21 Mar 17

ILEETA, St Louis, MO, 2017

We’re into the second day of our wonderful 2017 ILEETA (International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association), this year in St Louis, MO

The vendor area opened today, and I got a chance to see some new stuff:

Action Target is making a ten-pound, gas-operated, hit-sensitive, programmable pup-up target actuator, called the “Auto-Target.” Very handy for a quick set-up for both pistol and rifle training. Action target is the “big kid” in law-enforcement ranges and target equipment right now, but Meggitt, known mostly for military ranges, is making a concerted come-back!

At under $400.00, CZ’s Glock-like P10C is a very acceptable carry-pistol. They’ll sell a lot of them!

I finally got my hands on Beretta’s Glock-like APX Pistol. Modular, like the SIG 320, this pistol gets high marks! Trigger-reach makes it a good choice for the small-handed. Law-enforcement sales are on now. Non-LEO sales start in April. This is now Beretta’s flagship pistol. The hammer-fired 92F will fade-away (the rest of the way) rapidly, as will the hammer-fired PX4.

A clever, but small, device, called the “Mantis,” fits on the rail of any pistol. It contains a gyro that measures movement during trigger operation. It can be used during dry-practice, or during live-fire. It generates several very useful graphic displays, in real time, (on your own ipad) showing muzzle movement, trigger movement, and times. This will be useful is showing new students the relationship between muzzle movement and the point of bullet impact in a readily understandable way. I bought a copy!

At the elaborate MILO video simulator demonstration, many students were lined up to experience it personally. This version of the MILO is 180 degrees, and the student literally “walks into” it, so that the scenario develops in front, to the left, and to the right. Resolution is superb. Sound is superb. Projection onto the screens is from the rear, so the student can move around and never cast a shadow on the screens.

As noted, I watched a dozen students (all ostensible “police trainers”) go through the same video scenario. It depicted a stopped vehicle on a country road, and the narrative indicated that you were in a beat-car and had just stopped this vehicle for speeding. When the scenario started, you were out of your car and standing in the open.

The driver’s-side door opens and a young woman quickly exits, faces you, and it is immediately obvious that she is holding a snubby revolver to her own head. Obviously suicidal, she babbles incoherently while continuing to point the gun at her head as she stands next to the open door.

What happened next, over and over, was disturbing!

Every single student I saw go through the problem drew their own pistol (simulator) and then yelled at the suspect, over and over, commanding her to drop her gun. She doesn’t! Many said, “I’m not going to tell you again!” and then told her again a dozen or more times! The record was sixteen repetitions! This goes on for most of a minute! The suspect suddenly points her pistol at the officer and instantly fires.

Officers (after every single one of them was shot) finally shot at the suspect! They were all then congratulated on their “performance!”

I witnessed the person representing MILO himself run the same exercise, and he did exactly the same thing! A colleague commented, “We just witnessed two people simultaneously committing suicide!”

When it was my turn to run through the scenario, I shot and killed the suspect the instant I saw the gun in her hand!

I was told, “Don’t you think verbal commands are required here?” I replied, “Absolutely not! She was threatening me with a gun, and I was in the open at a range of six meters. No verbalization was indicated, necessary, nor tactically sound!”

Repeating, ad infinitum, verbal commands to drop a gun that are, ad infinitum, ignored, is tantamount to suicide! Yet, today I witnessed officers being trained to do just that!

This is very dangerous!

/John