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January 6, 2012

Increase in police ambushes alarms local department

Mankato Department of Public Safety considering specialized training

By Dan Nienaber Free Press Staff Writer

MANKATO — A Lake City police officer’s funeral, recent headlines about an ambush of six police officers in Utah and numbing statistics of police shootings, overall, in 2011 have Matt Westermayer considering training options.

Mankato’s deputy public safety director wore a black band over his police badge Friday, a sign of mourning many Minnesota officers are using to show respect for Lake City police officer Shawn Schneider.

 Schneider was shot in the head Dec. 19 while helping a 17-year-old girl escape from a domestic dispute. He died as a result of that injury Dec. 30.

While talking about plans to send several uniformed officers and two squad cars to join about 1,500 officers in today’s funeral procession for Schneider, Westermayer also noted statistics released recently by researchers with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. They showed that for the first time in 14 years more officers were killed in shooting incidents than traffic incidents.

Of the 173 officers killed in 2011, 68 of them died as a result of gunfire incidents. There were 64 officers killed in traffic-related incidents, and the remaining 41 officers died of health and other physical-related causes while in the line of duty, the report said.

Westermayer said Mankato has not had an officer killed in the line of duty — and he wants to keep it that way. There have been several close calls in the past several years.

Mankato officers train regularly to learn ways to best protect themselves while responding to incidents where they suspect guns are involved. They don’t have specific training, however, for ambush situations, which also increased in 2011, Westermayer said.

“Statistically, attacks on officers are up,” he said. “We train for that, what we want to look at is training for ambushes.

“The ambush numbers are up significantly, so we have to respond to that. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for awhile.”

There were 12 police officers killed in ambushes last year compared to five in 2010, a 140 percent increase. Barely into 2012, a Utah police officer was killed and five others were injured Wednesday when they were ambushed during a drug raid. Investigators were still trying to determine Friday whether the officers inadvertently shot at each other during the raid.

In both the Lake City incident and the ambush in Utah, the suspects were military veterans with firearms training. The shooter in Lake City, who killed himself during a standoff, was an Iraq veteran. The Utah shooter was an Army communications specialist.

Westermayer said his training plans are still in the “preliminary stages.” He still needs to determine the costs and what the specific differences are between the ambush training and other types of firearms training.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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