O’FALLON, Mo.—Members of the St. Charles Police Department (SCPD) and two other local departments received training from Achilles Heel Tactical (AHT) at the new range along highway 79 in O’Fallon.

“Humbling, very humbling,” said Ray Juengst, Chief of SCPD. “I’ve been a firearms instructor for over 20 years and you always think you’re doing it right until you bring somebody outside to evaluate you on what you’re doing and learning new aspects, new things, new facets. It’s been a very impressive class so far, very impressive instructor.”

AHT travels the world providing training to law enforcement, military and civilians since they opened in 2017. The chief instructor for AHT said typical flat range training for officers focuses more about hitting their target (or the outcome of their shot) than applying the fundamentals of shooting with speed. He aims to change that because of practicality.

“We all know that they’re going to, out of fear, apply (fundamentals) in an officer involved shooting at speed,” said Rick Crawley, Owner and Chief Instructor for AHT. “So, we’re trying to get them to understand this process at speed, get them conditioned to the speeds that this is going to play out at so they can master the fundamentals at practical speeds.”

Officers lined up behind obstacles to simulate not seeing their target but still being aware of its general location. AHT’s exercise required them to step out from behind the obstacle and immediately fire rounds from their rifle and then switch to a pistol to quickly fire a few more rounds.

“We’re trying to do is make them think outside of when the process is set and it’s working,” said Crawley.

He added when situations do not go as planned, “we need to start troubleshooting. Whether that’s getting from a rifle to the next best thing, a pistol and getting behind cover for them to fix their problems. We don’t want them just hanging out in time and space with no kind of cover or concealment between them and their opposition.”

On Thursday, officers will continue their training by firing from and around vehicles. Last September, O’Fallon and St. Charles agreed on funding the build for a state-of-the-art regional police training facility. Each of them are providing one-third of the funds with the plans for the state to provide the last third. 

Right now, a range has been built with plans to expand it to becoming a 200-yard range. Additionally, the facility plans include a sims house, and EVOC course, training classrooms and a canine facility. 

“This is going to be premier law enforcement training for the entire metro area," said Juengst. "We wanted to bring it all into one place because we know this community expects us to be the best that we can and this is allowing us to train our officers to be the best that they can.”