…because I throw like a girl.

Another day (late night), another barricaded gunman. Story is the same- man gets drunk/stoned/forgets his meds, rants at the family, pulls a gun and threatens them, they manage to escape, he holes up in the house threatening to kill anyone who comes through the door. Seriously, almost every barricaded gunman call I’ve been on starts like this, and usually occurs at the worst times… middle of the night, raining, really cold or really hot. In this case, I was still getting over a nasty head cold; stuffed up and not firing on all cylinders yet. But when the phone rings at 11pm and the caller ID is the 911 center, you know what it is. You groan, and bitch, and curse fate; and then answer it to see what it is this time.

I arrived on the scene and get the story. Yeah, drunk guy; yeah, long history of problems with anger and the police; yeah, family ran out and called the cops. No idea if he’s still in the house; he hasn’t answered the phone or the bullhorn or shown himself. It’s a one story with a full, unfinished basement, and he’s armed with a rifle, the family says. We gather around the swat truck and hash out an operations order. Now, I’m still slightly dizzy from the congestion and really not feeling very convivial, so this is more of a chore than usual; but we put together a workable plan.

Plan is: Go through the unlocked front door, clear the living area and kitchen, hold on the narrow hallway to the bedrooms. He was last seen in the bedroom, so we’re expecting him to be there; but no one wants to stare down a rifle easily capable of zipping through our body armor. So, before clearing the bedrooms, we plan to toss a flash-bang down the hallway and clear the rooms, holding on the stairs to the basement. Then another banger down the stairs and clear the basement.

Flash-bangs, more properly known as “noise-light distractions devices” (but what an ungainly mouthful), are designed to disrupt that OODA cycle we mentioned in an earlier post. They produce an 8 million candela flash, a 170 decibel bang, and a nice bit of overpressure. You feel a good hard thump in the chest, your ears are ringing (and in some cases subject to vertigo from inner ear imbalance), and you’ve got nothing but a huge orange spot in front of your eyes. Even if you’re expecting it, it’s quite disorienting, and gives a tactical team a few precious seconds to get in and get the person controlled. They’ve got a 1.5 to 2 second fuse, so there’s very little time from their appearance to their performance.

So, the initial entry goes fine. Through the front door, kitchen and living area cleared in seconds, team stacked on the hallway. I tug a CTS flashbang from my vest and line up for the underhanded lob into the hallway.

…except there’s a team member in my way. I move to the side, intending to lob it to his right into the hall. Pull pin, swing back, lob!

Ohhhhh, shit. My lob is too far to the right, and the bang lands on top of a bookshelf. I cry out “Short!!”-meaning a short throw, the bang is still in the room with us- and turn my back to it. The rest of the team doesn’t react to this in time.

KA-BLAAAAAM! We’ve all been exposed to flash-bangs before- in fact, our training includes everyone holding hands in a circle, eyes open, while a banger is dropped in the middle- so we know what they do and what to expect. But it’s still a shock when it happens in front of you. There goes our OODA cycle. As I had turned my back, I missed the brunt of it and turned to find the team staggering backwards. Crap. “Gogogo!” I shout and start shoving people down the hallway. Off they go, staggering like the crowd leaving a bar at closing time, bouncing off the doorframes and into the rooms.

Of course, my toss down the stairway was textbook perfect, and of course, the guy wasn’t there. He’d slipped out the back door before the first unit arrived.

Why was I never picked first for stickball, again?