Page 367 - NIXBOOK

method looks great on paper but it needed a lot of coordination and training to do in practice, because going around a corner -
like in a hallway – requires a bit of leapfrogging in place, with the entire squad rotating positions. Because you can’t have the
guy in front stay in front going around corners, for some reason; the rotating of positions was necessary to make sure all angles
were tactically covered. Once a team gets it figured out it’s impressive to watch, but the whole afternoon we practiced this I kept
thinking “okay there is no way anybody is going to remember these dance moves if there is an actual shooting going on…we’re
just going to run in and not bother all this tactical fancy rotating around corners nonsense..” We only did that training once.
Within a year or two our protocol evolved into an even more simple “Active shooter in the school? First officer on scene should
just run in immediately and end it.”
It was not uncommon for officers to get injured at some of the trainings; the school for How to Learn How To Ride a Police
Motorcycle was notoriously difficult and virtually guaranteed at least some bruises because dumping the training bikes onto the
asphalt was pretty much a requirement. And there were all kinds of defensive tactics classes that took their share of casualties –
some officers were sent home on crutches after just a few days.

I was at a conference once and there was a special presentation about some efforts of a new national program to get the number
of police officers dying each year to under 100. It was a pretty ambitious goal because a lot of cops get shot by bad guys and
there’s no way to really prevent bad guys from doing deadly ambushes and shootouts, but a lot of cops were dying from very
preventable causes, like speeding too much and not wearing their seatbelts, or not wearing their Kevlar vest body armor, or
missing obvious warning signs when a bad guy is getting ready to attack. So a couple cops were doing a national tour, speaking
to cop groups about how to not die and they ended with a 10 minute video, as told from the viewpoint of a dead cop’s daughter.
It was the most heart wrenching thing, I had tears streaming down my face by the end. Just about all of the other cops were
pretty stoic and had blank faces but I couldn’t help myself. The video ended and all was quiet until I blurted out “I’m not crying!
My eyes are sweating!”