Law enforcement on target: How Metro officers, SWAT and FBI agents are trained to use deadly force

By Ricardo Torres-Cortez

Sunday, July 23, 2017 | 6:05 a.m.

“There’s nothing worse for a law enforcement officer than having to utilize deadly force. It is the hardest decision, but we need the officers and FBI agents to be able to make those decisions in a split second. We need to train them to make it appropriately and ensure that when they have to use deadly force, they’re accurate.”

FBI Las Vegas Division Director Aaron Rouse was speaking to an issue that continues to draw scrutiny from the public and local and federal overseers, ranging from the Clark County District Attorney’s Office to the U.S. Department of Justice. Although the overwhelming majority of law enforcement personnel will never fire their weapons in the line of duty — Rouse estimates 2 percent do — local operatives sharpen their skills at an east valley facility in preparation for the remote chance that they one day will have to shoot someone in order to stop a threat.

EXERCISES

As society evolves, so does law enforcement training, Rouse says. Conducting in-depth analysis before designing exercises, the FBI often institutes new training that reflects real-life scenarios. “As the FBI goes, so do most of the departments in the United States,” Rouse says of the trickle-down to local law enforcement.

Both Metro officers and FBI agents have to requalify in handgun training four times a year, which Rouse says is double the requirement for the majority of agencies in the country. The shooters are scored on such performance elements as accuracy and time.

ON THE RANGE

There are three portable classrooms, a central building and 12 ranges outfitted for specific training scenarios, from a typical firing zone to an old bus.

• One of the FBI’s ranges has a sniper deck. Agents can shoot from 100, 200 and 300 yards, with an additional area where distance shooters can fire from upward of 1,500 yards.

• There’s also a “shoot house,” where agents practice with live fire — plastic rounds fired from real firearms. Although not lethal, they are painful and can take off a layer of skin. That training is mostly conducted by SWAT teams, or agents getting ready for potential placement in dangerous situations.

• SWAT officers not only target shoot, but also participate in active-shooter simulations. They practice defensive tactics, such as fighting, and they breach doors. "We need to be prepared for any eventuality, whether it’s a bus, a boat, a plane, an automobile, a wide-open (area) or an apartment building or a house,” Rouse says. “We have to be prepared for all of those structures.”

• Bomb techs also practice the procedures for dealing with delicate situations around explosives.

LEARNING TO SHOOT: FBI

• Academy: Through the five-month academy experience, FBI agents spend several weeks in weapons training. Many new agents have never fired one. “I prefer those people,” says Rouse, who once was a firearms instructor. He explained that these recruits have no preconceived notions about shooting, thus no bad habits to break.

• To join SWAT, more weeks of meticulous learning follow, but not before a grueling tryout in which they must maintain a higher level of physical fitness and weapons proficiency.

• Qualifying: For long guns, whether shotguns or M4s, FBI personnel must qualify twice a year. SWAT agents train at least once a week.

LEARNING TO SHOOT: METRO

• Academy: During their academy, Metro officers go through an “intensive” two weeks of firearms training, totaling 80 hours, in which they learn weapon manipulation and tactical exercises, says weapons instructor Sgt. Shawn Romprey, who described the process as “very demanding.” Failing certification scores with handguns and shotguns would stunt the officers’ chances of graduating and could lead to termination, Romprey says.

• Qualifying: Metro officers have to score at least 75 percent with their firearms and 90 percent for their rifles if they’re assigned one. The qualifying standard for agents is set at 80 percent, but Rouse says that in Las Vegas, most of the agents shoot at 90 percent and above. “All that training really does help.”