Police shoot it out in Norman competition
NORMAN — Skilled police shooters from as far away as California took aim Friday at improvement.
By the end of the day Saturday, “we all want to do better,” Oklahoma City Police Sgt. Benjamin Clark said as he scored a competitor’s work, a paper target riddled with bullets.
“Some people are better shooters and some people work a lot more.”
The Dale DeBerry Memorial Regional and State Police Pistol Combat Championships concluded Saturday at the Norman Police Department firing range.
DeBerry, a Norman Police sergeant, died in December of 1998 of a heart attack during a training exercise.
Approximately 50 local, county and state shooters from seven states took part in the three-day event, including one retired and seven active Norman police officers and six Oklahoma City police officers.
All 14 qualified for the Governor’s Twenty, the top 20 shooters from Saturday’s Oklahoma State Police Shooting Championship.
Oklahoma City pistol team members qualifying for the Governor’s Twenty are Ted Beaver (1), Bobby Prater (2), Benjamin Clark (7), Mike Labadie (8), Scott Sanders (9) and Bryan Taylor (15).
Norman pistol team members qualifying for the Governor’s Twenty are Joshua Barker (3), Jeremy Garnand (4), Robert Wasoki (10), Gregory Gardner (13), David St. John (16), Robert Maldonado (17), Jamie Crowe (18) and Elliot Gribaudo (20).
“Some of these guys here that
are instructors are some of the best of the best and some of these guys are the people that want to be the best of the best,” said Shon Elroy, a retired Norman Police officer who ran the firing range for nearly a decade.
“Part of doing this job is being able to do a lot of things under stress. “Short of a gunfight, one of the few ways you can put them under stress is to put ‘em out in a competition environment.”
Police Pistol Combat is a shooting sport where competitors shoot — sometimes standing, sometimes kneeling, sometimes lying flat — at targets from as close as three yards and as far as 50 yards.
On Friday, competitors shot revolvers and rifles. Those accurate enough to hit an area the size of a fist on a paper silhouette scored the most points.
“This gives us an opportunity to learn how to interact with people a little bit better, how to become better shooters,” said Barker, a sergeant. “I’m fully convinced there’s no sport out there that is going to reinforce the fundamentals quite like PPC.”
Barker, a firearms instructor and one of the tournament directors, listed the six fundamentals for firearms as sight alignment, trigger control, sight picture, grip, stance and breath control.
“We always have officerinvolved shootings, and it’s unfortunate that officers are put in those situations,” he said.
“We want to make sure that if we’re ever put in a situation that we can handle it appropriately, and if an officer ever has to take lethal force that they’re hitting and stopping the threat that is presented to them and nobody else gets hurt.”