This is a really good thread.
IMHO. 
Following the tangent about your post-shooting contact with LE officials:
When Iāve run FOF training in the past, we always try to incorporate this into scenarios. All too often, instructors think of FOF as practicing the fight and nothing else. Ideally, I like to have an experienced LEO as a RP who can respond to the scene and deal with the āshooterā in a realistic manner. You have to deal with the aftermath.
I actually have on tape somewhere a shooter who, after spending hours in a classroom being told not to give the police details until heād spoken with an attorney, suffers immediate diarrhea of the mouth when the cop shows up. Heās desperate to explain himself, justify what he did, make the cop understand that āIām the good guy, listen to what I did!ā Eventually, the officer tries to get him to shut up but the student keeps going. Finally, the officer asks, āWhat are you supposed to do when a cop questions you after a shooting?ā ā¦ and without missing a beat, the student responds, ātell him Iāll explain everything after I speak to my lawy ā¦ oh, damn.ā
Todd-
When we do FoF, we do an immediate de-brief, get the students to articulate why or why not before they go on.
Weāve considered having them write reports on the training side - but that would be for hands on, impact, etc - not a use of deadly physical force - as they will not write if they shoot under our protocal.
This is an area where, fortunately, most of us are continuing to evolve.
EG ā just my opinion, but I think the most important thing is to continue the scenario the way it would work out in real life. The incident is going to start before shots are fired and itās certainly going to continue until well after shots are fired. It doesnāt have to last for three hours, but play out the 10-15 minutes of ārealityā after the shooting to make sure the student gets all of the post-shooting rituals handled.
Of course, this all depends on time and resources, not to mention what your goals and responsibilities are as an instructor.
Another example: I had a student once who learned in one FOF scenario that carrying a gun was simply not for him. Heād gone through previous training before taking my class, and then spent most of a weekend practicing his shooting skills with no indication that heād have a problem under stress. But his first run through a scenario, he completely flipped out. He shot both RPs (the armed one who jumped out and scared him, and the unarmed one standing in the middle of the room with a television in his hands), the instructor/handler, the camerman, and then when the police officer walked through the front door responding to the shooting, he opened up on the cop, too. Having a police officer show up at the end was critical to his learning, because it didnāt really hit home with him what a frak-up heād been until he was trading shots with a guy in uniform & badge.
Not every scenario needs to be three hours long, but at least once in a while the students should deal with the aftermath. Weāve all heard stories of guys who were fine throughout the shooting itself but then got crushed emotionally or mentally by that aftermath.
Certainly take my advice with a grain of salt. Iāve never been in a gunfight, been a cop, or been in the military. But if nothing else, you might be surprised at how your students react the first time you put them through the post-shooting griller.
I appreciate everyoneās input on this, as it has turned out to be an informative thread for me.
Now get on out there and SHOOT SOMEBODY!! 
Just kidding!
One thing to keep in mindā¦ There is another side to training that a lot of folks might over look. When a LEO shoots and kills someone, it is still homicide, hopefully it is found to be lawful homicide.
Before one of my students is allowed to go through any of the DT or Tac classes, they MUST sit through Use of Force and Constitutional Law/Rights; then (and only then) can I say that a UoF decision is tempered by thorough training.
-watch what you say on the internet; it can come back to haunt you
Good point, Hawkeye. With respect, Iād suggest that ālocal area and lawsā arenāt necessarily static ā that is, political and prosecutorial climates are dynamic, even with no change in ZIP and criminal codes.
So in addition to having a fix on location, itās also prudent to pay attention to events ā local, regional, nationalā¦
This is from a rookie deputyāIāll consider myself a rookie for another 4 years at leastāand mildly experienced lawyer who reads a lot of UOF court cases.
Sure, training can be used against you. If the media gets wind of it, wherever you got trained will become a right-wing-radical-anti-government-separatist-militia-semiautomatic-machine-gun-assault-pistol outfit. Then again, once in awhile the media takes the citizenās side, e.g., the worst thing they called Randy Weaver was a āwhite separatistā AFTER Ruby Ridge. Funny how itās GOOD when law enforcement takes plenty of training in UOF, but BAD when non-LE citizens do the same. Know where to find your instructors so you can subpoena them to testify if you need them. In fact, it occurs to me that one criterion for picking an instructor is, would this be the kind of person I would want to testify for me in a trial for my life? And, does this instructor have the background necessary to qualify as an expert witness? The good names we all know here are most likely going to meet spec in these areas.
Mas Ayoob relates in a recent gunrag article that carrying extra ammo can be used against you, and claims that a guy in NY state got convicted for pretty much that reason. Personally, I think something was left out of that story, a lotta something. IāM fer sher not going to stop carrying reloads. In fact, ask an experienced LEO how many illegally carried guns theyāve found on people, dozens or hundreds, and then how many reloads accompanied those guns, few to none. So Iād argue that not carrying reloads is a mark of the street hood, not the trained and responsible gunbearer.
Firing more shots than ānecessaryā can be used against you. The second homicide case I got, back when I used to do defense work, was a guy whose new girlfriend had just broken up with a very big, very mean, very abusive boyfriend. One evening my guy and this girl were in the bingo parlor and ex-BF busts in. Girlfriend retrieves her Condition III .380 Makarov from her bingo bag, racks the slide, and shoots ex-BF twice. My guy, dissatisfied with the results, grabbed the Mak from her and shot him six more times. Granted, my guy had felony priors, and ex-BF turned out to be unarmed, but I thought my guy should have gotten a medal for wasting that fool. But this was in Broward County, Florida, where the prosecutors stay elected by throwing as many persons of color in prison as they can for as long as they can. Girlfriend pleaded to manslaughter and has long since come home from prison. My guy went to trial with a defense lawyer who totally didnāt understand the role of the firearm in defense of self and others, didnāt object to the stateās expert testifying that āstopping powerā is the power to stop somebody dead in their tracks and that shooting 8 times was way too much. The all-white jury convicted him of murder two and heās down for life. He came to me after his direct appeals were exhausted and I tried postconviction motions to get him a new trial, but no dice. And Iām not sure he foreseeably violated ādonāt go to stupid places, associate with stupid people, or do stupid thingsā rule. What would have helped him was a little more knowledgeable trial lawyer.
Rather than keeping a lawyer on retainer, which to me means you pay them a deposit ready to use, all you need to do is know in advance a lawyer or two in your area who is both a gun person and a criminal defender and/or police lawyer. We have a couple of these in my area, and the other one is Mike McGuinness, very well known for representing good guys as well as bad ones. As far as the law of your jurisdiction goes, any state I know of will let you use reasonable force to defend yourself or third persons against reasonably believed threats of death or serious injury, or violent felony. You may have different duties of retreat if youāre not in your own home, or different levels of force allowed to make a citizenās arrest (here in NC we donāt have citizenās arrest, just detention for certain serious crimes, and even then itās very iffy), and different ideas of using force against somebody whoās fleeing but still poses a clear and present danger of harming innocent people, such as an armed robber whoās still armed as he runs away.
Above all, as they say in the Bronx, āyiz gotta ah-TIC-ya-late,ā that is, explain why you did what you did, so that any reasonable person must agree with what you did. The most recent justifiable shooting case, LE or not, in my county that Iām aware of was in 2002. The articulable reason for our deputy to shoot the guy was pretty simple: āI got a report that somebody in a vehicle of the same make and model and color as the one in front of me had just robbed a post office. When I activated my emergency lights, the vehicle pulled over and stopped. I had just stopped behind the vehicle when the driver jumped out and ran back toward me, firing a handgun at me, so I drew my service sidearm and fired at him.ā Our deputy got hit in the head but kept fighting and wounded the suspect to where he didnāt shoot any more at our deputy. The robber is doing 40 years at least, while our deputy came back to full duty after a year, received numerous decorations and a promotion, and is now the lieutenant I work for. I havenāt asked him about post-shooting trauma and all that, but he has said he will have NO problem whatsoever about shooting anybody else who tries anything remotely like that. Interestingly enough, he doesnāt wear a vest, and neither does another deputy who was shot in the abdomen year before last. They both say a vest would have done them no good, since they got hit where the vest wasnāt. Well okay, but I for one always wear a vest when in uniform!
More later, maybe, when I think of more. Iām not the worldās expert by any means, just somebody who reads a lot stuff and asks some questions.