“If you cannot get in you can save anyone. What are your patrol capabilities of forcible entry?” These are the first two things I say and ask when I teach or lecture on this topic. The response in almost every lecture or class throughout the lower 48 is ZERO. In my opinion, this is the most over looked topic in response to an active shooter/emergency response. How many times have you attended a course or a lecture on a topic and the first thing done is you table top the entry? Active Shooter for patrol is a perfect example of this. I have attended and or been a part of hundreds of exercises for active shooter response and almost never is the topic of forcible entry discussed. How many times do you see the training or lecture pick up with everyone in the hallway going over TEMS, down officer rescue, direct threat, Hall Boss, no Hall boss and the list goes on forever? Meanwhile the important topic of Forcible Entry is rarely discussed and almost never trained in the patrol officer response. I can buy you any rifle you want with all the bells and whistles and the coolest plate carrier etc., send you to train with Master Chief Chalker or any other expert in the field for as many lessons as you want but in the end if you cannot get in none of it means anything.
Before we go any further into the article I must first address the fact that I and my LE brother, Nick Kelmentowicz, invented and hold numerous patents in the LE/Military field and of course we believe we have invented and produce a better mouse trap that saves lives more efficiently. I address this for two reasons:
- The first is the Flag some of you will throw right away. “Here we go another business writing about their product in article but trying to make it look like they are not.” I Throw the *@!#$* Flag on these articles all the time.
- The second reason is to simply state we have over a combined 50 years of Forcible Entry experience in the field and, imagine this, we’re actually BREACHERS who know this topic inside and out. Which leads me to the last portion of this intro none of us, including myself, want to hear anything on a topic from someone who has never DONE IT!
Forcible entry is not just for the horrible terrorist attack or active shooters occurring. How many times does a patrol officer have to force open a door in their career? The answer is many times when dealing with such calls as an unresponsive subject in a locked dwelling, an EDP in a dwelling, smoke conditions, water conditions, welfare checks, etc. The list is endless depending on the size of your agency and it capabilities. An example of this is officers/troopers/deputies that cover hundreds of square miles by themselves in places like PA, AK, ID etc. These officers have to travel great distances to get to emergencies and need to act when they arrive. Adding this capability to your patrol division will reduce injury and saves lives. “How so?” you ask. For one, an officer - when forcible entry is needed - would be using a tool and not their body, i.e. foot or shoulder, thus possibly injuring themselves.
Ok, so you bought into the need for tools for Forcible Entry. How are we going to do this? Let us address the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room: money. There are different options on how to address budget challenges and I always refer to home town rule because there is nothing more important than this if you’re trying to get something done. Some of the options are grants; some agencies have used designated OEM/FEMA grants for the purchasing of tools, others have added line items to budgets, or the use of seizure money which usually covers tools and training, while some simply buy what they can afford and add tools every year to their fleets as they progress forward.
Now we got past this money and were actually going to order Forcible Entry Tools for patrol otherwise known as ‘Breaching gear.’ What do we order and who is going to order the product? This obviously is the most important choice in the whole process. In many cases, getting the money was a long hard fought battle and if you buy wrong and end up having to replace newly purchased but bad gear, you more than likely will be denied funding the second time. To add insult to injury, that denial is usually followed with the microscopic examination of “why did we buy X if Y is better?” from the powers that be. The following is a quick guide for how to do this correctly.
- Buy a quality product and one not made out of cheap material. This product is to be used to save lives. Buying cheap will cost you and beware of knock off copy cats. There is a reason why one tool costs hundreds of dollars and the knock off is $100. The answer is usually that the knock off will break and it does not work. Remember, “BUY CHEAP PAY TWICE”.
- Weight to end user ratio and a carrying system will need to be addressed. You want a tool that can be used by all officers, no matter what their physical abilities are and easily carried by any member of your patrol force. Ideally something that would allow your body to carry the tool, such as sling, thus allowing you to keep both hands on your weapon platform or free for other uses. The easiest way to figure this out is to ask yourself how far would I get carrying this tool or tools and patrol rifle responding to an active shooter on a large campus. The answer for a vast majority of options and officers is not very far at all. How many of your officers will be able to carry a 60lb pack full of tools, a patrol rifle, go bag, and patrol duty rig and then actively search for a shooter? This leads to last point: you want a carrying system that is easy to deploy and one that allows you to easily remove and replace the tool.
- Training of officers in forcible entry. The agency mission is not to make everyone a breacher; it is to provide instruction on forcible entry. There is an added cost associated with this as well. So many agencies will look to do a train the trainer by using breachers from SWAT TEAMS and other Units to do training of patrol. Very few companies offer any type of support of online training aids on this topic. The one that does offer in depth instructions and information videos allow agencies to use them for free training. The overall goal of this segment should be to concentrate on four basic components: 1-Outward opening doors 2-Inward Opening Doors 3-Commercial Windows 4-Pad Locks & cables. Number 1 should be the topic you spend a majority of your training because of fire code controls and the fact that commercial buildings exit doors/access doors will open out a majority of the time in USA. Thus if your trying to get in you will be trying to open an outward opening door.
- Putting your tools into patrol for emergencies. So you accomplished 1, 2, & 3; congrats on a job well done. Now how are we going to put your tools into patrol? First, how many units did you buy? If you’re fortunate to have enough for your entire fleet, or a majority of it, then you have your answer. If you did not and you have to select which units to place your gear into, the following will help. You want to have as much coverage as possible, so if you have sector cars you would try to cover the furthest edges of your territory. After doing this you would want to provide coverage for the central areas of you sector or specific units such as SRO, etc. The answer really depends on how many units you have to deploy. One thing we have learned from debriefs and history is that the concept of loading a ton of gear into a few specific cars does not work. Post 911 we saw agencies loading up a specific vehicle - many times a supervisor SUV - with all of the gear: Tools, Shields, Rifles etc. We know that this technique drastically reduces response time for an emergency such as an active shooter and we know the seconds save lives in these events. The one RULE you want to apply is spread as much of your gear into patrol so patrol can respond direct in an emergency to save lives.
- Staging of emergency products in strategic locations. This concept was developed post September 11th. It is specific to large campuses, business parks, airports, bus depots etc. The concept we developed is similar to the defibrillators you see staged in the same facilities. The only difference is these items are stored in alarmed cabinets that activate a siren as well as 9-1-1 when opened. The other option is to store the tools for law enforcement response in predetermined locations with access only available to emergency responders. In the example of a campus, these staged location would be placed in predetermined points and could provide everything from tools to medical supplies.
The final, and perhaps most important, aspect is to TRAIN. Like anything else, training is essential for all response to emergencies. The next class or training you attend on the topic, please include forcible entry and training for such. When you trainers / coordinators request to include forcible entry training, you’re likely to get push back that says it’s not necessary because, “we have an SRO in the school with access,” or, “we have pass keys for the school.” and other responses in effort to dismiss this topic from the agenda. So you have a key to every business and corporation in your city? Your SRO has access to every locked room in the school? The answer of course is no. Seung Hui Cho’s Virginia Tech attack and the Amish School House Shooting in Lancaster PA are two of the better known cases of catastrophe due to lack of forcible entry. These horrible attacks occurred over a decade ago and yet we still see a majority of patrol officers have zero capabilities for forcible entry. Two recent incidents that raise the question again are the San Bernardino, CA attack and then the Active Shooter in Richmond, VA where VA Trooper Chad Dermyer lost his life with the gunman. Having spoken to officers who were at both scenes, it was learned that there was an immediate need for forcible entry. In both of these examples tools were requested and had to be supplied by responding specialized units and other officers, resulting a delay of clearing all of these unknowns and gaining needed access.
History has shown, several times over, that equipping patrol with appropriate tools for forcible entry and providing them the necessary training to properly use such, can reduce critical response time and likely save lives.
