For all its chaos, the stereotypical active shooter situation is fairly straightforward: There’s a bad guy killing people, and the good guys need to close with him and stop him as quickly as possible. The events of November 2008 in the Indian city of Mumbai, however, showed us another, complex, kind of active shooter event and Mike takes a look at the takeaways from those fateful days.

The Mumbai incident, perpetrated by a squad of ten terrorists who had been through a rigorous selection and training process, introduced multiple novel problems worth considering. What happens when there are multiple shooters at different scenes simultaneously? When they have access to serious arms, including grenades, possibly provided by a foreign actor? When they use structure fires as a weapon? When they have outside command-and-control monitoring the news and communicating with the shooters via cell phone? These and other complications inherent in an attack like this are examined in this episode.

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There are people who believe that inserting the police in a situation makes things worse. Are they right? In this solo episode from Mike, he looks at the perils of the “fear biter” and the negative effects of an unmanaged fight or flight response on decision making skills. Stress management is important, and it can’t be learned in a PowerPoint class.

The most notorious manifestation of this phenomenon is the “’Oh Sh*t!’ Bang”, where a scared or startled cop results in a lawful-but-awful shooting that might have been avoided by better stress management and more confidence in the officer’s physical skills. However, Mike also explains the many other places that the poorly managed limbic response can rear its ugly head: Bad communication in stressful situations, indecision or half-decisions that allow a developing situation to get much worse, and more.

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America's largest mass killer attack revisited by retired LVMPD Lt. Will Huddler and Sgt. Ashton Packe, who share their accounts of the Route 91 Country Music Festival shooting with audio and video from the event. Lessons learned for first responders, patrol officers, tactical operators, and public safety commanders and leadership.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/mVfirxD7XYY

This bonus episode is brought to you exclusively by BRINC Drones www.brincdrones.com

Whether it’s a former significant other who just won’t accept the end of a relationship, or a semi-stranger from the internet who imagines a relationship where there never was one, dealing with a stalker can be a complex, stressful, and even dangerous problem. In this episode Jim and Mike take a deep dive into recognizing, countering, and ultimately prevailing against a problem stalker.

Stalking is a problem that often isn’t recognized until it’s well out of hand, and advice from friends and relatives is often limited to platitudes about restraining orders or buying a gun. Our hosts take a look at the nuts and bolts of the problem with an eye to strategy and the recognition that legal solutions can be frustratingly time consuming.

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In a crossover episode of Tactical Tangents, Mike sits down with Danimal of The Thin Brewed Line to talk about setting up a training program to keep officers alive on the streets…and in the training environment. In a dangerous profession, the danger shouldn’t be coming from inside the program!

Inspired by a tragic story of another preventable training fatality, Mike and Dan go over what’s needed to build a training program that resists complacency and challenges officers with pressure tested scenarios while avoiding the dreaded mindset of “It can never happen here!” Training to be adaptable, getting buy-in for quality training from superiors, and building a sustainable program that can be passed on to the next generation are all covered in this wide-ranging discussion.

Links: Thin Brewed Line Podcast  Filthy Pirate Coffee Training at the Speed of Life by Kenneth Murray

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What are we doing here and why are we doing it? With an assist from Mike, Jim lays out the secret; the keys to the whole mission of Tactical Tangents. These are the key concepts to helping the Doers do things better in the tactical world, whether military, law enforcement, or general personal defense.

There are recurring concepts here at Tactical Tangents that are core to our mission, and this episode serves as a sort of Cliff’s Notes to lay them out for you, the listener. Understanding how innovation drives ideas, the importance of good decision-making, practicing and testing tactics and soft skills under pressure and the importance of repetition in building proficiency are covered, as well as the applicability of Boyd’s decision cycle from the strategic level down to that of personal tactics.

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It’s easy to find yourself thrust into a position where others regard you as an ”expert”, but what really constitutes expertise? Do you have it? Can it be acquired? When will you feel like you have it? (And why feeling like an expert should be a warning sign…) What makes an expert? Are you one? Do your friends or your employer consider you one? How does one go about seeking expertise? Relatedly, it’s a big and confusing internet out there and every day you are confronted with people who claim to be experts. Jim and Mike have some tips for separating the expert wheat from the poser chaff, especially when that purported expert is in the mirror.

Links:

Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin  The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin  Research study How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simmons  From Beginner to Expert by Patricia Benner 

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A lone gunman killed 5 Dallas police officers and wounded several others in this 2016 attack following a series of contested officer involved shootings throughout the country. Lessons include ambush and counter-ambush tactics, the militarization of law enforcement, and a use of a bomb robot rigged with explosives to subdue the attacker. 

Link: Fire and movement among the pillars YouTube video

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In this short episode, Jim introduces the idea of layering safety and security to “trap errors” and mitigate the risk of human error. We want to help you do dangerous jobs safely.

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School Shootings seem to be on the rise, is gun control the answer? How many red flags does someone have to show before you intervene? Let’s look at the evidence and learn from the recent cases like Parkland and Uvalde. Links: A Study of the Pre-Attack Behaviors of Active Shooters in the US ALERRT Active Attack Data Why Meadow Died by Andrew Pollack and Max Eden

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