Facing an outcry, the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police has canceled an upcoming training session in metro Detroit of local police chiefs featuring a controversial speaker. Retired Army Lt. Col. Dave Grossman often talks about how law enforcement can reduce their inhibitions to kill if needed in the line of duty.
Robert Stevenson, executive director of the police chiefs association, told the Free Press they made the decision to cancel the event set for May 26-27 in a Novi evangelical church after their group and the church had received complaints.
Stevenson said the training session was meant to address PTSD issues that some officers may face after killing someone, such as in the recent case of a Dearborn police officer who took his own life last year after shooting dead a man in 2015.
Police Training Seminar Canceled After Uproar at Killology Speaker
On 4/27/21 at 12:40 PM EDT
A law enforcement training seminar in Michigan has been canceled following concerns about comments a former Army ranger, scheduled to speak, had made about fatal police shootings.
Lt. Col. (ret) Dave Grossman, 64, was scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police (MACP) event due to take place at the Oak Pointe Church in Novi, northwest of Detroit on May 26 and 27.
In his biography on his website, Grossman is described as the director of the Killology Research Group. It describes killology as the study of the reactions of healthy people in killing circumstances, such as police and military in combat and the factors that enable and restrain killing in these situations.