Live Rounds Avoided In Most Citizen Police Academy Drills

Some Wisconsin law enforcement agencies are saying they avoid having live weapons during citizen police academies to avoid potentially deadly accidents.

Tom Snyder, a Madison Police Department training captain, said the recent accidental police shooting of a Florida woman during a citizen training exercise should never have happened and could have been prevented.

Madison police never use duty weapons in any demonstrations that are capable of firing a live round during their 10-week citizen police academy, Snyder said.

“The training weapons that we use are bright blue in color,” he said. “They look different than regular handguns. They’re nonlethal.”

If service weapons are used, law enforcement changes out the barrels to shoot marking cartridges, which are fake ammunition that leave a colored-mark upon impact, Marathon County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Frank Hanousek said.

“A regular round will not fit in them,” Hanousek said of the different barrels. “Other training scenarios that we do, we use Airsoft weapons.”

Despite what’s used for training, law enforcement said weapons are triple-checked by multiple people to ensure safety.

In La Crosse, Officer Brooke Pataska said live firearms training is part of the department’s citizen police academy. But, everyone goes through a safety course before firing a weapon.

“Before we go through the training … We check our gun (and) take the magazine out,” Pataska said. “Then, we hand it to the firearms instructor. They check it to make sure it’s empty so we’re not just going off of one person.”

Pataska said weapons are checked before and after people use firearms at the range. She adds that only one or two people are allowed into the range with an instructor at a time.

Snyder said the department is continuously reviewing policies and procedures on how to run its citizen trainings. But, it’s unlikely any changes would take place as a result of the incident in Florida, where Mary Knowlton was killed by Punta Gorda officer Lee Coel during a civilian police drill, he said. The gun used in the role-playing scenario was thought to contain blanks as the officer unknowingly fired live rounds during the exercise.