I recently attended Tactical Rappel Master School presented by Ben Tisa and Dave Bliss of International Training Resources. Ben and Dave have over 50 years of combined law enforcement experience, most of which has been spent teaching tactics and techniques designed for special operations. In fact, ITR’s founding members are responsible, either wholly or in part, for developing the fundamentals at the core of most SWAT and high risk response teams operating on the west coast as well as many other specialized teams across the US. Offering more than forty individual courses, ITR covers all bases from Basic SWAT School and Advanced Tactical Operations to Plain Clothes Officer Tactical Procedures and Active Shooter First Responder Tactics.

The crew at ITR is adept at teaching critical skills in a manner that’s both effective and enjoyable. Classes are kept small to ensure each student receives one on one instruction as needed. ITR’s faculty is composed of active or former federal agents, SWAT operators and team leaders, military special forces personnel and other specialized law enforcement professionals. Each course is designed from a standpoint of reality and practicality, and instructors are knowledgeable, experienced and patient. Students are pushed to their limits but never beyond their ability to absorb information and learn.

Tactical Rappel Master School begins in the classroom where Ben Tisa and Dave Bliss discuss the basics of both climbing a structure and descending from one safely. Hardware and tools are presented to the class. Each is explained and discussed in open forum. You’ll tie knots until your fingers bleed and fashion your own seat everyday. Many times throughout the course, your life is in the hands of someone you’ve just met. If you have a fear of heights or trust issues, this course is a great way to overcome both.

The final three days of this five day course are spent ascending and descending multi-story buildings, identifying good and bad anchor points, selecting the right hardware for specific missions and lugging yourself, your rigging, your gear and your weapons up and down a variety of obstacles. Scenarios and tactics are discussed amongst classmates and ideas are presented and tested.

In this course you’ll master carabiners, figure eights, pulleys and straps. You’ll grow to trust the knots you tie as well as super-light caving ladders with aluminum rungs not much wider than your boot. At some point, you’ll step on the instructor’s rope and you’ll hear about it. You’ll rappel on single and double lines, belay from high and low points, perform rappel rescues and practice cover team maneuvers while moving your team off tall buildings. I have no doubt that every student returned to their agency a better asset. This course is suited for SWAT teams, Search and Rescue teams, firefighters and snipers, as well as any crew seeking a week of team building.

Visit the ITR website for a schedule of upcoming courses. Enhance your skill set and win each battle… even on a rope.

www.itr-swat.com

Thanks again to Ben Tisa and Dave Bliss for your knowledge and experience.

This week I read an article discussing current research by Dr. Brian Vila, a 17 year veteran and former street cop for the Los Angeles Police Department. Dr. Vila now heads the Simulated Hazardous Operational Tasks laboratory in Washington State University’s Sleep & Performance Research Center. Dr. Vila has been researching fatigue and how it affects an officer’s ability to carry out critical tasks and make decisions.

Vila states, “Fatigue decreases attentiveness, impairs physical and cognitive functioning, diminishes the ability to deal with challenges, and sets up a vicious cycle: fatigue decreases your ability to deal with stress and stress decreases your ability to deal with fatigue. So far as health and wellness are concerned, chronic sleep deprivation is associated with cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disorders, sleep apnea and other sleep disorders, and metabolic syndrome—the group of risk factors that increase your chances of coronary artery disease, stroke, and type-two diabetes.”

Dr. Vila estimates that fatigue is, at least in part, responsible for 15 percent of officer deaths and career-ending injuries from vehicle crashes and felonious assaults. That’s one out of every six officer deaths or serious injuries.

The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety conducted a survey and discovered the following information as it relates to law enforcement officers doing business in the US and Canada:

• 53 percent get less than 6.5 hours of sleep daily (compared to 30 percent of the general population)
• 91 percent report feeling fatigued “routinely”
• 14 percent are tired when they start their work shift
• 85 percent drive while “drowsy”
• 39 percent have fallen asleep at the wheel

Riding dirty. Dr. Vila believes that driving while fatigued puts an officer and the public at great risk. “A drowsy driver does not experience a steady decrease in driving ability,” Vila explains. “You get random, but increasingly frequent, lapses of attention. You space out for a few seconds.”

Infrequent adrenalin rushes that occur during a typical shift help to keep an officer awake, but Dr. Vila speculates the adrenalin-fatigue interaction may yield its own negative effect on performance.

Weary warrior. In a combat situation, fatigue dulls an officer’s edge. Fatigue slows one’s ability to recognize an enemy, assess their actions and respond accordingly. When tenths of a second count, fatigue can be a killer. Vila explains, “You’re not able to shift focus readily with a lot of competing demands on your attention.” In fact, when you’re tired you slip into a state of continuous tunnel vision or “cognitive narrowing” causing you to miss essential details and perhaps the warning signs of danger.

Dr. Avila states, “Parts of the brain that we know are especially vulnerable to fatigue are those that help you control emotion and arousal and those that direct the executive functions, such as making and realizing the consequences of decisions. These elements obviously affect your ability to survive life-threatening challenges. Being tired puts you at a substantial disadvantage, compared to being fully alert and having your best faculties for detecting and addressing the threat.”

Sleep meter. When you’re tired it’s difficult to judge exactly how tired your are. According to Dr. Vila, a person’s ability to judge their level of fatigue is one of the first things to be affected by fatigue. That’s a vicious irony. “Your cognitive ability can be affected by fatigue without your realizing it, to the same degree as someone who’s drunk”, Vila explains. “In tests even of elite professionals, people’s reports of how tired they are don’t relate accurately to how tired they really are. In short, you just can’t self-monitor fatigue worth a damn.”

It seems the only way to ensure we are operating at fully capacity is to stay on top of our daily health and rest regimen. A healthy diet and exercise will help you make the most of your sleep routine. Health professionals recommend seven to eight hours of sleep every night. If you’re working the midnight shift, make sure to schedule adequate time for rest.

As we’ve discussed in previous articles, caffeine and similar stimulates will affect sleep quality due to their withdrawal effect, so we need to watch our intake. Create a healthy sleeping environment. Make sure your room is dark and your bed (or couch) is comfortable. If you’re waking up with back pain or stiffness, odds are you’re not sleeping well and it’s time to look for a better mattress. Employ your personal stress management techniques to fall asleep faster and to sleep more deeply.

Departments are slowly becoming aware of the dangers of working while fatigued. Sometimes you simply need to meet up with a beat partner and grab a power nap. Discuss fatigue issues in your next briefing and make your supervisors aware. After all, we do our best work when our minds are sharp. Buy a copy of Dr. Vila’s book Tired Cops and toss it in the break room.

Sleep well, be safe.

Original interview conducted by Force Science News. Special thanks to PoliceOne and all they do for law enforcement world wide.

Dr. Vila’s Book, Tired Cops: The Importance of Managing Police Fatigue can be found on Amazon.

All eyes are on you and it’s the moment of truth. Suddenly your hands are slick with sweat, your breathing turns shallow and you see the world through a narrow corridor. Your fingers are stiff and numb, your legs feel like cinder blocks and your limbs are as rigid as steel beams. All thoughts come to an abrupt halt. With a quick jerk, you squeeze your trigger tightly. The hammer drops and and you’re rocked onto your heels by recoil. As you blankly stare downrange, it’s apparent – you just pulled what could a have a precisely placed shot completely off the paper target.

As you holster your weapon and turn toward your buddies, your hearing slowly returns just in time to process their laughter and ridicule. Anxiety is a son of b—-. And when a life depends on your ability to accurately land a small piece of lead, anxiety can be a killer.

Thin air. Anyone that carries a gun for a living is familiar with how their weapon works, how it feels in their hands and how to operate it efficiently. However, when the time comes to use it in the wild, it’s common for an operator to fall prey to the effects of stress.

When stimulated by sudden stress or fear, the human brain becomes primal and the parasympathetic nervous system takes over. The brain quickly identifies a threat and automatically prepares the body for response by shunting blood away from major muscle groups and extremities. This control feature helps to mitigate blood loss in case we’re wounded, but it also results in diminished fine motor skills. Our hands stop working as we enter fight or flight mode. Tunnel vision sets in and our awareness is narrowed to the most obvious and immediate opponent. Additional threats are often overlooked and hearing is essentially turned off. After a gun battle, many soldiers and cops report they never heard their weapon discharge. It’s during times like this that we typically depend on muscle memory created by our repetitive training, but there’s more we can do to fight well and win.

Stress comes in all shapes and sizes. Developing a common solution to counteract any stressor will benefit us when faced with a deadly situation because our solution will become an automatic response. Luckily, the best method to reduce stress is also the simplest… breathe. When we breathe deeply we more richly oxygenate our blood. More oxygen means better brain function. Much like the Matrix, situations slow down and we’re able to see the details. While we may not be able to dodge a bullet like Neo, we can more quickly assess a situation, identify our enemies, recognize additional threats and provide for the safety of innocents. Controlled breathing also leads to reduced anxiety, relaxation and improved fine motor operation allowing better weapon manipulation. Breathing deeply and evenly improves marksmanship by creating predictable muzzle rise and fall. The most accurate shots are taken during a slow, controlled exhalation. In the event we’re shot, stabbed or otherwise wounded, controlled breathing will slow our heart rate, reduce bleed out, defend against shock and improve our ability to self treat.

Believe it. If lining up for a practice shoot makes you nervous it’s because you’re not confident in your ability to perform. Again, the solution is simple – practice. With competence comes confidence. Once you’ve mastered your technique and your performance has peaked, take it to the next level and practice under stress. Get your heat rate up by sprinting to the firing line. Have a friend yell at you and talk trash about your mom. Find a facility with moving targets and, all the while, remember to control your breathing.

Once you’ve got a handle on stress and you’re confident in your ability to perform, play the “what if” game regularly. Think your way through dangerous scenarios, develop protocols for specific events, visualize being injured and contemplate your actions. Most importantly, envision yourself victorious in every encounter so that when it actually happens, you will be.

Breathe, train, win.

Para USA has released a new tactical model in their PXT line of 1911 pistols. The new PXT Tactical 14.45 is a 14+1 round railed 1911 that is aimed at the tactical user. The PXT Tactical includes Ed Brown’s match grade barrel bushing, slide stop and mainspring housing. It also includes a huge Dawson Precision magazine well to cut down on reloading mistakes and speed up the reloading process. The trigger set is not the stock run of the mill parts as other Para USA models, and instead includes a Cylinder and Slide Tactical II hammer, sear and disconnector. Finally, the Para doesn’t want you to run out of ammunition at an inopportune time and has included 5 fourteen round magazines in the package.

Normally, I don’t pay much attention to Para USA’s pistols except for project ideas, but the PXT Tactical and it’s list of high quality third party manufactured parts has caught my eye. Cylinder and Slide matched trigger sets come out of the box very crisp even in a drop in configuration. Although it carries the name Tactical, this model will make a great competition, range, or home defense gun right out of the box.

Here are the stats:

• Product Code:PRX1445SKJ
• Caliber: .45 ACP
• Rounds: 14+1
• Barrel: 5″
• Weight: 42 oz.
• Length: 8.5″
• Height: 6.2″
• Hammer: Spurred
• Sights: Fiber-Optic Front/ Adj. Rear
• Receiver: Stainless
• Finish: Covert Black
• Magazine:
• MSRP: $1,599.00

 

For more information visit Para USA

Soldiersystems.net says that they have received information from a excellent source that Usama bin Laden was done in with the use of an Heckler and Koch 416 rifle. Other reports have been floating around the web such as the tool used was a Sig 226 which has been in use with the SEAL’s since the 1980′s. As SS said in their post, whatever was used to take him out, we are all just glad that he is finally gone.