Firearms, Lethal Force Explained At Citizen Police Academy

By Andrew Gorosko

Police firearms instructors described the nature, operation, and use of lethal weapons in law enforcement to residents attending a recent session of Citizen Police Academy.

At the April 29 talk at the town’s Multipurpose Center, police officers Steve Ketchum and Phil Hynes explained the distinctions between the various lethal weapons used, and the circumstances under which police are authorized to employ lethal force as a method of last resort in law enforcement. Officer Joseph Joudy is the police department’s other firearms instructor.

Officer Ketchum is the school resource officer at Newtown High School; Officer Hynes is a patrolman; Officer Joudy is a detective.

Citizen Police Academy is a free course that the police department offers to the general public annually. Sergeant Chris Vanghele is the coordinator. The course provides a broad explanation of law enforcement and criminal justice issues.

At the session, the officers demonstrated the police department’s service sidearm — a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol. They also displayed the conventional pump-action shotguns carried by police, as well a specialized sniper rifle.

Outdoors, the officers demonstrated the use of a specialized shotgun that is used to deliver rounds of “less-than-lethal” force in cases where temporarily disabling a person by force from a distance is the desired goal. That shotgun discharges “beanbag loads,” not the rifled slugs that typically are used in police shotguns. The limited-range beanbag loads are available in low-, medium-, and high-powered versions.

Such less-than-lethal weapons may only be used in cases where lethal force would otherwise be allowed.

Officer Ketchum provided course participants a detailed talk on police’s use of physical force in law enforcement, with an emphasis on the use of deadly physical force. He explained cases in which the use of physical force is considered justifiable and does not constitute a crime.

Officer Hynes described the local police’s service sidearm, explaining the weapon’s mechanism and its mechanical action while in use.

Officer Hynes said that when upgrading their pistols in the future, police may switch to a .45-caliber Glock pistol, which is a more powerful weapon than the .40-caliber pistol now in use. Having larger diameter rounds in firearms makes them more effective weapons, he said. Police formerly used 9-millimeter Glock sidearms.

Handguns are machines and machines experience wear, Officer Hynes said in explaining the value of sidearm maintenance.

Officer Hynes described distinctions between various physical postures that police assume while dealing with the public, in the context of maintaining a defensive position to limit police’s potential injury.

The patrolman also described various techniques for holding and aiming weapons, in terms of achieving the desired firepower result in a given situation. Specific techniques may be used to enhance accuracy, he said.

Police are rigorously trained to neutralize their instinctive physical reactions, which may be potentially harmful to them, in gunfire situations, he said.

Officer Ketchum displayed a standard firearms target used by police in learning where to aim their weapons when firing at people. The target contains a frontal view of a thuggish male who is squarely pointing a revolver at the viewer.

Besides the session on lethal force, the ten-session Citizen Police Academy addresses a broad range of topics, including police hiring, police training, field training, domestic violence, crime prevention, community policing, the use of force, defensive tactics, specialized weapons, patrol work, high-speed chases, motor vehicle stops, driving under the influence, alcohol breath testing, criminal law, the laws of arrest, search and seizure, fingerprinting, juvenile law, school law, juvenile investigations, forensics, detective work, criminal investigations, crime scenes, drug investigations, and evidence collection, among others.