[h=1]HRO-5: Terrorist / Active Shooter Interdiction[/h] This specialized class deals with solutions to the Active Shooter or the Armed Terrorist on a suicide mission. Originally designed as a class to deal solely with the armed terrorist, in answer to student's requests, we have expanded it to also include the active shooter situation as well.
On the terrorism issue, government and local law enforcement are training for the inevitable wave of terror attacks. Historically the terrorists have not relied solely on explosives, and may just as likely utilize the tactic of an active shooter. Such situations have already occurred here in the USA as seen by the Beltway Snipers, and the shootings in Mumbai.
These events, whether begun by a terrorist, or a deranged criminal bent on killing innocents call for new tactics and a new mindset. In the Terrorism/Active Shooter Interdiction Course© you will learn extremely aggressive CQB Interdiction Techniques utilized successfully against terrorists by armed citizens overseas. You will study the possible role of the CCW Armed Citizen in stopping such an event in its tracks. You will learn to use whatever you have at your disposal (pistol, knives, impact weapons and even your bare hands) to deanimate and neutralize a terrorist, or active shooter and stop him from killing innocents.
The above is the description of the class from the Suarez website. Below will be my review of the class. My apologies to Randy for the delay.
TD1 consisted of a lot of rain. This was the first time I actually had problems with my RMR not working well due to weather. I have used it in rain before, but not the kind of rain where you are standing there with your gun out while it is pouring on you. Something to think about. As regards to that rain, Randy tried to work around it and juggle things to keep us out of it, but there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room in the very full schedule. We will come back to that very full schedule thing.
The day started of course with a safety briefing as well as some talk about the basics of what we would be covering for the next couple of days, and what made this different from defending ones self against regular "street" crime. Hint, this class was largely about proactive shooting, not reactive. We also talked about Instrumental violence and Expressive violence and how those fit into what we were studying. Other classroom material on day one involved Randy's Lecture on American active shooters, as well as the first half of the guest lecturers presentation on Terrorism. Randy's lecture was very good, and I don't mean to downplay that at all when I say, the Terrorism study was excellent! It was not only highly informative, but very thought provoking. Randy brings a friend of his, "Trey" in to lecture this part. It is what Trey has done as a career for quite some time, and he definitely knows his stuff. It became evident a number of times that we also had an ex military officer in the class who was well versed in the subject, as well as an amatuer historian who also added quite a bit to the format without being annoying. There is just way too much information in Trey's lecture for me to share here, but it was wide ranging and consistent with others I have heard, with the added benefit of being interesting and easy to follow. (Some I have attended were quite dry).
Back to the rain. The shooting on day one consisted of quite a bit of what some would call "pistol sniping". We were shooting very small targets from 3 to 15 yards. Sometimes as small as shooting the cord on the simulated explosives. (right Randy?) No, we weren't taught that as an answer to a specific problem, it was just a fun and somewhat relevant challenge. You will have to bear with me for my first gripe of the class, but one you have heard me mention before. There were no pre reqs for this class, and it showed. The skill level varied WIDELY. Knowing Randy as I do, it was easy to see this was killing him. He hated to see some of the less skilled people struggling, but could only give them so much remedial help without turning the class into something that it wasn't intended to be. This would be the first time that whole bunch of stuff to learn thing would show up. When you have a class that covers a lot of things, and an instructor who is capable of teaching a lot of things in depth, it can be overwhelming. For people like me and some of the others in the class who have done a lot of training before, not a big deal. For relative newbies? Well I think we get back to that whole enforceable prerequisites thing. No, by the way, I don' have an answer.
TD2 started a little drier. It also started with a review of the previous day, which given the amount of information we covered, I think was a good idea. We then went into a type of Combatives/H2H block of instruction. Once again a lot was covered, including but not limited to, rifle disarms, pistol disarms, and a variety of combatives. Some similar to what you would see in our Managing Confrontations class, and some not. (e.g. we don't teach headbutts) This section once again reminded me that Randy's 10% power is no where near the same as my definition of 10% power. As we state in our class, learning all of this is good, but for the most part, it will all require practice to implement if used for real. There are no easy buttons when it comes to training to be prepared to defend your life or your loved ones.
Back to the range. Another safety brief. (Good thing) TD2's live fire was slightly more tactics and scenario driven than the previous day's. We did a number of drills that would be relevant considering the subject matter. To include the Istanbul drill, and an AK vs. pistol drill. We also did some 25 yard shooting on low probability targets which included side, rear, and head view of terrorists. I have to mention something in regards to the Istanbul drill. (Randy will probably explain the drill in detail for you.) People who have trained with "reality based" outfits before whether it be Suarez or one of the others will invariably get off the X and start shooting while moving with this type of drill. That is fine, except for the fact that most people don't hit the broad side of a barn when they do that. You have to know what you are capable of. If you want to run and gun, fine, but you have to train it with some type of accountability for hits and misses. /rant off/
Back to the classroom for a foreign weapons familiarization segment and a review on chokes. After that it was on to the second part of Trey's lecture. Once again it was great material. I really wish more people could see this.
After that it was time for FOF with scenario role players. I heard that it went very well. I have to admit that I did not partake in this section of the class as it was already getting late and I had a 5 hour drive ahead of me with a 6:00 am start time at work the next morning. Did I mention there was a lot of material to cover and it was getting late? Hopefully someone else can come in a fill in the missing pieces on this one for us.
Conclusion; Let me start my conclusion by saying that I did not pay for this class. I helped with the hosting duties and other sundry essentials in exchange for my seat. Saying that, I will say that I would pay for the class and consider it a bargain. (IIRC if you bought at the right time it was $350.00?) Anyway you got a lot of solid information and coaching from a great instructor (Randy), as well as some fantastic information via lecture (Trey). As you can see from my review a lot of diverse, yet tied together skill sets and information was covered. This can be a two edged sword and it is really up to the individual student on whether it is good or not. The problem of course is that it would be hard to know what to cut out, and most people wouldn't go for a 3 day class. (Well most don't go to a 2 day, but I digress.) I would be happy to answer any questions or respond to comments as I am sure that will jog my memory on things that I have forgot to include.
On the terrorism issue, government and local law enforcement are training for the inevitable wave of terror attacks. Historically the terrorists have not relied solely on explosives, and may just as likely utilize the tactic of an active shooter. Such situations have already occurred here in the USA as seen by the Beltway Snipers, and the shootings in Mumbai.
These events, whether begun by a terrorist, or a deranged criminal bent on killing innocents call for new tactics and a new mindset. In the Terrorism/Active Shooter Interdiction Course© you will learn extremely aggressive CQB Interdiction Techniques utilized successfully against terrorists by armed citizens overseas. You will study the possible role of the CCW Armed Citizen in stopping such an event in its tracks. You will learn to use whatever you have at your disposal (pistol, knives, impact weapons and even your bare hands) to deanimate and neutralize a terrorist, or active shooter and stop him from killing innocents.
The above is the description of the class from the Suarez website. Below will be my review of the class. My apologies to Randy for the delay.
TD1 consisted of a lot of rain. This was the first time I actually had problems with my RMR not working well due to weather. I have used it in rain before, but not the kind of rain where you are standing there with your gun out while it is pouring on you. Something to think about. As regards to that rain, Randy tried to work around it and juggle things to keep us out of it, but there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room in the very full schedule. We will come back to that very full schedule thing.
The day started of course with a safety briefing as well as some talk about the basics of what we would be covering for the next couple of days, and what made this different from defending ones self against regular "street" crime. Hint, this class was largely about proactive shooting, not reactive. We also talked about Instrumental violence and Expressive violence and how those fit into what we were studying. Other classroom material on day one involved Randy's Lecture on American active shooters, as well as the first half of the guest lecturers presentation on Terrorism. Randy's lecture was very good, and I don't mean to downplay that at all when I say, the Terrorism study was excellent! It was not only highly informative, but very thought provoking. Randy brings a friend of his, "Trey" in to lecture this part. It is what Trey has done as a career for quite some time, and he definitely knows his stuff. It became evident a number of times that we also had an ex military officer in the class who was well versed in the subject, as well as an amatuer historian who also added quite a bit to the format without being annoying. There is just way too much information in Trey's lecture for me to share here, but it was wide ranging and consistent with others I have heard, with the added benefit of being interesting and easy to follow. (Some I have attended were quite dry).
Back to the rain. The shooting on day one consisted of quite a bit of what some would call "pistol sniping". We were shooting very small targets from 3 to 15 yards. Sometimes as small as shooting the cord on the simulated explosives. (right Randy?) No, we weren't taught that as an answer to a specific problem, it was just a fun and somewhat relevant challenge. You will have to bear with me for my first gripe of the class, but one you have heard me mention before. There were no pre reqs for this class, and it showed. The skill level varied WIDELY. Knowing Randy as I do, it was easy to see this was killing him. He hated to see some of the less skilled people struggling, but could only give them so much remedial help without turning the class into something that it wasn't intended to be. This would be the first time that whole bunch of stuff to learn thing would show up. When you have a class that covers a lot of things, and an instructor who is capable of teaching a lot of things in depth, it can be overwhelming. For people like me and some of the others in the class who have done a lot of training before, not a big deal. For relative newbies? Well I think we get back to that whole enforceable prerequisites thing. No, by the way, I don' have an answer.
TD2 started a little drier. It also started with a review of the previous day, which given the amount of information we covered, I think was a good idea. We then went into a type of Combatives/H2H block of instruction. Once again a lot was covered, including but not limited to, rifle disarms, pistol disarms, and a variety of combatives. Some similar to what you would see in our Managing Confrontations class, and some not. (e.g. we don't teach headbutts) This section once again reminded me that Randy's 10% power is no where near the same as my definition of 10% power. As we state in our class, learning all of this is good, but for the most part, it will all require practice to implement if used for real. There are no easy buttons when it comes to training to be prepared to defend your life or your loved ones.
Back to the range. Another safety brief. (Good thing) TD2's live fire was slightly more tactics and scenario driven than the previous day's. We did a number of drills that would be relevant considering the subject matter. To include the Istanbul drill, and an AK vs. pistol drill. We also did some 25 yard shooting on low probability targets which included side, rear, and head view of terrorists. I have to mention something in regards to the Istanbul drill. (Randy will probably explain the drill in detail for you.) People who have trained with "reality based" outfits before whether it be Suarez or one of the others will invariably get off the X and start shooting while moving with this type of drill. That is fine, except for the fact that most people don't hit the broad side of a barn when they do that. You have to know what you are capable of. If you want to run and gun, fine, but you have to train it with some type of accountability for hits and misses. /rant off/
Back to the classroom for a foreign weapons familiarization segment and a review on chokes. After that it was on to the second part of Trey's lecture. Once again it was great material. I really wish more people could see this.
After that it was time for FOF with scenario role players. I heard that it went very well. I have to admit that I did not partake in this section of the class as it was already getting late and I had a 5 hour drive ahead of me with a 6:00 am start time at work the next morning. Did I mention there was a lot of material to cover and it was getting late? Hopefully someone else can come in a fill in the missing pieces on this one for us.
Conclusion; Let me start my conclusion by saying that I did not pay for this class. I helped with the hosting duties and other sundry essentials in exchange for my seat. Saying that, I will say that I would pay for the class and consider it a bargain. (IIRC if you bought at the right time it was $350.00?) Anyway you got a lot of solid information and coaching from a great instructor (Randy), as well as some fantastic information via lecture (Trey). As you can see from my review a lot of diverse, yet tied together skill sets and information was covered. This can be a two edged sword and it is really up to the individual student on whether it is good or not. The problem of course is that it would be hard to know what to cut out, and most people wouldn't go for a 3 day class. (Well most don't go to a 2 day, but I digress.) I would be happy to answer any questions or respond to comments as I am sure that will jog my memory on things that I have forgot to include.