PDA

View Full Version : A message from a former student ...



justken2u
01-17-2010, 04:21 PM
Ken,

My name is Keith Goodman. I attended your 5 day reality based training advanced instructor school last year at TX DPS. Last week, I was teaching an FTO course to Harlingen P.D. in Harlingen, TX. I was approached by a Harlingen P.D. officer named Carlos who told me a story I think you'd like.

About a year ago, Carlos was on patrol when he observed some suspicious activity at a gas station. He observed a known gang leader get into a white car to leave the area. As fate would have it, the gang member (whom Carlos knew by name) was driving away in a vehicle with a defective tail light. The video (on Utube) begins with the vehicle being pulled over. While Carlos is still on the radio, the subject exits his vehicle wielding a rifle. The subject postures to shoot, then pulls the gun down to look at it (it appears he is switching it from safe to fire) then aims again and begins firing 10 rounds at Carlos' vehicle. Carlos gets off of the radio just before the first round is fired. 9 of the 10 rounds strike Carlos. The first rounds strike him in the hand which was wielding the radio mic near Carlos' face. Two rounds strike Carlos in the head. One of the two rounds strikes Carlos directly above "between the eyes." Carlos leans to his left slightly out of the driver side door. This is when the subject gets back into his vehicle and flees the scene. The subject (later) drives his car into the Rio Grande river and swims across to Mexico. Unluckily for the subject, the Mexican police are performing a drug operation of some sort just across the river from where the bad guy enters Mexico. The Mexican Government picks him up and gives him back to Harlingen P.D. three days later. Bad guy is now serving 99 years for attempted capital murder. Carlos is alive and spoke to me during the class I was teaching. According to Carlos, upon being shot in the center of his forehead, he rested his head back into the seat closed his eyes and felt the warm blood pouring down his face. Carlos said that he thought "I've just been shot in the head and I don't feel any pain...I must be dead." A very short time later, Carlos says to himself that he can't be dead, and opens his eyes. He then gets on the radio and calls for help saying that he has just been shot. They rush him to the hospital via police car where he makes a full recovery.

This more than proves the lesson that shot doesn't mean dead, and shot in the head doesn't mean dead either. Only dead means dead.....

justken2u
01-17-2010, 04:21 PM
Hello Keith ...

While the story is tragic, it has a happy ending because of positive self talk. Part of our job as trainers is to pound the message of "shot ain't dead" into the heads of our students. As bad as this situation got for Carlos, it could have gotten worse by his initial self talk of "I'm shot in the head, I must be dead" as it burned up precious moments of potential fight time if the bad guy had come to the car to finish him off. Further, and this might sound like a bit of an armchair quarterback statement, when the bad guy came out with the rifle and had his mini malfunction (switching from safe to fire) the moment to shoot this goob was squandered much as it was with Randy Vetter when the old man exited his vehicle with a rifle after Randy commenting on video " ... looks like he has a gun or something there ..." and then challenging the old man several times before being shot by him.

We as trainers have an obligation to our students to condition them to decisive action and to hold our administrations' collective feet to the fire as to why we are responding this way so that officers such as Randy and Carlos have the experience and backing to "shoot back first" as we say in class.

Thanks for this inspirational story. I will likely post this story and this response on the RBTA website with your permission so that others might learn from this. I will be running another class in the latter part of the year at the DPS academy again. I hope some more of your folks can make it .. spread the word!

Stay safe and thanks again!

Ken

justken2u
01-17-2010, 04:29 PM
... here is a picture of someone else who got shot in the head. Obviously he's not dead. We MUST instill in our officers - and give them experiences of this sort during training simulations - that shot ain't dead EVEN if you are shot in the head. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT ... when St. Pete or whomever your gate keeper of choice in your version of the great beyond tells you the fight is over, then perhaps you can take it down a peg or two. Anything short of that and the fight is still on.