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My Journey to Tactical Awareness and Back Again-Part II by Gumshoe4 After leaving the Navy, I did a short stint as a California state game warden, my first exposure to law enforcement and, for all intents and purposes, to consideration of tactical matters. I learned from my lieutenant that in law enforcement, the primary mission was to do your job and get home in one piece. With that goal in mind, it was important to think about personal safety and to develop tactical responses to specific situations. For example, there is a certain approach to be used when approaching a pickup truck full of drunken, city-boy, heavily armed deer hunters and another approach is used when contacting a beaming father showing off his son’s first buck. Control is required in both cases, but is applied differently. One thing game wardens learn early on is that when they make contact, they know for a certainty that virtually everyone they contact is armed. Unlike city cops, who often react excitedly when a gun is found, game wardens learn to accept the premise that everyone is armed. This recognition means that it is the game warden who exercises control of the weapons while in contact and that it is important for him to do so in order that everyone, including the person he is contacting, be safe. It also means that the game warden may be liable if the weapon is mishandled while he is nominally in control. This message was driven home to me in a very abrupt way one day while my partner and I were stopping vehicles inside a national game refuge to ensure that rifles were cased and bolts removed as the hunters were passing through. We made a stop on a little white Chevy Luv pickup with one occupant, an older gentleman wearing a checkered shirt and bib overalls. There was a rifle rack in the back window of the pickup and an uncased rifle in the rack with the bolt installed. Mike lit the red light and the man pulled over by the side of the road. Mike went up the driver’s side while I walked up on the passenger side. As Mike approached the driver’s door, the man suddenly jumped out of the cab, shouted something at me which was unintelligible and then reached back into the cab and grabbed the rifle out of the rack before Mike could react and control the weapon. As the man pulled the rifle out of the cab, I saw the muzzle swing across my chest and I attempted to jump out of the way. When I looked again, Mike had managed to get the rifle away from the man. I was pretty annoyed that the man had endangered me like that, so I went stomping around to the driver’s side of the pickup. By the time I got there, Mike had examined the rifle. As this occurred about 20 years ago, I must admit that I do not remember the make or model of the rifle, but I clearly remember seeing that the weapon’s safety was off and that there was a live .308 round in the chamber. The man was cited, the weapon unloaded and the bolt removed. Turns out that the man was trying to tell me that the weapon was not loaded. Unfortunately for him, he was very wrong. Luckily for me, his finger was not on the trigger as he pulled the piece out of the rack. The man was allowed to case the weapon and was released to continue on his way. No one was hurt, but I definitely think back on that day and consider myself pretty lucky (or that guardian angel was paying attention that day). My tactical mistake was in continuing to approach on the off-side before I was sure that Mike had control of the weapon. If the gun had gone off and I had been hit, it would have been as much my fault as the fault of the man who mishandled the weapon, because I was where I should not have been. The lieutenant strongly believed that tactical planning included proficiency with the sidearm and that bad weather was not an excuse to practice bad tactics. Accordingly, we sometimes had qualification shoots in lousy weather and miserable conditions. On one occasion, we had a scheduled range day on a tiny range in the mountains, so I suited up, buckled on my gun belt and slid my Model 10 into the holster. I checked to be sure that I had my speed loaders, which were Safariland spring-loaded units (I preferred those to the HKS loaders), and that they were full of the ammo I was carrying at the time, which was .38 +P lead semi-wadcutter hollow points (“Chicago” load). I grabbed a couple of boxes of ammo and went out the door, where Mike was waiting in the Ramcharger with the little sneak lights on the front that we used when we were stalking poachers. Then we skedaddled up the mountain. The day had started out gray and overcast at home, but as we proceeded higher into the Coastal range, it started to drizzle and then to rain. By the time we got to the range, it was raining in buckets and the orange-red range mud was ankle-deep. I started sniveling immediately and was joined by some of the other guys in the squad. We wanted to be at home in front of a nice fire in the fireplace, but the lieutenant had other ideas. As noted earlier, his philosophy was that bad weather was not an excuse for bad tactics. So we shot. And shot. And shot. In the pouring, freezing cold rain. On our stomachs and backs in the mud. With rain and mud dripping from our hair and face and pine needles sticking to our eyelashes and mustaches (because all cops at that time wore handlebar mustaches-part of the uniform!!). When I got home, my wife required me to disrobe on the back porch. I did so, then went in and grabbed a hot shower and changed. Then I pulled my poor Model 10 out of the holster (there were no such things as Model 64s back then and the Model 66s were rare). It was soaked through and through, so I removed the cylinder and side plate and sprayed everything with water-displacing goo of some kind (don’t remember what I used), cleaned and lubed the gun and put it back together. It survived and so did I. As stated previously, I learned Tactical Lesson #1 from this experience: BAD WEATHER IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR BAD TACTICS. I have learned over the years to adapt TL #1 a little to include, besides BAD WEATHER such things as BAD MOOD, BAD HAIR DAY, BAD PARTNER, BAD LUNCH and whatever else seems to fit. Bottom line is that there is NO excuse for bad tactics. |
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