RIP to US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle who appears to have been murdered in Texas today. Short story is we don’t know much yet, but the Erath County Sheriff’s Department appears to have confirmed Kyle’s death and that a man has been taken into custody. A second, unidentified man was found dead with Kyle.
RIP to this brave warrior.
Magnum Boots USA has partnered with the Blue Crew, offering a 10% discount on all products purchased through the company’s website. We’re very excited to welcome Magnum to the growing list of supporting companies offering substantial discounts on gear and training.
To take advantage of the Magnum Boots discount, follow this link to their storefront and pick out your gear. When you checkout, enter the code found in your Blue Crew discounts page and 10% will be deducted from the total price of your purchase. It is easy and can save you quite a bit of money. This discount is only available to US residents.
The Blue Crew is the membership section of BlueSheepdog.com. Members get access to a wide range of sponsor discounts, training videos, reference materials and e-books, and our archive of podcasts and newsletters. The discounts alone can easily pay for your membership. Click here for more details on the Blue Crew.
Hornady announced a new line of law enforcement ammunition called Critical Duty. This new ammo was designed to meet the specific requirements of police use. Critical Duty ammunition will be available in two 9mm loads and one .40 S&W load initially.
The Hornady Critical Duty ammunition uses a new bullet design that incorporates elements from previous company designs to perform well in the FBI ammunition testing protocol. The bullets use the Flex Tip technology, which is a polymer filled hollowpoint. The Flex Tip prevents the hollowpoint from being filled when passing through clothing or another barrier, yet it also helps expansion when striking the target.
Hornady also uses an InterLock band to hold the bullet jacket to the core, rather than using a chemical bonding process used by many other manufacturers. The benefit to the Critical Duty line of ammunition is that Hornady can use a heavier, antimony-rich core rather than a soft, pure (or close to pure) lead typically used with bonded bullets.
Six months in the making, BlueSheepdog happily announces the launch of the Blue Crew: a companion membership site to BlueSheepdog.com.
The Blue Crew is a new concept in police training and officer safety on the web. Driven by member support, the Blue Crew site strives to provide excellent resources for its members and negotiates significant discounts with law enforcement trainers and gear providers.
The Blue Crew is a companion site to BlueSheepdog.com, offering additional benefits and unique content not available elsewhere.
Going forward, the BlueSheepdog.com website will remain as it always has: a free resource of police training, equipment reviews and law enforcement news. We will still publish regular articles, send out newsletter and produce podcasts. To really jump to the next level requires funding, and that is where the Blue Crew comes in.
During the past two weeks, we’ve had a lot of new visitors to the BlueSheepdog.com site. On behalf of all of us, welcome. I hope you find some excellent police training material and officer safety tips!
In addition to the many articles published here, I want to encourage everyone to connect with us in a few other ways as well.
Sign Up for the Newsletter! – We publish a monthly newsletter that contains exclusive content such as incident debriefs, equipment reviews and training articles. This information is not published on the regular site. So, the only way to get it is to sign up for the newsletter.
The sign-up is on the left; just enter your primary e-mail address. The newsletter is free, and we do not sell your information to any third party.
Listen to the Podcasts – Podcasts are essentially syndicated radio shows you can download for free to your computer, iPod, phone or other device. The individual shows can be accessed by clicking the tab above that says “Podcasts.” You can also subscribe (for free, of course) to the podcast by clicking the iTunes icon on the lower left side of this page, or on any of the podcast pages.
Twitter – Twitter is a weird little program where you can send others very short messages. After playing with it, I have realized you can make a lot of connections with others in law enforcement. If you want, feel free to connect with us there.
There are a lot more things coming down the road, and I am very excited about them! However, I am always looking for suggestions and feedback on how to make BlueSheepdog a better community. Please leave a comment, or send me an e-mail to share your ideas!
Stay safe!
[Ed. note - Aaron spent time recently in Joplin, MO providing support to the local law enforcement agencies. The following article is his observations from his time spent there.]
The large media outlets have covered the weather event that on Sunday evening, May 22, caused an EF-5 tornado (the most powerful form of a tornado) to strike the heart of Joplin, Missouri. Joplin, a town of about 50,000 in southwest Missouri, has seen tornadoes in the past as it sits in that horrible part of the country known as tornado alley. But even being in the alley doesn’t mean that you can fully comprehend the devastation of an EF-5 tornado.
When the tornado hit, Joplin had eight police officers on patrol. To the full credit of the professionalism of the Joplin Police Department, one hour after the tornado strike, more than 100 officers had reported for duty, accounting for about 95% of the department. Since that dreadful night hundreds of brothers and sisters in uniform from dozens of agencies have responded to assist.
