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Originally Posted by The Reaper
The people you are describing as fully qualified don't exist in law enforcement. Period. In fact, the officers first responding to the scene may only shoot twice a year, less than two boxes of ammo then, and they are the initial rescue team.
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I'm not familiar with LEO in your part of the country but I can assure you that LE in my part of the country shoot once a month mandatory and qualify twice a year. Failing to qualify results in remedial training. Failure is not based on a percentage. If one round fails to strike home, it is a failure. I can also assure you that firearms training in this part of the country (Colorado, including Bailey) is not stress free. In fact all training includes stressors to induce excelerated heart rates, noise irritants, visual impairments, timed to include reloads etc.
Quite a few people have taken some cheap shots at Jeff Co SWAT in regards to their actions at Bailey. Those officers, like our SWAT team, trains 20 hours a month in addition to other department wide firearms monthly training. This does not include the extended training seminars they attend annually.
A friend of mine sent me an email shortly after this incident. He was the agent who spent those agonizing minutes with Emily's father outside that school house. He was with him when the shots rang out and he was with him when his daughter was brought out of the school. NOT ONCE did Emily's father say a disparaging word about LE. Not once have you heard anyone from that community complain about the actions of LE that day. In fact the media reports relayed just the opposite.
Contrary to misguided beliefs there are highly qualifed LE throughout this nation. Period.
422 officers have been killed in the line of duty in the last two years and 9 months. If one takes into consideration the actual attacks on officers during that time period, I would say that the relatively low ratio of officers killed is evidence of their qualifications.
Perhaps some of the critics could offer their opinion on "Active Shooter" training that is now part of annual training for LE. I can assure you that the "initial responders" have fired far more than two boxes of ammunition and are trained to enter and seek the shooter out. Interestingly enough the "Small Town Bailey officers" did exactly as they were trained to do and entered the school immediately and located the gunman and hostages, containing the area of threat and allowing the rest of the students to get out of the school. They did not wait outside the school for SWAT.