Patrol officers should regularly take part in practical shooting drills that balance speed and accuracy. Too often dynamic drills are reserved for tactical officers when patrol shootings frequently involve more movement and variables than tactical shootings. See the table for comparisons between patrol and tactical shootings.  

Training that incorporates aggressive movement to a shooting position and shooting while moving—particularly while moving backward—should be a fundamental component of patrol officer firearms training. Traditional qualification and marksmanship courses often emphasize shooting from a stationary position, but the Officer Performance Project (OPP) data suggests that this does not adequately represent the demands of many actual patrol shootings.

Only 31% of the patrol officer incidents in the OPP dataset involved a “stand-and-deliver” type of shooting. In contrast, 69% involved officers either running to a shooting position, shooting while moving, or both. Backward movement was particularly common.

These findings have direct implications for firearms training. Taking a few steps laterally during a qualification course does not necessarily reproduce the physical and performance demands of an officer-involved shooting. The OPP data indicates that officers frequently must move rapidly to a shooting position, manage their firearm while moving, maintain accuracy while retreating, and perform under time pressure.

The Dynamic Marksmanship Assessment Drills (DMAD) developed by Sierra One Training Objectives provide a practical connection between these observed performance demands and training. The “Retreating,” “Shooting on the Move,” and “Foot Pursuit” drills incorporate several of the movement patterns identified in the OPP patrol dataset.

This creates a straightforward data-to-training connection:

Actual incident data → identification of recurring performance demands → training that deliberately develops and assesses those demands.

DMAD drills also use Hit Factor scoring (Points ÷ Time = Hit Factor), providing a quantitative method for evaluating both accuracy and speed. This allows instructors to establish performance benchmarks and measure development over time.

The objective is not simply to make officers shoot faster. It is to determine whether they can maintain effective marksmanship while performing the types of movement identified in actual incidents.

The DMAD drills can be requested [here] .

During almost all OIS’s, officers are multi-tasking just prior to shooting. Live-fire training should include officer’s running and/or giving verbal commands prior to firing shoots. Especially for patrol officers. Officers can safely run on the range during live-fire with their weapons in hand. Police work requires officers to run with loaded firearms, and the data shows this is a common pre-shooting activity for patrol officers.

Verbal commands (48%), perimeter (42%), and running (28%) were the top three pre-shooting activities for police officers. There was a major difference patrol officers and tactical officers. Patrol officer gave verbal commands 55% of the time and ran 44% of the time just prior to firing rounds. Tactical officers’ most common pre-shooting activity was perimeter—which is standing in one spot and responding to what a subject does. This is similar to traditional marksmanship training and most qualifications.  

Live-fire training should spend adequate time with officers starting with their handgun in hand and quickly achieving hits on target (less than 2 seconds). Officers should develop a strong “index,” from the holster and carry positions such as sul.

An “index” is the ability to automatically aim your weapon at a desired point.

In 79% of the OIS’s where an officer used their handgun, the officer already had their weapon unholstered prior to the shooting. The officers did not have to draw and immediately shoot.

Firearms and use of force training should focus on team skills such as communication, movement, and weapon handling in environments beyond the “flat range.”  This is also true for patrol officers.

92% of the OIS’s had more than one officer on scene when shots were fired. Even when SWAT OIS’s were removed from the data, 88% of patrol OIS’s had more than one officer on scene.

Agencies should consider if the resources spent on patrol shotguns and tactical subguns, to include the equipment costs and training time, justify the usefulness of of these weapons.

No shotguns were used by any of the 106 officers in data set. One officer used a subgun for an outdoor incident over 100 feet.

One duty assignment listed as “other” involved a uniformed court bailiff using a semi-automatic handgun.