5) Stay tactical throughout your movement. The teams inside Norris Hall maintained cover for their movements and cleared rooms as they closed ground on the shooter.

(6) Get one or more tactical medics on your team or in patrol. Both tactical teams in Norris Hall had tactical medics and every wounded victim that was evacuated from Norris Hall lived. There are no reasons why a patrolman or SWAT operator can’t be trained in Tactical Combat Casualty Care. How many times do police officers get injured or shot and E.M.S is minutes away? This valuable training will help officers quickly access a victims injuries which will expedite your teams movement or save an officers life.

(7) The Blacksburg and Virginia Tech tactical teams were already assembled and standing by on the campus or at BPD headquarters (which is approximately a mile away from Norris Hall) due to the initial two homicides at the dorm. If Cho had assaulted Norris Hall first, the response from the police departments would have been different. The response time would have been greater. Swat commanders and Tactical officers need to help prepare patrol for a quick tactical response.

(8) Terrorist organizations around the world most likely watched this response and will use the same intelligence we have access to in the U.S. against us. Remember, we are tasked with responding to all active shooter and terrorist events in this country not the military. When they come they will be have more people, larger weapons, better trained and a better plan than Cho. Also they are more likely to fight to the death as opposed to committing suicide.

Unfortunately, this type of attack will most likely occur again in the United States. Are you prepared to fight for our children? Is your department giving you the training and equipment needed to respond to such an event? If you don’t adequately train, prepare, and respond to a “Virginia Tech” type of incident, then monsters like Cho will continue to kill our children.

The Blacksburg and Virginia Tech police officers did an outstanding job responding to a complex tactical problem.

Follow their lead and prepare for the worst, properly train and equip your officers to fight like Warriors!

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Keeping SWAT safe

SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

Learning from the mistakes of the past will make us all safer during SWAT operations in the future. OpTac International recently released research on deaths among SWAT operators while on SWAT operations and during training accidents.

Their research found that from 2004-2008, 71 percent of SWAT officer deaths occurred in training or from friendly fire. During that period, 12 SWAT operators died while training or when accidently shot by another SWAT operator. For that same period, five SWAT operators died on SWAT operations as a result of a suspect fatally shooting the operator.

Two significant points stand out about those two figures. The first is that SWAT cops are “locked on” when doing live SWAT operations—for all the thousands of SWAT operations that are conducted in this country every year, only five SWAT cops in that four year span died at the hands of their adversary(s). Of those five who made ultimate sacrifice, two may have been prevented with the use of ballistic armor.

However, the second point is that we are needlessly killing ourselves in training or by friendly fire, more than on live SWAT operations. The number of officers killed in training and by friendly fire is more than double than in live SWAT operations. That is unacceptable, as SWAT Warriors and we owe it to each other to reduce the number of training and friendly fire deaths.

It is obvious that the professional SWAT cop has become an elite Warrior willing to dedicate his time and efforts to uphold the ideals of Inspector Daryl Gates and Officer John Nelson, the fathers of modern day SWAT. However, if 71 percent of SWAT deaths occur in training or due to friendly fire during operations, then it is also obvious that we still have room to improve.

Here is how the 12 training deaths break down: six SWAT cops died from gunfire, four SWAT cops died from heart attacks and illness, and two SWAT cops fell to their deaths. So how do we achieve a safer SWAT environment in the field during SWAT operations and in training?

I took this question to Stuart Meyers, president of OpTac International. I asked Stuart what SWAT cops can do to improve their safety in live SWAT operations and he stated that “target identification” was the greatest factor in what he calls “Blue Death” (friendly fire). Also “excessive fatigue and officer’s failure to wear issued ballistic protective gear on call outs” were other issues in live operations. Stuart stressed the importance of having relief available for your SWAT cops for lengthy SWAT operations. He also recommends wearing ballistic face shields.

When the conversation turned to “Blue Deaths” in training, Stuart said that too many departments haven’t instituted safety standards and protocols for their department. If your department doesn’t already have a policy in place, I encourage you to visit the OpTac Web site and download their recommended training standards. Lastly, he recommends having a Physician on scene at training and during SWAT operations in case of any medical emergency.

He isn’t recommending that we do away with TEMS but his point is a good one: “If that potentially lethal injury occurs, then the physician can treat the victim immediately and not lose valuable minutes.” TEMS is a critical component of SWAT and is designed to enhance SWAT operations, but if your agency responded to a critical incident with mass casualties or multiple SWAT cops with injuries, your volunteer Physician may be crucial in saving a SWAT cops life. The volunteer Physician is a great idea and I will discuss that topic in a future article.

I have been involved with SWAT, tactical command, training of SWAT operators, and Snipers for some time now and here are some observations and suggestions from my experience. First, SWAT commanders must take full responsibility for every aspect of SWAT. It is their responsibility to provide safe SWAT operations and training. They can start with educating themselves in the many disciplines of SWAT operations. Don’t get caught up in thinking your team has the best tactic or there is nothing else you can learn from others. That mentality is a recipe for disaster. Once you have a strong working knowledge of SWAT operations then the development of sound procedures will lay the foundation for safe operations and training.

The second component is the selection of personnel. It is important to select candidates that are qualified to perform SWAT operations and then put them through rigorous training to evaluate their abilities. Once the selection is made, never hesitate to remove a SWAT cop from the team if he has been identified as a liability. If you commanders fail to take responsibility for your SWAT team then you are rolling the dice with your officer’s safety.

Here is an example of failing to take full responsibility for your SWAT team. A couple of year’s back I was the Sniper Team Leader on a SWAT operation. After the team was briefed, I advised my eight man sniper team to prepare to move out. We started to move from the command post to get into our positions a couple blocks away. I started to lead the team away in a single file when all of a sudden, the sniper behind me touched off a .308 round. That bullet nearly struck the back of my head and I spent the rest of the call-out thinking about my wife and kids.

Aside from the obvious—if the weapon wasn’t loaded, or the safety selector was on ‘safe,’ or the operator kept his finger off the trigger—could that mistake have been prevented or avoided? Unfortunately, yes. This incident could have been prevented if the SWAT operator had been removed from the team much earlier in his career, when I advised the department brass of the problems that we identified with him early on. Failure to act on identified problems almost cost me my life. SWAT commanders must take full responsibility for their SWAT teams.

Selection of SWAT personnel is just as important as any other factor—we must select individuals that are qualified to be SWAT officers. S WAT cops should be subjected to a basic evaluation process that includes interviews, a review of the officer’s personnel file, basic shooting skills and a physical agility test. I realize that smaller agencies have a smaller pool of candidates to pick from but that is no excuse to choose an unqualified candidate for SWAT and place other SWAT operators in harms way.

Don’t let friendships get in the way of making the proper selection. You will have to interview candidates that include good friends of yours—guys that come over to your house and guys you spend time with on the weekends. If that individual isn’t the right guy for the team, then be up front with him and articulate your reasons. It’s your responsibility to choose the most qualified candidate.

All candidates should attend a basic tactical course. I am aware of agencies that don’t require this and obviously your just exposing yourself and your agency to potential problems. There are real benefits to requiring your officers to attend a mandatory basic course. The biggest advantage is SWAT commanders will be able to evaluate the SWAT candidate before sending him into SWAT operations or to team training. If your candidate is having real problems that can’t be corrected by the conclusion of the SWAT course than it’s time to thank him for his interest and efforts and send him back to his unit. Selecting the right individuals for SWAT may be the most important factor in keeping your SWAT operations safe.

My next point is sure to spark some debate. Ten years ago I was training as an explosive breacher at T.E.E.S. and got to train with the founder, Alan Brosnan. Alan didn’t want us to do the explosive entries portion of the training on his compound with our weapons selector switch on “full auto” or “fire” until a threat presented itself and you were going to engage it. He also recommended that we operate this way in live SWAT operations. His theory was that a SWAT operator could identify his threat, switch his safety selector from safe to fire as he places his firing finger on the trigger to engage his threat just as fast as any other technique. By doing so, SWAT cops can reduce the number of accidental discharges and friendly fire incidents.

At first I thought this would slow my response time when I engaged my threats. However Alan timed our entries the first and last days of the course while using this tactic. When we finished the course I was a believer—I could manipulate my MP-5 safety selector from safe to fire just as fast as I could do it on fire from the start. There was no doubt in my mind that I was a safer operator for using this tactic.

I asked Staurt Meyers about his opinion on this tactic and he indicated that he wouldn’t recommend doing it because “officers may fail to switch the safety selector under the stress of being in a gun fight.”

I called Alan Brosnan to see if he still advocates this technique. Alan stated he still does and gave me this reason why: “When officers get holsters for their handguns, Sergeants don’t allow their officers to walk around with their holsters unsecured so the officer can access it quicker. The officer practices drawing his handgun from the holster so he doesn’t have a problem drawing his gun.”

His point was the motion to manipulate your retention holster can be mastered with training and that drawing from a holster is much bigger motion than flipping a safety selector switch from safe to fire. Whether you agree with Alan or Stuart on this, I encourage you to at least give it a try in training and see if it works for your team.

The last element is dedicating your efforts to training. Don’t waste one of your monthly training days playing basketball in a gym. Get in the field and train. Those agencies that waste training days because they are lazy may live to regret their work ethic if one of their Warriors fall victim to a needless mishap.

I like to take SWAT operators to an uncomfortable place in SWAT training so if an adversary takes your Warrior to that same uncomfortable place, it won’t be his first time there. This increases his chances for success and survival. Through tough training, your motor skills develop and become the SWAT operator’s automatic pilot. If your training is intense, of sound principle, and conducted to the point of redundancy, then when your adversary chooses combat your automatic motor skills will take over before your brain can process the situation and you will walk away the victor.

I would like to commend OpTac International for its diligent work and Stuart Meyers for his continued commitment to the SWAT community. Also, I encourage all SWAT Commanders and Operators to take responsibility for your SWAT teams in live operations and in training. Keep in mind that twice as many SWAT cops died in training then at the hand of their adversary(s), so maintain the same intensity in training as you do on a SWAT operations.

Commit yourselves to Excellence and the Warrior spirit on all your SWAT operations and training days.

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Mumbai: A warning for U.S. Law Enforcement

Ed Note: Two weeks ago, less than a dozen militants held at bay some 800 well-trained police for 60 hours, throwing a major metropolitan area into utter chaos, and leaving law enforcement officers around the globe thinking: “What will we do when this happens on our watch?”

PoliceOne has collected the thoughts of several people in law enforcement with the purpose of kick-starting a dialog about how the events in Mumbai provide an opportunity to consider the nature of the threat we may one day face here in the U.S. We encourage you to read the opinions and analysis here and to participate in this discussion.

The following contribution represents the opinions of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of PoliceOne, Praetorian Group, or our sponsors.

By Sgt. Glenn French, Sterling Heights (Mich.) Police Department
The recent Attacks in Mumbai serve as a warning for U.S. Law Enforcement and if we fail to acknowledge this warning we will fail as this nation’s Guardians. Police departments across the United States need to prepare for such an event. Through training, equipment and the warrior spirit our officers can prevail when these terrorist knock on our doors.

Sergeant Glenn French has 18 years police experience and currently serves as the Sergeant of the Sterling Heights Police Department Training Bureau, Crime Prevention and DARE unit. He has ten years SWAT experience and served as a Sniper Team Leader, REACT Team Leader, & Explosive Breacher for the Macomb County SWAT team. He also is the President of the Detroit Special Operations Group tactical training company.

Here is what we know as of today: one terrorist was captured and 10 others were killed. The captured terrorist told authorities he belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Islamic group. Lashkar e Taiba assaulted two hotels, a restaurant, a Jewish center and other sites killing at least 174 people, including six Americans. Three of Mumbai’s top anti-terrorism officials were gunned down in a van when the assault started. Some of the targets chosen by the militants, such as the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, would challenge most police and security organizations.

The alleged attacker, identified as a Pakistani national Mohammad Ajmal Qasam, told interrogators that they wanted to go down in history for an "Indian 9/11" and were also inspired by the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad. The gunmen had booked a room in the Taj Mahal hotel to store explosives. The captured militant told investigators the gang aimed to blow up the hotel and hoped to kill a total of 5,000 people.

Mumbai has no equivalent of a SWAT team. It took hours to decide to send in the nation's rapid-response National Security Guards, based in New Delhi. The capital is three hours away by air, but no military aircraft were available and the unit evidently lacked authority to requisition a commercial plane. Military transport was flown in from elsewhere.

On reaching Mumbai, the guards were driven to the hostage sites by bus and then briefed. By the time they took up positions, many hours had passed. At the two hotels, a few militants kept hundreds of commandos at bay for two days. Senior commanders would announce that sections of the buildings had been cleared, only to see the attackers move back in.

Government forces lacked hotel floor plans, although the militants seemed to have had them and apparently had stockpiled explosives and ammunition at the sites. And the commandos lacked an effective command structure or a good communication system, experts said, whereas the terrorists reportedly used BlackBerrys and GPS devices to navigate and monitor news coverage.

Onlookers were allowed to watch from a few feet away, hampering police operations. A night counterattack was nixed, reportedly because it was too dark.

The attackers had night vision goggles.  The police didn't.

Conventional theory suggests that commandos move quickly once there's indication that hostages are in imminent danger, in hopes of getting at least a few out alive. Yet days passed until, in the end, all hostages at the center were killed.

"You can wait, but you use that wait to engage the terrorists and plan," said Yoram Schweitzer, an international terrorism expert at Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies. "Then you engage them quickly, with shock, prepare for a maximum one to two minute strike."

Assaf Hefetz, a former Israeli police commissioner who created the country’s police anti-terror unit three decades ago, watched the slow-motion operation in disbelief. The commandos should have swarmed the building in a massive, coordinated attack that would have overwhelmed the gunmen and ended the standoff in seconds. “You have to come from the roof and all the windows and all the doors and create other entrances by demolition charges.” The slow pace of the operations made it appear that the commandos' main goal was to stay safe. “You have to take the chance and the danger that your people can be hurt and some of them will be killed, but do it much faster and ensure the operation will be finished quickly.”

So where does U.S. Law Enforcement begin? We must first acknowledge that it’s only a matter of time before this type of terror strikes the U.S.A. and take lessons from 9-11, Columbine, and the many other domestic terror events that have already stricken this country. Then we must look at the Beslan siege and the many other international terror events that have occurred around the world.

Once we come to terms with the fact that we live in a world that wants to destroy democracy and western culture then we can properly prepare. We must train our officers to be Warriors as they face these dangers. They must be taught to fight Chaos with Chaos, to use speed and surprise to their advantage when doing room and building clearing tactics. They must be trained to “Dominate the stronghold with an overwhelming amount of force.”

Then when they start thinking as Warriors they must be taught that as the first arriving officers to an active shooter or terrorist event “their actions will dictate the course of events for that event.” The point is that if our police officers decide to deal with the problem immediately then it’s less likely their adversary’s will have time to further murder innocent victims and less time to fortify their stronghold.

We must then provide them with tactical training, such as tactical room entries, tactical building entries, single officer entries, the diamond formation and Emergency Rapid Deployment tactics. Equipment is as important as any other area. If we expect our patrol officers to handle an event like Mumbai, Columbine or Beslan and we want them to be successful then give them the proper tools. Every officer in this county should have access to a patrol rifle, ballistic helmet and a level III tactical vest. Patrol officers also need access to breaching tools (including explosive breachers), night vision goggles, pole camera’s and tactical gas munitions.

Our Patrol Supervisors need basic tactical command training so they can deal with a critical incident that requires an immediate response. All of the concepts, training and equipment I have mentioned are not foreign to SWAT officers. These things are standard for most SWAT teams. So it comes down to this; if we want our patrol officers to deal with SWAT problems then they need tactical training and equipment and when that’s the standard for patrol officers our country will be prepared to deal with these terrorists.


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SWAT Operator with Sgt. Glenn French

Terrorism strikes, U.S. law enforcement responds

It’s being reported that Nidal Malik Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar,” an Islamic exclamation in Arabic which means “Allah is the Greatest,” as he went on a murderous rampage which took the lives of 13 Americans. It’s also reported 31 other persons were injured.

 

My heart goes out to the soldiers and families of the 1st Cavalry Division of Fort Hood. I had the privilege to serve with soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division and they are truly one of the Army’s finest fighting units.

Godspeed to all the victims, soldiers, and families of the 1st Cavalry Division — indeed, to all the units affected by this tragic event.

As I read the early reports on this event a couple points came to mind. Since the 9/11 attacks I have assured many military soldiers as they deploy to combat overseas not to worry about their families stateside because “we have their backs” as they fight for Americans, Democracy, and an end to terrorism.

The law enforcement response to this active shooter incident lived up to my promise to these warriors.

We must commend the officer(s) that neutralized Hasan and his terrorist actions.

Once again, U.S. Law Enforcement was ready to combat violence.

For the past 12 years American Law Enforcement has trained and responded for this type of event. Unfortunately, terrorists in this country and overseas may view this incident as a success due to the international coverage and the number of casualties. However, it also sends another message and that is “American Law Enforcement is prepared to combat your radical attempts to squash democracy, liberty, and Christianity.”

The responding officer(s) surely demonstrated this with their heroic actions. For some time I have written about the importance of readiness for such an event. Don’t think for a minute that terrorists won’t look at this incident and learn from it. It’s obvious that if a lone active shooter can infiltrate a military installation — Hasan was apparently stationed at the base — and cause so much carnage then this country is full of soft targets.

My message is simple for the front line patrol officers and SWAT cops: “Train hard, be prepared, and defend our nation when you’re called to duty.”

One of my favorite quotes is from one of America’s original fighting warriors, a Mohican Chief named “Aupumut.” Chief Aupumut told his warriors: “when it comes time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

Take his words with you as you patrol the streets, when you train for active shooter events and when you are called to fight terrorism on American soil.

When you see a soldier, thank him for his service and reassure him not to worry about his family because we “have his six.” He will know this phrase well and when he ships out perhaps he will have the confidence that his sacrifices won’t be in vein.

Early reports have also indicated that many lives may have been saved by the soldiers as they provided “combat first aid” to casualties during the shooting rampage.

Soldiers are trained in combat life saving, which provides care to casualties until EMS or Medics can render advanced aid. I have written about this concept in the past and I believe that tactical life saver training needs to become mainstream — rather than the rarity — in law enforcement and I urge you to get the training.

Fort Hood was locked down for some time when this incident occurred. The initial responders thought there was more than one shooter at multiple locations. There where reports of many casualties. The chaos from any active shooter event can delay EMS response for some time.

If this delay occurs at an incident you have responded to you may save the life of a comrade or an innocent victim with combat life saver training. For example the EMS response to the L.A. bank robbery, Columbine, and Virginia Tech were delayed due to the ongoing active shooter threat just like at Fort Hood. I strongly urge you to seek out the combat life saver training in your area and prepare yourself.

Remember: “Training, preparation, and the Warrior Spirit are the cornerstones to victory in combat.”