New York Law Enforcement Expo 2010

The 4th Annual New York Law Enforcement Expo wrapped up today. It was another great year with about 100 exhibitors and some great training presentations.

The NYLE Expo is a unique event that caters directly to the specific needs of urban police officers and agencies. Each year, I have catered my presentation topic to this audience in order to address specific concerns or proactively address ways to deal with their largest problems in the training arena.

Among the vendors present, some of the stand outs for me this year were the new Chevy Caprice  Police Patrol Vehicle, Tactical Medical Pack’s efficiently prepared Tac-Pak personal kits and Cold Fire’s personal extinguishers which have packaged the same technology used by NASCAR emergency response teams in an convenient to carry can.

Of course, for me, the Expo is about an opportunity to teach and train not just the latest gadgets. This year, my presentation was titled “Proactive Training for Patrol Officers” and dealt with trying to maximize the value of the limited training time that agencies allot to patrolmen and encourage each individual officer to look for ways to find short periods of time to conduct personal training and increase their own preparation. A simple “shift meeting roleplay” approach to discussing recent use of force incidents and a way to break down a one hour training session to efficiently cover 3 related skills were shared and a fair amount of time was spent pointing out ways that individual officers can increase their preparedness in short 5 or 10 minute blocks. The latter portion of the presentation was heavily inspired by the ideas the Ken Murray has been sharing with me about his upcoming book Ten Minute Warrior.

Taking 3 minutes to Role Play an incident will have much more impact than simply mentioning it at a shift meeting.

Sonny Mayo was a newcomer to the conference this year and he lead two very hands-on sessions dealing with practical response to a close quarters knife attack. Sonny stressed gross motor skills and fighting to a sidearm in his course and both sessions were very well received.

Working with Sonny Mayo during his presentation on Wednesday.

Sykes Security, who have also been part of the Expo since it began, shared a block of informatoin on Disguised and Concealed Weapons during the afternoon. This block helped professional security and law enforcement learn to look for the potential of a weapon instead of just preparing to key in on the silhouette of a gun or knife in our training.

Dr. Robert Smith rounded out the presentations with another spin on his Human Weapon System concepts. Dr. Smith is one of the incredibly knowledgeable and articulate speakers that can give the same presentation ten times, ten different ways for ten different audiences and always provide great information without having to rely on a handout or a powerpoint. Dr. Smith focuses on educating armed professionals about how the body really works naturally and how to integrate those facts into their training, technique selection

Dr. Robert smith combined lecture with practical demos during his Human Weapon System presentation.

and fitness.

The NYLE Expo is a great opportunity to meet with professionals in the NYPD and surrounding agencies who, honestly, are not often seen at other conferences or in outside courses because of their workload and the vast resources that they have locally. Getting to interact, exchange ideas and discuss future training opportunities is always a great thing. If you are involved in Law Enforcement, as a vendor, trainer or working officer, consider putting it on your list for 2011!

-RJP