[Jhp147]

For Rob and the guys discussing it from the angle of who will pick up and go, and who is not sharp enough: I am betting that your observations back this up. At every class I attended or taught, we all discussed the fact that there are some folks that will naturally take the initiative when the balloon goes up. There are some folks that are good "hands," and will quickly jump behind the guy that starts organizing the response and making assignments. There are some folks that will be more than willing to "establish a command post, " direct traffic, or maybe even go for Gatorade. Observation of the Simunitions part of the training usually confirms our suspicions of who will take which role. The ones we all suspected will be better "Gatorade getters" were the ones that committed gross errors and who couldn't carry out a simple task assignment or function under no more stress than a Simunition shoot-out. The good thing is, we all know from day to day work who to take in, and the ones you don't want to will be the last ones there, anyway. Conciously or subconciously, most folks (I know, not all) know their limitations. Their beat buddies know them even if they don't.
There is really no answer for the guys in the smaller agencies that are SOS-NBA (single officer squad car, no back up available). The philosophy we teach is "do the best you can with what you got 'cause that's all you got." Then, teach them how.