Learning to shoot
Editor’s note: For the past 11 weeks, Editor in Chief Kevin Herrera has been writing a first-person account of what it’s like to be enrolled in the Santa Monica Police Department’s Citizen Police Academy, which is intended to foster better communication between Santa Monicans and police officers, while giving residents a better understanding of what it takes to preserve the peace.
PUBLIC SAFETY FACILITY It has often been said in sports that the best defense is a good offense, which I always took as a warning to never get too comfortable, always be on the attack and put up enough points on the board so that the opposing team has no chance of getting back in the game.
The same goes for law enforcement. An officer can never get too comfortable. If they do, it’s not a game they’ll lose, it’s their life or that of some innocent victim. They must take charge of the situation, impose their will and never let their guard down, because all it takes is a second for things to turn deadly.
“It has to be second nature,” said SMPD Detective Maury Sumlin, who teaches defensive tactics, boxes and practices Krav Maga, a martial art used by the Israeli army. “You only have a split second to think.”
On the last night of the Citizen Police Academy, Sumlin had us in the basement of the Public Safety Facility where we watched video of officers being attacked by suspects. One female officer was cold clocked in the face by a large black man while she was on parole, his scared daughter standing just a few feet away as he pummeled the cop. Another video showed a male officer getting walloped by a suspect.
“You notice that he never tried to throw a punch,” Sumlin said as he pointed out the officer’s failure to defend himself.
Officers must be prepared to react swift-ly and never hesitate. That can be difficult, especially when an officer is forced to take someone’s life. Both Sumlin and Officer Dave Chieruzzi, the department’s firearms instructor and range master, said everyone in law enforcement must look deep within themselves to see if they will be able to kill a suspect if the time comes.
“It takes some soul searching,” Sumlin said, who believes what made it easy for him to come to grips with the decision was thinking about the loved ones he would leave behind if killed in the line of duty.“It’s human nature to do some things that you may not do for yourself but will do without hesitating for someone we love.”
Now the overwhelming majority of officers never have to fire their weapons in the line of duty. It’s rare, but it does happen. Chieruzzi was forced into a situation where he had to fire, killing an armed suspect that was racing toward him in close quarters. While the decision to fire was made easy for Chieruzzi, that did not take away the fact that he killed someone.
“We have a reverence for life you would-n’t believe,” Chieruzzi said. “We don’t shoot to kill. We’re not executioners. We shoot to stop the threat. That said, if a bad guy is threatening to take someone’s life, I’ll take his life to save another’s.”
Obviously, officers want to diffuse the situation before it gets to that point, and that is where the gift of gab comes into play. It is essentially the first line of defense. If an officer can talk a suspect down, gain their trust and then take them into custody without resorting to violence, they have a greater chance of making it home at the end of the shift.
If that doesn’t work, then there are other things an officer can do. It’s not all about pulling out the pistol.
“Some officers feel that the gun is the answer to everything and that’s not the case,” Sumlin said.
For example, Sumlin was providing security for a “Baywatch” shoot on the beach when an elderly woman began causing quite a stir, positioning herself in every shot she could, causing production problems. The woman apparently was upset that her home was in the shot and wanted some compensation from the studio.
Sumlin, dressed in full uniform, and his partner went to talk with the woman and asked her to move. That’s when she began whacking him with an umbrella. Sumlin said he kept his cool, and eventually got the woman to calm down and move (David Hasselhoff offered to testify in support of Sumlin).
Sometimes a suspect moves so quickly that an officer has no time to pull their weapon. It’s not like in the movies, Chieruzzi said. The good guy usually doesn’t take out 10 bad guys in a matter of seconds, all without reloading. In real life, an officer has only a second or two to draw their firearm and squeeze off two shots.A suspect can travel 21 feet in that time, moving from across the room and into a cop’s face in no time.
That’s when it becomes imperative for the officer to resort to defensive tactics learned in the academy and practiced at least three times a year with Sumlin and other training officers.
But no matter how much you train, sometimes things go wrong. Sumlin’s brother-in-law was Los Angeles Police Department SWAT Officer Randy Simmons, who was shot and killed in February when his team stormed the home of a suspect who had just murdered three members of his family. The team followed proper procedure but the suspect was determined to do damage to himself and anyone else who tried to stop him. Suicide by cop is what he was most likely after.
“I do what I do so no one else has to get that 2:30 in the morning phone call,” Sumlin said.
Following presentations by Sumlin and Chieruzzi, we were allowed to pick up a gun and dust some bad guys. Chieruzzi and his partner Rich Comacho showed us an interactive video training program that comes with a real gun modified with a laser. We ran through various scenarios, some forcing us to fire while others rewarded us for our restraint.
It was like playing a video game, a pretty old video game. While it was state of the art at the time, the simulator is now behind the times.
Officers sport mustaches and bad haircuts from the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. That said, it was still fun. I’m proud to say that while my video partner got popped in the stomach, I came out unscathed and shot the armed suspect in the gut. That’ll teach him.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 10, 2008. Read the original PDF.