Situations between police officers and the public often escalate out of control because law enforcement personnel often do not get the training they need to learn how to bring matters under control without firing shots, retired U.S. Navy SEAL Senior Chief Petty Officer Andrew Sullivan tells Newsmax.
Sullivan, the CEO and founder of Blue Force Strategies, told Newsmax's Carl Higbie, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, on "Wake Up America" that he decided to operate his nonprofit organization, along with "guys like me who joined after 9/11 who are now getting out" because they have the knowledge and skills to help communities.
"We watch these incidents play out on TV and I see it and I know I have the skill to be able to affect it positively and help these police officers through these critical situations," said Sullivan. "I thought, what better way to do that than start a non-profit so the excuse of 'we can't afford the training' or not wanting to fund the training doesn't exist anymore because we're going to give it for free."
Higbie said that often, SEALS are sent into action when there are no further options, but Sullivan said he found that while he was part of the team, one of the hardest things to learn was how to know when not to shoot.
He said he had to be able to "identify a target and realize if I shoot, this person, this enemy, is it beneficial to the mission or is it not…it's a really hard thing to learn to do"
Sullivan said that while taking such knowledge to law enforcement officials, his organization can help officers learn to make better critical decisions when it comes to deescalating situations, dealing with stress, or handling situations for which they have not been trained.
"We're throwing officers into situations that they've never seen in training," he said.
On average, police officers get about 40 hours of training in armament use a year, and that is "just not enough," said Sullivan.
"Unfortunately, the ones that can afford the training are your high-level SWAT teams and your federal agencies, but when you look at an active shooter situation those aren't the first responders," he added. "We need to be able to affect the patrolmen or the school resource officer that is on the scene first, just based on their proximity to the incident. We're trying to give people innate tools to raise the threshold to be able to handle situations. The way to do that is through focused training."
The culture of law enforcement, though, must also be examined, as "40 hours of in-service training a year is not enough," said Sullivan. "Ten hours of shooting a year isn't enough. We need to have a system and culture in law enforcement that prioritizes training throughout their years."
For more information about Blue Force Strategies or the programs offered, Sullivan encouraged viewers to visit The Collective Intelligence Project's website.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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