A group of police officers, kitted out for a day of shooting, sit silently in a tin-roofed gun range. A portable CD player plays a recording of the desperate cries of one of their colleagues fighting for his life. The range instructor, Tony Semanant, a former Marine and SWAT operator, clad in olive drab, then tells his students the purpose of the next three days of intensive training: “You’re fucking going home at night to your fucking family,” he says.
Suddenly, the trainees, who are being filmed as part of a promotional video for RealWorld Tactical, a Florida-based training and gear outfit, explode into action. Quick cuts show officers shooting AR-15s through car windshields, shooting from inside vehicles, sparring multiple opponents, and carrying each other under the cover of smoke. “I’m here because I don’t want to be a statistic,” says one participant to the camera.
RealWorld Tactical’s training regimen is the embodiment of the “warrior” culture that permeates American law enforcement. It preaches that police work is inherently violent, and that officers represent the last opportunity for law and order in an increasingly dangerous society. In this world, police are alone, even reviled by the public — their actions misunderstood and the threats they face underappreciated.
“They are taught that they live in an intensely hostile world. A world that is, quite literally, gunning for them,” writes Seth Stoughton, a law professor and former police officer, in a pieceWhile the “warrior” narrative has existed in law enforcement circles for decades, it has intensified in recent years, driven by the flood of
This needs to end. Ive know a couple of cops who are like this; a Rambo type rebel. Thank god somebody's finaly seeing this for the evil it is.