Four deputies were firing their Glock semi-automatic handguns on the Camp CQB range when camp founder Michael Taylor stopped them for a moment.
He had instructor Ty Lambert step between two targets and order the shooters to resume firing. Neither Lambert nor the deputies reacted as the .40-caliber slugs whizzed by a foot on either side of Lambert's shoulders.
"When you're dealing with potentially lethal activities, you have to have confidence in your training, in your abilities," Taylor said after the brief demonstration. Then he invited a photographer to take Lambert's place to get a few pictures during the live fire drill.
Camp CQB, which stands for Close Quarters Battle, is a privately operated training program designed to give law enforcement and military personnel intense conditioned-reflex training in weapons skills, hostage rescue and civilian protection.
Though most of its training over the past several years has taken place at locations across the country, Taylor said it will increasingly take place at a remote 40-acre compound he and his staff have built in the high desert north of Silver Springs.
The compound is spartan, with nine target ranges bulldozed into the sage. The office and classroom buildings are converted shipping containers. On-site housing consists of a flat spot where students can pitch tents.
"We're not out here to enjoy ourselves. We keep the students going 17 or 18 hours a day and, when its done, I roll out a sleeping bag for myself," Taylor said.
The discomfort is all part of the training program, Taylor said.
"Law officers are not prepared for critical incidents when they happen, because their training never took them out of their comfort zones," he said. "They go to the range for maybe a half day. Usually they don't train at night. They don't find out what their performance will be like when they are under real-world stress."
Taylor followed a career in the Marines, which included an assignment to the Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, with several years on the police force in Richmond, Calif. He decided to design training that brought law officers to the point of stress and exhaustion while they conditioned their reflexes.
"When you face an adversary with a weapon and the 'fight or flight' reflex kicks in, your sight narrows down to tunnel vision, your sense of hearing diminishes. We bring the trainees to that point here and they learn to perform at optimal ability levels despite it," Taylor said.
He said the training program has been validated in real-life situations after students have returned to their home departments.
"A number of officers we've trained have been involved in lethal or potentially lethal situations. There have been no lawsuits, no challenges to how any of our trainees have responded in those situations," he said.
His company, which operated under the name Advanced Tactics and Survival until Camp CQB was built, has trained the San Diego SWAT team, Drug Enforcement Agency agents and U.S. Marshals, he said. After the Waco, Texas, stand-off with the Branch Davidian, the west coast region of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and firearms studied his programs and adopted its basic teaching techniques, he said. "The ATF guys we trained are now training all their agents," Taylor said.
The training is not confined to firing ranges. Three roofless structures simulated any conceivable interior confrontation and two buses and several cars are used for vehicle-involved scenarios. Subjects such as the psychology of hostage situations are studied in the classrooms.
Taylor even set up a mock incident at the camp last year where his instructors believed one of them had been wounded in an accidental shooting. The drill extended to having a Care Flight helicopter fly to the camp as if it were a real evacuation.
"I don't know of any other private training program that would go to that extent to make sure their safety and emergency programs work, that their instructors are prepared for anything," Taylor said.