AAR: HRO-5 Terrorist/Active Shooter Interdiction with Randy Harris in Charlestown, IN

[tfullerpipes]

HRO-5 Terrorist/Active Shooter Interdiction with Randy Harris in Charlestown, IN was the third and final course with Randy over two weekends.

Randy once again demonstrated his professional capabilities teaching this course. He adapted to the environment (lots of rain) and kept the course focused and productive. I look forward to training under Randy more in the future.

The facility was Clark County's Law Enforcement Training Center just outside of Louisville, KY and it was an excellent facility from the US gov't. that had been re-purposed.

I have not completed my in-depth personal notes from this course, so my AAR will likely be followed up with more information.

Highlights:
Precision shooting with a pistol under less than ideal conditions is a requirement for proactive engagement.
Keep your hand-to-hand skills refreshed.
Force-on-Force is an invaluable tool to get the point across about the chaos these situations will produce.
Speaker Trey Hudson was excellent in his discussion on mindset and perspective of terrorists as well as the ongoing development of terror.
Jeff Bishop was a great asset to the course for his LEO insight.
Using many and varied targets during the course is great idea to keep the students from getting comfortable or stale on a specific target identification.

Personal development:
Go back to your hand-to-hand training and refresh.
Keep working on surgical precision pistol shots from difficult positions.
Familiarize yourself with more weapon systems.

[Airdog]

Agree 100% with Thomas's course review. I've trained with Randy Harris for several years; I've attended many of his two-day courses and regularly participate in his RTG sessions.
As one of the attendees (Fmr. USA Ranger with expert shooting skills) commented to me after this class: "Randy is the real deal." It's always worthwhile to spend the weekend in a SUAREZ course under Randy's instruction.

I'd also like to give a "Bravo Zulu" well done to intel expert Trey for his classroom lectures on the modern history and psychology of terrorism. Likewise to police officers Jeff and Ken, who lent great insight and realism into the training. There's simply no substitute during role-playing exercises for having actual LE personnel playing the part of police responders. As just one example, when Jeff (who had in earlier Force-on-Force active shooter scenarios been wearing his uniform shirt with badge) switched clothing and entered a "hot scene" in plain clothes without badge or police ID (as if he were a plainclothes/undercover officer or off-duty responder), it threw a real puzzle into the drill: was he a genuine policeman or was he a terrorist calling out "Police" as a ruse? In a classroom discussion, it seems easy to sort that sort of issue out, but in the chaos of the training exercise, with airsoft pellets flying and participants scrambling for the exits or cover, it proved to be an extraordinarily difficult "shoot/don't shoot" problem.

Again, to echo Thomas: The live-fire instruction was run with faultless attention to range safety; yet, given the dynamic nature of this training, the exercises never felt "stilted" or unrealistic. There was plenty of live-fire shooting to work on improving skills. And I believe everyone in the class felt satisfied with the amount of hand-to-hand combatives training and airsoft force-on-force work that Randy offered. In fact, this course seemed to press three day's worth of material into two (extended) day's training.

After every one of Randy's courses, I come home tired (but it's that's good sort of tired feeling), a bit bruised from being stabbed with practice knives or shot with airsoft pellets, and this time with a sore nose after Randy demoed a head butt to my face...but hey...that's why we do this training, right? Better to see the bad stuff in (controlled but realistic) simulations before encountering violence for real.

I most highly recommend SUAREZ INT'L training and instructor Randy Harris.

[ZeroTA]

Like many other classes, there is a mountain of info to process in two days. Randy even stated, and I think we all agreed, that this could easily be a three or even four day class. Nothing was breezed over or skipped, there's just a lot of info here. Of course the purpose of the disarms, FOF, and shooting is not to make you an expert in one day, but to give you a foundation of skills to go practice and enhance.

Class started with the usual intros, waivers, and safety routines. Everyone seemed familiar enough with their weapons, so no worries there.

Due to weather Randy switched our routine and we shot first to try and beat the rain; ironically enough it poured anyway, then cleared up when we broke for lunch and listened to Trey's lecture for the remainder of the day.

Day 1 take-aways:
Good sights are a must for longer distances. I ran a 19 with crappy stock sights. I do have an RMR'ed 19 but it had teething issues and while I brought it, I opted not to use it. In retrospect I probably should have tried it anyway.

Headshots! Randy had us (try to) make headshots out to 25 yds. I suspect we would have stretched it further had everyone been able to keep up; some of us (myself included) couldn't so it would've been sending ammo downrange and hoping for the best. But it did make us all aware of our personal limits, and the need to practice a whole lot more. Due to the nature of the other classes I've had, most of my training is geared towards fast COM hits, but due to armor and/or explosives you may need to shoot them in the eye.

Day two started with some basic strikes and defenses, and moved to knife and then gun disarms. I wish we could have practiced that more, but time was a concern; but once again when you know the basics, it's on you to find somebody to practice with.

We then moved on to more shooting with hostage targets, which just reinforced what we practiced the day before. Also briefly discussed and practiced "anchor shots", and then ran a drill where a shooter would fire 1 round through an AK then reload; the other shooter had to hit a steel plate as many times as possible before the AK shooter could reload and fire another round. This showed that if you pay attention, you've got a pretty good window to hose this guy down.

Another excellent lecture by Trey, then on to FOF. Most scenarios were a classroom setting, and we were assigned various roles unknown to other students. Some we "won", some we lost, but either way we analyzed each one afterwards to see why things unfolded the way they did and what we could've/should've done differently. If you've never done any FOF scenarios, it really shows how things can turn to total chaos in seconds. It also helped to have real cops role-play as themselves to make it much more realistic.

"Diplomas" were then handed out, the weekend was reviewed, and we said our goodbyes to new and old friends.

Day 2 takeaways:

Find somebody to practice sparring with. I don't do this as much as I should. And I know I should.

Active shooter situations turn into a s***storm in a hurry. And sometimes you're just SOL and get shot first.

I haven't even covered Trey's lectures. Very informative and well put together. I will make a separate post in those later.

Thanks to Randy and Trey for instructing, Jeff for hosting, and the officer who stuck around for FOF. It was another great weekend of training and like every other class I've had, I would recommend it.

[Forklift]

I think others have summed it up better than I can, so I'll just say it was well worth the time and money it took to get there (8 hours drive for me). Those involved were top notch, the information presented was very informative and well presented.

It was, by far, the best class I've taken so far, everything, from the location to the instructors were all top notch, and a great group of guys as well.

Thanks Randy, well done.

[Randy Harris]

Thanks guys. This class is a lot of material to cover in two days but we feel like students leave class with a functional package of skills and a road map of what skills they need to work on. The FOF evolutions are critical to get you some practice applying both the hard skills and decision making under the stress of ambiguous and open ended scenarios....when they heard a long and completely unexpected burst of 5.56 blanks you could see the adrenaline dump in some folks..... That is what you need to experience in a class before it is real.

[vlazlow]

Trey here,

I want to thank everyone who attended the TASI course thislast weekend. I really love teaching anddiscussing the various aspects of terrorism and its motivators with people whoare motivated to learn!

If you remember, we discussed the possible increase ofsimple terrorist attacks by self-radicalized lone wolfs using simple weaponsand tactics here in the US. Strangely,we saw that very type of knife attack in Roanoke, Virginia on Saturday.

Always be aware and be prepared to use the skills you have acquiredif the need arises!