Following a string of high-profile police-involved shootings that drew intense national scrutiny in 2014, use-of-force instructors with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office are pushing back on a question they say misunderstands how law enforcement training actually works: why don’t officers just shoot to wound rather than kill?
Cpl. David Smith, who helps oversee training at the Sheriff’s Office firing range near Big Creek, said the question ignores the reality of how quickly violent encounters unfold and how firearms training is structured nationwide, not just in Mobile County.
“We teach deputies and police officers to shoot to stop, not necessarily shoot to kill,” Smith said, adding that officers are trained to aim for center mass — the torso — because it represents the largest and most reliable target during a high-stress encounter. Intentionally aiming for an arm or leg, he said, simply is not realistic when officers must draw, aim and fire within seconds while a threat is moving toward them or a bystander.
During a demonstration exercise using training ammunition, Smith and fellow instructor Cpl. Joe Mahoney simulated a physical confrontation to show how quickly a situation can escalate once a subject charges an officer. Even with both participants aware they were in a training scenario, most of the simulated shots landed on extremities rather than a targeted center-mass hit, reinforcing the instructors’ point that precision marksmanship under real-world stress is far more difficult than television and film often suggest.
“It’s Hollywood, it’s not reality,” Smith said.
Both instructors declined to weigh in on specific national cases that had fueled the broader debate over police use of force that year, saying they were not present for those incidents and could not speak to details they hadn’t personally reviewed. But Mahoney said building better relationships between deputies and the communities they serve is critical to preventing the kind of mistrust that can follow a controversial shooting elsewhere in the country.
“It goes back to just reconnecting with our communities and letting them know that we’re there for them,” Mahoney said, adding that the vast majority of law enforcement officers are simply trying to do their jobs safely and get home to their families at the end of a shift.
The training session offered a rare look inside how Mobile County’s Sheriff’s Office prepares deputies for split-second, high-stakes decisions — and why the agency believes public perceptions of those decisions often don’t match the split-second reality officers face on the ground.