Military Police Participate in Shoot House Training

What an opportunity for everyone involved

I wish we had this when I was in because I was in an officer needs help situation in the last thing that came over the radio was "10-4, she's got a knife!" That equates to officer needs help. That's the code. We were dispatched to disorderly disturbance of juveniles pushing dumpsters into the roadway. We were directly in front of the 201 building of the area housing project. Back-to-back came out a call of a domestic in progress. We asked to take the call since we were right in front of it. Literally right in front of it. The dispatcher told us to continue on to the Dipsy dumpster call even though domestic violence is a priority 1 call. Every post I've been on previously gave either a code 2 or code 3 response.

The unit rolls in with the patrol sergeant who is a fat ass do nothing that the military was allowing to complete his retirement and another spc4 like me. Just as we were rolling up on the dumpsters that call of Officer needs help comes out and we flipped a U-turn and rolled code 3 back to the original location. As we got out of our unit the crowd was pointing up the alpha stairwell. I personally confirmed with the desk sergeant that it was the alpha stairwell. We began running up the alpha stairwell and noticed clothing strewn in the stairwell as if to indicate someone was being thrown out of their apartment. The call of course was in Alpha 6 meaning on the top floor. We got up there and the door was ajar. We can hear loud noise in there and then we heard running in the hallway the door slammed shut and then didn't latch it opened again.

I went in high and my partner went in low. We began clearing rooms and after clearing the first left and right room a very large subject appears at the end of a 10-foot hallway with no lights on and rather narrow with a knife in his hand. This is known as The Tunnel of Death. He was now center mass in my sights. I ordered him to drop the knife and he yelled back at me demanding to know what the hell I was doing in his apartment. I again ordered him to drop the knife and he took a step forward and I ordered him to stop and drop the knife. He stopped but he did not drop the knife. This time I dropped the safety on my 45 and ordered him to drop the knife. He heard the click and knew that I was now condition 1. Cocked and locked with the safety down.

We backed him out of the hallway into the living room where we found a family listening to the TV rather loudly. Two little girls were playing and they were responsible for running in the hallway and slamming the door. We were in the wrong apartment. The call was the Bravo stairwell. Ironically however additional backup arrived in the alpha stairwell. So now it's six of us are running over to the Bravo stairwell. The suspect was already in custody. But because I drew my weapon on a man with a knife in his hand they wanted to give me an Article 15. I fought it and won. I did however get transferred to another unit.

Ironically, the sergeant that I drew my weapon on told MPI that I was in control of myself at all times. He went as far as saying that if it had been him he would have pulled the trigger. He was a Vietnam vet and knew the drill.

My purpose of bringing this up is to emphasize the need for a shoot house. When I went through the civilian academy we had them and then we had regular qualification on the Range where we had to go through a shoot house. I didn't have the training in the army but I did have common sense and control of myself. Army regulations permit that when you are in fear for your life against an armed subject then and only then may you draw your weapon. My company Commander, a Supply Captain with no military police experience, said I should have used my baton. You don't go to a knife fight with a baton.

I congratulate the soldiers on going through the shoot / don't shoot scenarios. They are invaluable for in-service police officers. Even when they are simulated drills the adrenaline goes up and in fact after going through the shoot house as a civilian they would take our pulse several times to see how quickly we de-escalated internally. We were also taught to engage the target by moving towards it when practical and not away from it. I was fortunate that I always aced it. I shot a 299 out of 300. That was my last qualification. I happen to pull one shot but still qualified as a distinguished expert. As close as I was to that Sergeant there's no doubt that I would have struck him center mass and ended his life. It would have ended mine at the same time because I don't know if I could have lived with killing a man that in reality was peeling an apple. What I went through was on the dispatch tape and it was the desk sergeant that didn't correctly dispatch the call.

Assist ~ Protect ~ Defend