South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Police training features bigger risks
Officer’s Miami death underscores danger of ‘reality-based’ instruction in mass-shooter era
The death of Jorge Arias seemed like a freak accident — the veteran U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was shot to death by a colleague during a training session at a popular outdoor gun range off Tamiami Trail in West Miami-Dade.
But so-called “unintended discharge” shootings involving law enforcement officers happen more often than the public may realize, experts say
Doral officer, hit just inches from his heart, survived one three years ago. And in the last four months alone there have been at least three training shootings nationally.
In August a Washington, D.C., officer lost her life when shot by a trainer at a public library. Arias died in October when shot to death by a fellow trainer who wasn’t supposed to be armed with a live gun.
Last month in North Texas a police officer was critically injured, shot in the face at an elementary school during an “active shooter” training.
The accidents come as many l aw enforcement agencies step up “reality-based” training i n response to an increase in school and mass shootings and other threats. While intended to help save the lives of the public and officers themselves, experts say sloppy safety practices can make the training dangerous or even deadly.
“The vast majority of these deaths occur with the trainers, the ones who — through best practices — should be trained to know and act better,” said Ken Murray, an Orlando-area police trainer who has created widely used safety guidelines for reality-based training.
But gauging how many police-training shootings happen every year is challenging. Nationally, there is no agency that tracks “unintended discharge” police shootings, let alone ones that happen during training exercises.
There’s also no requirement such shootings be reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which credentials state police departments and staffs a commission that recommends standards and training.
Murray, the founder of the Reality Based Training Association, says he’s counted at least four such shooting incidents this year, and he estimates there are generally two deaths a year nationally.
Criminal charges are rare, but officers who mistakenly wound or kill colleagues face suspensions of other punishment.
A need for more training
For police departments across the country, experts say, the rise in mass shootings has led to an urgency to move beyond just practicing marksmanship at ranges.
Training sessions are often held in specifically designed police “shoot houses” — indoor facilities used to simulate the adrenaline-inducing, dangerous situations that might one day confront officers, such as a shooter rampaging inside a business. Nowadays it’s also common for officers to run scenarios in real-life public spaces, such as schools, churches, malls, even abandoned buildings.
Lina Mino, an officer with the Sansom Park, Texas, police, survived a gunshot to the face last month while in an active-shooter training at an elementary school in a suburb outside Fort Worth. The trainer who led the session, which was hosted by a private firm, has been suspended from his police position in a nearby county.
“It was an active-school shooter training,” Sansom Park Police Chief James Burchfield told WFAAABC8. “Ever since the Uvalde [school massacre] happened, every department in the state has been trying to get this training.”
In today ’s role-playing drills, officers wearing protective gear sometimes use guns equipped with various “marking cartridge”-type rounds, which leave colorful splotches similar to paint balls. They may use brightly colored “inert” replica guns that discharge nothing, or ones that emit only harmless lasers.
“Four decades ago, when I started in this profession, we didn’t point a gun at anybody in training,” said Bill Lewinski, an Illinois-based behavioral scientist and the executive director of Force Science Institute, which trains officers.
“Even if you pointed a plastic gun at someone in the classroom, they got upset with you.”
He said with the availability of simulation-type rounds, officers training in real-life scenarios is “an important skill.” Trouble typically comes when officers bring their own guns, with live rounds, into training sessions.
Pete Blair, who runs Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training at Texas State University, said his group’s training sessions around the country screen everyone for live weapons, including instructors, coming into the venue and when they return from breaks.
“And that includes a wand metal detector and a pat down,” Blair said.
Since participants are without their live duty guns, additional personnel may remain armed but can’t participate in any training.
“Basically, they are there as security officers,” he said.
Tragedy for CBP
Three months later CBP is still not offering an explanation of exactly what happened or why safety protocols failed when Arias, 40, a veteran CBP firearms instructor assigned to Miami International Airport, was shot by a fellow trainer Oct. 19.
They were training at Trail Glades Range, a county-run facility, on Tamiami Trail near the Everglades. It’s one of the few outdoor ranges in Miami-Dade and popular with gun owners and skeet shooters.
The facility is open to the public, but there is a separate “tactical” range down a gravel road, reserved for law enforcement and firearms instructors. CBP trained there regularly.
The tactical range is similar to the public section — shooters position themselves at podiums and fire at targets backdropped by a berm, a giant earthen mound 100 yards away.
The Trail Glades range isn’t generally used for roleplaying-type scenarios, but that’s what happened when Arias was killed. Multiple law enforcement sources gave this account of what the investigation revealed:
Multiple sources identified the CBP officer who shot Arias as Daniel Chavez, though he has not been publicly named by the federal agency or Miami-Dade police, which is investigating the shooting.
He and Arias were the instructors that day at the range, where officers were being trained on “concealed carry” and “close-quarter combat.” After an early-morning lecture, officers handed over their loaded service weapons, which were locked in a large gun case.
They got red training weapons and ran through several drills, sources said. Later that morning trainees were given a break.
Sources said Chavez apparently rearmed himself with his duty gun before he walked to the bathroom located in the main facility. That’s also not unusual. Officers will often rearm themselves if, during a break, they venture into what is considered a potential “dangerous space” — in this case, where members of the public are shooting live rounds.
But Chavez, the sources said, did not swap out his Glock pistol for the training gun before rejoining the group. The training resumed — but what exactly happened next remains murky.
The exact details of that final training demonstration remain unknown, but Arias was shot in the chest. And according to sources, other CBP officers claimed to investigators they were walking away and didn’t see when the shot happened.
Chavez and other officers desperately tried to save Arias, who was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center. Doctors later pronounced him dead.
Miami-Dade homicide detectives couldn’t see for themselves what happened. The tactical portion of the range is not equipped with a video surveillance system.
Chavez’s attorney, Jeffrey Weiner, declined to comment.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, as is routine, will review Arias’ death to determine whether Chavez broke any criminal laws such as manslaughter. Legal experts say what he did likely doesn’t rise to the level of culpable negligence, displaying a “reckless disregard of human life.”
While he did not know exactly what happened in the Arias case, Murray, the police trainer, said the error of forgetting to secure a live weapon is a common mistake.
Miami Herald staff writer Charles Rabin contributed to this report.