The following is an excerpt from a recent newsletter by Lou Tice of The Pacific Institute: "Do you know what Scotomas are? Everyone has them and they can keep you from seeing the opportunities all around you." "So what, exactly, is a "Scotoma?" It's what doctors call the defect that blocks sight in one part of our visual field. It's also a term I use to describe our occasional failure to see what's right in front of us because we build our own Scotoma, or mental blind spot, to it." "You see for the most part, we see what we expect to see or what we look for, not what is really there. … [Read more...]

At the Winning Mind Training 2009 Legacy of Excellence Conference we were honored to have Dr. Kevin Gilmartin as one of our presenters. Kevin is a former Marine, a retired officer from the Tucson Police Department and a psychologist. Kevin is the author of the book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement. This book should be required reading for all law enforcement trainers, supervisors and officers. Kevin has a profound message on how the profession of law enforcement changes an officer's world views and can lead to excessive degrees of cynicism. These effects are caused in part by the … [Read more...]

In recent blog postings we talked about weapon disarming training. Another important aspect of weapon disarming, or officer hostage training, that is often neglected is the scenario where there is an officer being held hostage and there is one or more another officers (we will refer to them as cover officers) at the scene. In the past, various organizations and agencies advocated that you have a code word with your partner that you rehearsed and would use in this situation. The code word would let the cover know that the hostage officer is about to move out the way allowing the cover … [Read more...]

Eight years ago today the terrorist attacks that will forever be know as 9-11 took place. Today we need to take a moment and reflect on a few things:   The courage of all the first responders who ran to the scene. The first responders who lost their lives working to save the lives of others. The families of those first responders who have to carry on after the loss. The courage of those first responders who continued to work at Ground Zero attempting to find more survivors, then attempting to recover remains of those lost for the families left behind. The warrior … [Read more...]

In the last blog post we talked about weapons handling in training following a disarming. Today we will talk about training considerations and practices once the officer has disarmed the threat. At this point there are a number of factors the officer needs to access including, but not limited to:   Is this the subject's gun? If so does the officer have their own gun? Is this the officer's gun and they have taken it back following a disarming? Are there other threats? Are there other officers at the scene? What is the subject doing at this point in … [Read more...]

Over the years I have noticed a trend in training that causes me a great deal of concern. It is most common during weapon disarming training, but I have also seen it during edged weapons training. The problem stems from the fact that once officers have disarmed their training partner (the subject) who is pointing a gun at them there is a concern about the officer handing the gun back to the subject in order to get in another repetition. I agree with this concern. We want to avoid officers training to disarm a subject and then hand the subject the gun back. We have all heard the stories of this … [Read more...]

This post is a bit of a venting session. Why? That is the question that comes to mind when I see all these shows on TV where we provide the criminals that we are continually fighting with insights into how we do our jobs. The shows I am talking about are Dallas SWAT, Kansas City SWAT, Detroit SWAT, DEA, the Police Women of Broward County and countless others. They take the TV cameras inside the briefing room so the criminals watching can learn about our raid planning and tactics. Now some will argue that there are not necessarily a lot of secrets out there about police tactics, but why … [Read more...]

The following is a recent newsletter from John Farnam. I thought it would be appropriate to share in this forum and am doing so with John's permission. Enjoy. Winners and Losers:  I have a copy of a painting, commissioned years ago by Las Vegas tycoon Steve Wynn, called "Winners and Losers."  It depicts a smokey old gambling hall filled with poker players.  Some are obviously fearful and  frustrated. Others are cheerful and confident.  It is a  masterpiece! In our line of work, we could probably teach chimpanzees how to operate a pistol, or play poker for that matter, but they … [Read more...]

Some recent correspondence I had with a trainer I highly respect was the catalyst for this post. The discussion centered around a trainer who deliberately isolated his academy by cutting out any instructors outside his unit who did not think and act like he did. This trainer has some good skills but has allowed his ego to become a roadblock to excellence in his training program. he has decided that he is the ultimate authority and no longer needs instructors from other agencies to help teach this two week instructor school. The school was historically taught by a group of highly skilled … [Read more...]

The theme of a recent blog posting by Darren Hardy, the editor of Success Magazine, was: Pick a Fight. In that posting Hardy made the following statement that resonated with me. "Everyone Needs an Enemy. An enemy gives you a reason to fight. Having to fight challenges your skills, character and resolve. It forces you to assess and exercise your talents and abilities. Without a fight, we all become fat, lazy and sedentary; we lose purpose, passion and vigor." It struck me that that is the purpose of this blog. To pick fights. The key is to fight for not against. This is the difference … [Read more...]