One Way Law Enforcement Training Has Advanced

Visit: https://www.TF70.org/donate to help support our cause!
Join the TF70 Patreon for some HUGE perks: https://www.patreon.com/TaskForce70Foundation

Over 70% of America’s law enforcement agencies serve communities of fewer than 10,000 people. These rural and small-town departments face serious challenges—limited funding, inadequate training, and declining public trust.
The Task Force 70 Foundation was created by experienced rural law enforcement professionals to change that. Our mission-driven training program is grounded in the principles of the U.S. Constitution and enhanced with modern tactics. We prepare officers to respond to today’s threats, save lives, and earn back the respect of their communities.
Despite being the majority of the nation’s law enforcement, these officers receive little to no training support from local, state, or federal sources. That leaves both them and their communities vulnerable when emergencies strike.
You can help. Your donation will support the construction of a dedicated training facility, cover tuition, and offset travel and overtime costs which are the biggest barriers to department access.

#police #cops #lawenforcement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey guys, it's Chaffee from the Task Force 70 Foundation. Thanks for joining us this time for an after-action review of a one of the foundation's uh missions is to provide virtual training uh in addition to mobile training. And this is only made possible through donations. So uh we're a completely nonprofit foundation. Uh you can support this type of activity, uh, as the old people say, um, through either a donation directly at our website at tf70.org/slash donate, or hit up the Patreon and get something out of it. Anyway, so I'm on today with Richard and Jared. Uh, they're both from small rural agencies uh in Middle America, one's from a sheriff's office and one's from the police department. And these guys just graduated um from the TF 70s uh virtual training teams. We will probably refer be referring to them as VTTs in our conversation. Um that is the patrol trainers course. So this course is designed to teach people who are responsible for training at any level to develop their own curriculum and really think through and develop what they're gonna be teaching, making sure they're touching the specific guys uh that they're responsible for for actually teaching. So, guys, if you don't mind, we're gonna go through and kind of introduce yourselves in 30 seconds or less. Uh, we don't need to do the whole, like, we don't need to know about your how you spent your childhood and stuff like that. Just um, and don't dox yourself unless you really enjoy that kind of spicy activity. Um, but uh just tell us what you're responsible for, where you're at now, how long you've been on the job, etc. Uh and we can go from there. And we'll start with you, Richard, if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Sure. Thanks, Jappy. So I'm Richard. I'm with the local sheriff's office here. I do a lot of the training for our CQB and some of our vehicle work. Um had some good experience working with you in the past uh back back in Forge. Really enjoyed those classes, and I think this was a great transition in order to really help uh here in the future training because it allowed us to be able to really focus on how to build courses, especially when it's something that's not explicitly built. The topic of this allowed us to be able to focus on making sure that we were efficient in the dollars spent and the minutes spent. So I really appreciated you guys helping us out with this.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, absolutely. Jared?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Um my name is Jared, like you said. Uh I'm a five-year, I'm in my fifth year working for uh a local police department. Um, newly, newly promoted, but uh working in the um defensive tactics space. Uh been running our defensive tactics for both our city agency and our many of our county agencies uh for the last couple of years. Um member of our tactics team, um, work through teaching uh CQB and also field training officer, so various uh roles, but this has been a really good course and kind of helping us solidify a lot of how we do what we do.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So that's good. So this these courses are aimed not only the course, but teaching it this way is aimed at you guys, like getting um, I don't remember exactly how many guys we started with, uh, but it was probably 11 or 12, right? And and we ended up graduating four, I think. Um but like getting all those guys to our facility uh all at once from one small region would have been just impossible, right? So that's why teaching it virtually uh I think is the right answer. Uh it reduces expense for you guys. A lot of you guys were on the job, like on shift when you were taking the classes. Um I I think that this is the way to provide this kind of material, the non-physical action material, uh, that you guys aren't really getting anywhere else. Like you can uh I know both of you have probably already been through your state's instructor development course, but those kinds of state bureaucratic courses are designed to teach you how to do the paperwork and how to work out a curriculum that's already built. Uh, we we built this class because teaching so many cops all over the country, uh, they don't want to teach what what the guy four states away is teaching. Like they want to to to teach what they need uh and they don't have the resources to do it. So that was mostly for the audience's education of why uh one of the purposes of the foundation is to do the the VTT format. Uh I didn't mean to filibuster there, guys, but uh starting with with you, Jared, can you compare and contrast what you thought the class was going to be if you thought anything about it before we started uh versus what you got out of it?

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Um I didn't really have a a lot of um I guess for I guess foregone conclusions coming into it. Um I didn't have a ton of I wasn't sure what what exactly I was getting getting myself into. Um but uh it was it was definitely something where um it was it was a lot more uh theory and here this is actually how you you build pieces along um and how you actually build a uh a a lesson plan that actually um like is is repeatable and actually can teach the pieces you need to teach um in a way that makes sense and it's not just hey this is how you build a PowerPoint and this is how you like you said regurgitate stuff that's been taught before, but this is how you actually go through and design a lesson plan and design a program um from nothing in and how you can actually do it in a way that makes sense and keeps things uh cohesive.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Good, good Richard, how about you?

SPEAKER_02 6:04

I think the nice thing about this is it goes and it prevents you from having good instructional gaps, right? So I I understood the the basics as far as what the course was going to be about, but it really helped fill in some of the some of the holes in it, making sure that when you were when you were teaching somebody, you didn't leave a major open space that was going to make it so they weren't really capable of what you were teaching by the end of it. That's that was the huge takeaway that I took from the class.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Good. And this is based on a whole bunch of different types of experiences that the the team here has had. Um like teaching somebody how to teach how to instruct something isn't really that difficult if you've given them kind of a good plan. The challenge is a generational one. If you get three or four generations deep into a curriculum, uh if the guys don't know how to either deconstruct and reconstruct based on what they need individually as an agency, um, and what their what their community and their executives expect of them, uh if they don't know how that's done, like all the other stuff is just just checking boxes, like they don't have the ability to actually do the work themselves. That's why we thought this was an important topic to teach courses on. Um how did you guys find the the methodology of doing an hour a week for the class? Uh, did that help you retain information? Was it neutral or was it was it uh not as helpful as sitting in a classroom, do you think, if we can start with Richard?

SPEAKER_02 7:43

So I think the nice thing about that is it goes and it does allow you to have a sleep cycle in between. So there's a lot of information in the class and it helps you learn it, learn it more effectively that way. The other major benefit that I got from it was being able to make it so that we learned something that we could directly apply it. We were teaching in-service, we were teaching other classes in between, and we were able to directly apply it as we're going through the class. So I thought that was pretty helpful. Good.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, it was interesting to have to watch your guys' homework uh in between the courses as you were teaching at the same time away from this course. Like you guys were teaching in service, so that was interesting on my side to see. Jared, did you have any different or uh alternate thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Um, I think on on the the keeping the class the time the way it was, I think that worked out well for a lot of us are are busy. It's easy to be able to kind of show up, okay. Hey, I can do this hour, I can get a lot of information in that time frame. Um, and then I can go back to doing whatever else is is required, but also having the ability to then go back and and watch the video or record it of what was happened, and then I can kind of refresh if there's things that I I didn't quite catch in the moment. Um, so that that helped a lot. It's one of those things where the the longer students are sitting, um, you know, the aggressively less they're paying attention. And so the the short, quick hitters um helps us, we're all kind of able to be engaged the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

That's good. That's good. One of the other reasons for teaching, well, there's several layers of reasoning for teaching it virtually instead of pre-recorded. Uh, one of them is we got a lot of interaction, I thought, anyway. Teaching it, we got to uh you guys know cops just as well as I do. Like the majority of guys aren't gonna pipe up uh if they have questions, right? But we got more of that than we would have gotten if it was in a comment section on a pre-recorded video. Um also, if people know that there's someone live watching them watch it, they tend to uh stay engaged more. Um, but also, and I'm this is I'm kind of leading into my next question. Um all training does not fit every agency the same, right? So the purpose of this course, in my mind, was to take all levels of people in an agency who are responsible for teaching and allowing them to combine whatever instructor development, uh, generalized uh teaching methodologies they've learned and apply them with your actual agencies, policies, laws, your states and your uh community's expectations, and be able to build a a really customized thing that matches the audience you're actually teaching, because you guys know the people that you're teaching, which in a lot of ways is a disadvantage, but in some ways it's a real advantage. So did you guys did any of that come through on the individualization of what you're teaching part of it? Uh was that applicable or helpful, or was it detrimental to try to think of it that that granularly? Um we can start with Jared.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Um, I I think it was I think it was beneficial. I think allowing us to take larger like concepts and then being able to apply it then down to the level that we need it, or or being able to apply it whatever it is we need to teach or who we need to teach, I think that I think that helps a lot.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Good Richard, any any additional or other thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Um, I think it's it's nice how how general and specific it is. It's general in terms of you don't have to have a certain, for example, like a particular CQB package and everybody argue over which package is the best. But if you go and if you just know how to how to apply the the teaching methodology and build your program the best, that was the whole focus of this. And so you can help two completely opposing viewpoints on something, just do the best they can at either side, and it's not in opposition to, it's simply in an enhancement for.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Right. Well, and in CQB in particular, CQB marksmanship, breaching, all the stuff that we as a as a foundation focus on. Cops don't get C as a general rule, patrol guys don't get CQB training at all, and part of that is is agency specific as to why, like training time available, some of its egos. I this methodology exists because it at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what side, you know, you you saw a Delta Ninja Lerp on YouTube talk about a specific way of doing CQB and you want to do it that way for your three-man department, like knock it out. But in order to make it effective and defendable and and uh repeatable, it needs to go through this taxonomy filter for lack of a better term. Was that did I express that correctly and did I deliver it correctly?

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Absolutely. I made it a whole lot easier to work your way through.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Good. So, guys, we really appreciate you uh uh coming on. Were there any um like you guys have heard me say in personal classes that you've taken from me personally? Like, you know, if you didn't like the class, mind your own business. But in this case, because it's an after action, like were there things that you would have liked to see done differently or resourced uh better or differently? Uh Jared, if if we can start with you, like what were your improvements that we can be doing as a foundation, whether it's something we can be teaching it differently or do we need different resourcing? Um we have all identified one technological resource that we're working on now, but um, is there anything else, Jared, that comes to um no, not really.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

I don't think there's anything that um I found that was inhibitive to to learning. Um, I'm sure from the the technical side of things, you guys, like I said, the the adjustments that you guys are gonna make, I think will be a positive there. Um I I don't think there was anything um on on our end that that made it, you know, like I said, was inhibitive to learning. Um I think on the front end, maybe having, and I don't know how this will be marketed and planned, you know, and how it'll be presented, having clear kind of this is this is kind of a rundown of what you're getting yourself into so guys kind of have a good understanding um of that, I think is always a benefit so guys know kind of what we're looking at when we jump into something.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

So we will definitely tighten up the course description and and we don't generally, but we I I suspect we need to in these virtual courses. Uh, and I'm interested, Jared, since that was your takeaway, because I had much the same thought. Uh, it requires, I suspect, a lot more front loading of expectations on the part of the students. Uh, would that be a fair uh way to express that?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah, I think so. I I think it just it requires a little more, um, like you said, just front loading of information because guys, you know, like I said, we don't we don't 100% know and uh making sure that that we have all the resources that we had we can have and we can kind of prepare too for some of what's coming.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

I like that. That's great feedback. And that was on our notes on our side for teaching it, uh, because every time you teach, if if you're actually teaching instead of instructing, every time you you teach something, no matter how many times you taught it, like you come up with tweaks or small things or big things that you need to improve. And that was definitely one of ours uh for teaching it this way. So uh Richard, do you have any uh improved takeaways for us?

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Uh so the same sustain and improves that we always go through in every class. I think it's it's it's a great way to go and kind of wrap things up at the end. As far as improves, the only thing that I saw on it, I think we we made a good transition as we went through was the technology side. It's always hard going from a whiteboard to to an e-learning environment. And I think you did a great job of that. It's just you know, learning, learning to maximize your tools, whether it's electronic or real. You know, it it did I think you did a good job of going making that transition and making it so that it was an efficient use of our time and really the most out of out of what we we could get out of the class.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Good. And then my last question was there too much homework or not enough homework? Start with Richard.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

I think it was a good balance, honestly, because without any, it doesn't allow it doesn't force you to apply what you've learned. Right? It wasn't something that took hours and hours and hours each each time. It was something that gave a reasonable amount of time with a good good turnaround.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Good. Jared, anything on that?

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Um, I think on that front, like I think maybe doing something where it is a weekly assignment where maybe there are shorter in duration, or if you do have a hey, this is gonna be a two-week, you know, this assignment's gonna be due in two weeks, but we're gonna go, we're gonna review what you should have gotten done, you know, a one week into it. So I think maybe having a few more, but having them be, like I said, just kind of shorter uh pieces might be helpful to help keep guys working towards a goal.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Good.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Versus it'd be uh uh hey, this is in this is due in three or four weeks, and I've I can easily put that off until you know the night before.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

So you're saying that they're normal cops?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yeah, yep. So and that actually wasn't my last question because I just realized that I had one that that uh I didn't ask you or we didn't speak about in the aft in the after action during the class. Um given the material covered, is this a four, six, or eight uh course instance class? Is it like four one-hour sessions, six one-hour sessions, or eight one-hour sessions given the amount of work that you guys did? Uh Richard, we can start with you.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

I think some of that would have to do with exposure. I think if you've had some exposure to the material initially, I think you could cut down the number of sessions. I think you might need a couple more if you've got a brand new group of people that have have never had any exposure to taxonomy in the past. I think it'd be really difficult to to probably push it all entirely new in four sessions. But I think eight might might elongate it to a point it wouldn't necessarily need to be.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I gotcha. Jared, any thoughts on that? Uh I think six is a was a good number. Uh I and I definitely think if you did it, you know, six weeks of it, you know, so you have one right after the other, I think definitely retain enough information from session to session, and I think that would be good.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

That's good feedback. We really appreciate that. And guys, you guys already know this, but without our donors and patrons over on Patreon, this this literally wouldn't be possible uh for you guys to get it at no charge. So um hopefully it was beneficial to you guys individually, to your patrol teams and your tactical teams, and to the department as a whole. Uh, you guys are working in a region of multiple small departments. So hopefully everybody kind of getting on the same page will also allow you guys to support one another uh a little bit with like every department doesn't have to have an expert in everything, uh, which is another purpose of the of the VTT kind of concept. So uh guys, we really appreciate your time. We appreciate the donors uh as well. Um and uh yeah, the for the audience, you guys can support more training like this, which we need your support to do it, uh, over at tf70.org slash donate uh or hit us over on Patreon and get something out of it. So uh guys, we really appreciate you very much, and uh we'll see you next time.