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Police Practice Targets Include Pregnant Women, Kids

Do the 'No More Hesitation' series of practice targets go too far?

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by Dain Fitzgerald

Staff Writer t

Image: Law Enforcement Targets, Inc.

In theory, the idea's got some merit, but in practice - as in target practice - there's something a bit ugly about what Law Enforcement Targets, Inc. is doing.

The company's produced a series of targets with pictures of pregnant women, kids, and other atypical baddies clutching pointed guns. The aptly entitled "No More Hesitation" series of practice targets is designed to help cops, their primary purchaser, overcome any hesitation attached to taking down society's more vulnerable members if they in fact pose a threat. It's an idea sadly in need of being taken seriously following the Sandy Hook massacre last December.

"The subjects in NMH targets were chosen in order to give officers the experience of dealing with deadly force scenarios with subjects that are not the norm during training," reads the associated marketing literature, as reported by Reason's Mike Riggs. "There is a hesitation on the part of cops when deadly force is required on subjects with atypical age, frailty or condition."

Riggs, who is no fan of the NMH initiative, sarcastically suggests that your town too could train its police to become desensitized to the shooting of women and kids for "just a couple of bucks" per target.

Via Reason.
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Are these practice targets wildly inappropriate?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • AntiPorcheria
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    @callmecrazy - No doubt. Very sad. But IMO the cops can't hesitate and be effective. I just don't submit to conclusion jumping, auto blame or conspiracy theories.
  • u
    thumper11
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    "some women wind up being stupid, pregnant and aggressive"
    That is FAR less likely than Mr. AntiPorcheria going on a machete-slashing-rampage at the local day-care center. A single solitary incident does NOT constitute a trend.
  • u
    shimie
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    Really, you expect a thinking person to buy that??? Look at the entire series of target photo's (and the recessed background), you have average citizen obviously inside their own homes. It is not just a pregnant woman in the target... look at the recessed background... she is in a nursery... Police officers are not automatically more valuable than the general public... you took an oath to protect and serve. These targets are about desensitizing law enforcement... if you cannot see that then you are the EXACT type of officer the public should be worried about. I know many good officers and they are appalled at these types of targets, why aren't you???
  • View all 54 replies >
  • debbifaye99
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    Yes, get prepared for the big threat. Pregnant women and children are conspiring at this very moment! Grandma and Grandpa hold the meetings at their house on Thursday night, with cookies and milk. Sometimes even apple pie!
  • AlexMIA
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    I wonder what the thought would be if we started training with police and government agent targets to do some desensitizing of our own?
  • o
    NTBFW
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    I don't like them but bad people do come in all shapes and sizes. In fact it's not uncommon during domestic dispute arrests for the victim to attack the cops when they start to take their man away. So they do serve a useful purpose. It's terrible that they are useful but they are a good training tool. If nothing else it helps officers to be more aware and can possibly not have to shoot someone. I would never use them in any civilian class.
  • View all 14 replies >
  • stepped_in_it
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    Has anyone had a gun pointed at them? I have.....3 times in my life. The only thing I saw was the gun. It is amazing what focus you suddenly have when that gun is pointed at you! From 5 feet, I could see the rifling of the barrel clear as a bell. If I was an LEO, that is what I'd see.
    Now, I know some will be (mildly put) extremely upset about this use of pictures. Tough. This is what the world has come to.......live with it!
  • AlexMIA
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    @stepped_in_it In the course of fulfilling a lawful duty I could understand dropping anybody, but the type of desensitation is preparation for something else. If I were a cop I would not have a problem shooting a pregnant woman if I had to. I would have a problem training on those targets. The question would be the why they might want me to train on them.
  • Arumizy
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    During my deployment to Iraq a common tactic was for them to send children, handicapped children and use pregnant women as suicide bombers. Sick people exist in the world, people do crazy things and you have to be able to react to it. Fortunatly i was never put into a situation i had to pull the trigger on a child but i have a friend who was and he is damaged beyond repair because of it.
  • View all 8 replies >
  • miketost
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    I have respect for most law enforcement officers but tell me what are the numbers of threats that they confront by this class that would require the use of such targets.Seems as thou it is just another way to desensitize the police for what lies ahead.
  • o
    tgirl2
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    @dances-weebles Why, total govt takeover and suspension of all our constitutional rights, according to Conspiracy Theorist Daily, of course. You dont subscribe?
  • o
    talkenhed
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    @tgirl2 you missedAmerican Thinker.com . current lead tale. Some great conspiracy tales here.
    The Endgame for the Destruction of the United States
    Daren JonescuAmerican Education: Rotting the Country from the Inside
    This one is for MIA
    Forfeiting Freedom by Mass Neurological Dysregulation
    In order to maintain political freedom in the United States, a prevalent number of American brains must be capable of understanding, adhering to, and fighting for a secular scripture: the unalterable Declaration of Independence, which defines God-given rights, and the Constitution, which provides the legal framework for a limited government that enables individuals to actualize those rights. This methodology of freedom-keeping is similar to religion in that it is based on following exalted documents. But unlike authoritarian forms of religion, there is no excommunication for negating those writings. We are free to forfeit our freedom.
  • View all 6 replies >
  • u
    CommonSense
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    Teaching law enforcement not to feel anything before shooting the most vulnerable people.
    Law enforcement is already often too heavy handed in their tactics. Suppressing basic human empathy in cops will only lead to tragic situations where a cop kills someone unarmed. This program could transform cops into sociopaths, as if we don't already have enough of a problem with sociopaths getting onto the police force.
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    The question of a sociopath's feelings is not before but after. During combat training takes over to keep you alive; avoiding placing a possible target so as firing with a crowd as a back stop, during disarm practice avoiding handing the weapon back to your practice partner. What you feel afterward when your life is no longer threatened that is the difference between a sociopath and others. Some one with little training will do what emotion and thought leads but that takes more time often more then exists.
  • u
    CommonSense
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    @Drake_Burrwood
    Regardless it's possible some might be imprinted with the message in a way that biases cops towards shooting even when it isn't necessary.
    If they contextualized the target practice, added a plot line with characteristics that should tell the cop whether or not he needs to shoot then that would be even more sophisticated training and it would both reduce the risk of the cop not shooting when he needs to and the risk of the cop shooting unnecessarily.
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    @CommonSense years ago I took part in training for work based on a US postal service law enforcement training system, with an insert for a firearm and a hard drive that created what would now be a live filmed "video game". There is right brained "thinking" and left brain, in combat you have to react to patterns and react quickly. A bullet whizzes by your head, a belligerent man suddenly draws a knife and charges, to many choices and its you bleeding out in the grass.
    But yes care has to be taken in creating any training set up or unintended problems can appear.
  • u
    cpeter133
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    A cop shopuld not hesitate to protect his life, regardless of who is holding the gun. They have a right to go home at the end of their shift. Hesitating out of misplaced sentimentality could get them a trip in a body bag.
  • jessejaymes
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    I'm sure those two old Latino women in Los Angeles out at 5:00 a.m. delivering papers for about 8 cents a paper that got shot up by the LAPD would appreciate your sentiments.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @jessejaymes Exactly. Or the dozens of unarmed black men murdered by NYC police in the past decade who shoot them by "accident." cops need to learn to hesitate, long enough to be sure it is a gun is being aimmed, instead of a person holding a cell phone or wallet.
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    @jessejaymes that problem seems to me to be that when that vehicle appeared, the LEO's present knew that that vehicle was a valid target. Law enforcement is a team effort, someone outside the area miss communicated. Or not. Depends on things I doubt I'll ever know.
  • View all 11 replies >
  • jessejaymes
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    Just as a voice in the wilderness here I ask two questions. 1.) When is the last time a pregnant woman shot up a school, a political rally or a movie theatre? Actually the first question is when has a pregnant women shot up ANYWHERE? My second question is this. 2.) Have all of you forgot about the LAPD unloading on a pickup that was the wrong color, the wrong size and had the wrong race of people in it from the person they thought they were unloading on? I don't think we need law enforcement being more willing to shoot. I think LESS would be more appropriate.
  • u
    DrNickels
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    Well if citizens shouldn't have semi auto weapons (I don't feel this way but a lot of people on these boards do!) then the LA shooting incident proves law enforcement doesn't need such weapons either. Maybe Biden should just get rid of all semi auto pistols and rifles for law enforcement and the secret service and give them all double barreled shotguns since he feels that's all you need for protection.
  • jessejaymes
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    @DrNickels I have an AR-15. Let them come and find it. I don't' care. they won't. Because I don't abuse it and I don't run around flapping my gums about what a billy bad ass I am with my guns like right wingers do. (shrug).
  • bsking
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    Anyone who's ever spent any time in a simulator can tell you that these targets have a lot of merit they are intended to train the officer to immediately recognize hey deadly threat or lack of one.
  • PNWest
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    I think this is what LAPD practiced on before going after Dornan the other day. That explains the grandmother and the surfer dude they shot up.
  • o
    NTBFW
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    It is not uncommon for a victim during a domestic dispite arrest to attack the cops when they are taking the man away. So these unfortunately are useful. I would never use them in a civilian class. The can teach an officer to be more aware so he doesn't have to shoot her.
  • jessejaymes
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    Post a link to a single time in the past decade that a woman has drawn a gun and shot cops for taking her man away in a domestic violence situation. ONE TIME. Anything less can be handled with a stun gu or taser. You really are a work of art. Shoot first, let god sort it out, right?
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    jessejaymes
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    @NTBFW I think the felons are your "boys i blue" who shot up a truck that was the wrong color, wrong size, wrong race from what they were looking for not once but TWICE. You worry about me smoking pot legally. I'll worry about those out there who support killer cops.
  • Post Removed by Moderators
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    jessejaymes
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    @NTBFW I'm still waiting. You used the excuse of using pregnant women targets for the police because ":it is not uncommon for a victim during a domestic dispute arrest to attack the cops" and I asked for documentation of a single episode of a woman drawing down and shooting a cop during a domestic violence arrest in the past decade. You can't back up your justification for cops shooting pregnant women. Because there is none. I looked.
  • View all 31 replies >
  • u
    norezen
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    This thread combines with the child in wheelchair thing.
    Yeah if certain categories of people are allowed to pass through security screening, then guess how terrorists will target innocent people? They are willing to kill themselves and "collaterals", it would be delusional to think they wouldn't use a pregnant woman or a wheelchair bound child to do violence on other innocent people.
  • u
    BelinKS
    !
    It's ridiculous! Our police almost always go for the kill shot, even when it's not necessary! If a pregnant women is causing a threat, do you not have to kill her and the baby! Shoot both of her legs. She's down and can do no harm! If by chance a kid became the involved in a situation like this, there is no reason to go for a kill shot. Again, shoot him in the legs or or arms first. Police can not keep killing, when theyre
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    Only if they are snipers or fools. They shoot for center mass, that on a target is an area taking up most of the chest. Some targets include shading for such "sniper" work(spine, heart, brain). But if you are in a gunfight playing sniper can get you killed, it takes to long to get the "golden BB". What they try for is the take down shot, make them no longer a threat. Since you shoot center mass you might by the luck of the draw get some of the kill areas in it, but you will take them down whether you do or don't. The hospital can patch them up for the lawyers to play with later or not.
  • slov
    !
    Seriously.....I invite you to come ride along with me ....its not a video game...there's no do overs....when it comes down to you or them you would save your own life. I promise you if your in a fight for your life you will do what ever it takes to return home to your family.
  • kathyparsell
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    I don't think this is as new a concept as we imagine. My father flew with SAC during the Korean War and was trained for much worse. Imagine the training needed to be prpared to drop a bomb on human beings that would kill millions. If more of this type of training had been done for soldiers in Vietnam Nam, maybe the ones who were forces to kill women and children there wouldn't have had such a hard time letting go of their personal horror!
  • u
    thumper11
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    Except these targets are intended for civilian police officers in residential America - not for active-duty combat soldiers at war in hostile enemy territory. That said, perhaps they're revealing their future intentions with this stunt.
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    @thumper11 anytime you have to draw your gun due to an attack with a weapon capable of causing lethal harm it is active duty combat. It doesn't matter if you are LEO, private citizen, or military, you have a duty to try and return to your spouse and children.
  • kathyparsell
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    @Drake_Burrwood
    Actually, my father was taught to survive for the good of the country. We were taught what to do if a bomb landed at Oak Ridge, as opposed the HAAP, or Eastman Chemical Plant because if he wasn't already dead he probably wouldn't come home until the unrest was over. We were to do what needed to be done as long as we could. I will always love President Ronald Reagan!
  • u
    thumper11
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    @Drake_Burrwood,
    The first duty and priority of all policemen is to protect and serve the public. I believe most swear an oath to that effect. Yes, it is often a dangerous and hazardous job, but they knew that when they signed up. As long as they have a badge, they are (properly) expected to risk their own safety and their own life, in order to serve the people. If they can't (or won't) do that, then we (the people) have no use for them whatsoever.

    The seven "LEO's" who wildly shot-up the car (with the two little old ladies in it) in LA - demonstrated that your kind of "LEO" poses a much greater threat and danger to the public, than the criminals they were hired to apprehend. Your "LEO's" are nothing more than brutal street-thugs operating with impunity under false color-of-law.
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