Jon B. Becker
This case deeply impacted me, not only because it involved a deliberate ambush on police officers which left six injured, but also because of the remarkable response from everyone involved, both during and after the incident.
I have the honor of hosting a podcast called The Debrief with Jon Becker. The show, which is available on YouTube and all other major podcast platforms, is now entering its fifth season. The format of the presentation is a long interview show which features leaders from the tactical community, subject matter experts and, most importantly, tactical teams who have experienced a significant event. Every episode of The Debrief covers lessons learned from the incident covered. Over the course of four seasons, certain patterns of behavior and practices have emerged among the teams who have been successful during critical incidents. These patterns form the basis of a class I teach and a column I write for the NTOA’s Tactical Edge Magazine called “Lessons Learned from The Debrief.” In this article, we will look at four of those patterns through the lens of a single case from Victoria, British Columbia, which will be the subject of a series of episodes launching in early 2025.
Bank of Montreal – Saanich, BC 6/28/22
The city of Saanich, British Columbia, is a municipality with a population of just over 115,000 people. It is located on the southern end of Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada and is part of the Greater Victoria Region adjoining Victoria, the provincial capital of British Columbia. Saanich has a crime rate about half of the average in British Columbia. Simply put, Saanich is a safe city.
On June 28, 2022, however, two suspects covered their bodies in armor and took a collection of weapons and explosives to the Saanich branch of the Bank of Montreal. The branch is a small residential bank branch located on the west side of north/south running Shelbourne Street. The bank’s main door is off of its long narrow parking lot located to the bank’s south and emptying out onto both Shelbourne and Pear Street to the south of the lot. The suspect’s plan was to use the bank robbery as a rouse to attract and then ambush local police officers perhaps in an attempt to recreate the North Hollywood, California, shootout from 1997.
At 11:02 a.m., the suspects entered the bank, fired one round into the ceiling and forced all of the bank occupants into the back of the bank. They then set up in the entry vestibule, planning to ambush the responding officers. What the suspects hadn’t planned on was that responding officers from nearby Saanich, Central Saanich and Victoria PDs did not rush into the parking lot overtly, opting instead for a covert deployment outside of the bank to avoid the suspects seeing them while inside the bank and thereby creating a hostage situation. Instead, officers took up covert positions around the bank waiting for the suspects to leave before they planned to engage them.
By coincidence, the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT), a regional SWAT team comprised of members from all three agencies, was working nearby as a quick response team in support of a narcotics surveillance. When the bank robbery in progress call went out, the team left the surveillance and headed to the bank. As they arrived on scene and attempted to gain situational awareness, the two male subjects, carrying SKS 7.62 x 39 rifles with high capacity magazines, exited the bank.
The assault team pulled into the parking lot in their surveillance van, while their detached sniper element set up at the bottom of the parking lot. As their van entered the lot, they deployed a flashbang and began to exit with an intent to form a tactical L on the suspects, seeking to effect arrest. However, when the flashbang deflagrated at the feet of the second suspect, he calmly turned and opened fire on the van. In just a few seconds, six of the seven operators in the van were shot, some of them multiple times.
All of them were injured and at least one of them was at immediate risk of death. Injuries to the officers were as follows: John had a GSW to his foot; Travis had a GSW to his thigh; Ben had a GSW to his upper leg with an arterial bleed; Steve had GSWs to both of his now broken legs, one to his left forearm, and an arterial bleed; Colby had been shot through the trapezius muscle and was bleeding profusely; and Damian had an exposed compound fracture of his femur, a massive femoral artery bleed and had been shot through the side which had traversed his abdomen and was hindering his breathing.
The remaining team members, along with an army of patrol officers, immediately returned fire killing both suspects. They all then quickly transitioned to providing care for their injured teammates. What transpired over the next few minutes can only be described as a remarkable performance. Everyone was treated and transported within minutes; the deceased suspects were taken into custody; the hostages were freed; and the suspects’ car full of weapons and explosives was rendered safe. Because of their remarkable performance, all six injured team members survived and are now in various stages of their journey to complete recovery.
It is easy to look at this type of event and think “wow, they really got lucky” or “boy, they really rose to the occasion.” But, to do so is to fail to recognize that this performance was far from an accident. Quite to the contrary, it was the direct result of rigorous preparation and training practices on the part of the agencies and team involved. Four of these practices are of tremendous value for teams preparing for future events.
Lessons Learned #1: Prepare for the Worst – It Happens Fast!
The first lesson learned from this event is perhaps the most obvious and striking: When things go poorly, it happens very fast, is extremely violent and can be much worse than anyone expected. The total duration of gunfire in this incident was just seconds and the suspects opened fire on the police with no warning and no dialog between them. In fact, when the flashbang was deployed, the suspect nearest the van had no reaction to it other than immediately firing on the van. Many incidents covered on The Debrief involve multiple team casualties occurring within seconds of engaging the suspects. Proper preparation requires a mindset which assumes the worst will happen and strives to be prepared for it. The assumption for most teams in training is that they will always have the element of surprise and will have the tactical advantage in a takedown. There is, for some teams, an implicit bias in training that they will always get a warning when things are about to turn bad. That is simply not the case. A prepared adversary who is willing to die can engage the team unexpectedly and with overwhelming force. What’s worse, at close range, the advantages provided by superior training and marksmanship skills are decreased or even eliminated. As the late, great firearms trainer Louis Awerbuck used to say, “Everyone shoots expert at five yards.” The accuracy demonstrated by suspects can be exceptional and on par, or even better, than that of responding officers. As a result, it is essential that teams maintain a mindset which seeks to be prepared for the worst. Train for multiple officer casualties, weapon failures, being ambushed, close quarter gun fights, etc. In the words of GVERT Medic Mike Jarosz, “I had always believed that, if I was in an OIS, I would be in a position of advantage – like with a rifle and behind cover, overlapping arcs, etc. I did not think I would be knocked down to the floor of a van fighting for my life with a 9mm pistol.” Fortunately, the GVERT team had adopted a mindset to be prepared for the worst and, when things went sideways, they were ready.
Lessons Learned #2: Embrace Failure in Training
There is an old saying that, in a crisis, we do not rise to the occasion, but fall to the level of our training. This has been proven over and over by cases covered on The Debrief. As a result, it is important that training reflects real-world conditions and that it sometimes tests worst-case scenarios intentionally to produce failures. Failure is the best teacher. It shows us the limit of our skills; it forces us to think outside the box; and lessons learned through failing are often the most lasting because they are painful. Scenarios used in training must not all be winnable and they cannot follow a regular pattern. In other words, training cannot fall into a repetitive rut where scenarios always end in success. Training must be difficult (in fact, sometimes very difficult) and it must push the capabilities of the team to failure.
The GVERT team followed this guideline. In fact, the week before this incident, the team had run a training scenario where one of their teammates, Damian Pellew, was simulated to be critically injured. Their medical director insisted that they transport him all the way to the hospital as part of the scenario. When their armored vehicle almost rolled in training and ended up stuck, they were told to carry on and solve the problem. When they arrived at the hospital, they were told they had not made it in time and that their teammate had died.
This was certainly a rough training day and perhaps even ruffled a few feathers along the way, but by forcing the team outside of their “normal” training box and creating adversity, it also forced them to overcome unexpected challenges and stay focused on their mission which is key. It also showed them that complications will arise in operations and that not every ending will be successful. It is not an understatement to say that if there is no failure in training, there will also likely not be significant growth. Failing and testing limits are also how resilience is built into the team and how collective skillsets are expanded. You will fall to the level of your training in a crisis, so train VERY HARD.
Lessons Learned #3: Build a Tac-Med Program Your Life Can Depend On!
It is not an overstatement in this case to say that the team members’ lives were saved by their tac-med program. When you look at the list of injuries they had and consider that they all occurred simultaneously, it is truly amazing that they all survived. But, then again, it really isn’t that surprising when you look at the approach taken by the team and their agencies. This was a tactical medical program headed by a physician medical director. The team had trained all its members, as well as patrol personnel, in basic tactical medicine and hemorrhage control. They also provided advanced trained to several tactical medics equipping them with the skills to administer the clotting medications which would ultimately save Damian’s life. They had prepared notonly the team medics for this day, but also all of the patrol officers by training them, testing them and making sure that they had the necessary gear for a catastrophe. What this meant was that, when six team members were down (including a couple of tactical medics), everyone on scene brought skills and equipment to support the officers. This allowed the team’s remaining medics to focus on the worst injuries and use the patrol officers as supporting medics to stop bleeding, install chest seals and prepare the injured officers for immediate transport. The best tac-med programs are built in multiple layers with expertise and equipment prepositioned throughout the agency. It is essential that you build a program which is both wide (i.e., throughout the agency and team) and deep (i.e., has at least a few highly experienced and skilled members). By doing so, you can utilize the broadly trained team members to deal with simpler medical issues and allow the more thoroughly trained medics to work on those who are at greatest risk.
Lessons Learned #4: Utilize Stress Inoculation Training
Performance in challenging environments is a complicated thing. To achieve optimal performance, both our physical and mental capabilities need to function at their highest levels and remain focused on the task at hand despite fear, confusion and conflicting priorities. Optimal performance comes from a physically calm state and a focused mind which is gathering and sorting the most important data to create situational awareness and then making rapid decisions. When we are faced with circumstances which are complex, unfamiliar or frightening, it is easy for us to become cognitively overwhelmed and unable to perform. When overwhelmed by the stress of an event, our cognitive processing becomes fragmented and our decision-making degrades. We also become physiologically overwhelmed and filled with adrenaline; our breathing and heart rate accelerate; and we tend to miss crucial information. We can even become fixated on unimportant information or tasks and lose orientation. Much like a computer which is running out of RAM and stuck on the spinning wheel icon, when we are overwhelmed, we struggle to perform anywhere near our best.
The idea behind stress inoculation is that by preexposing individuals to the stressors they are likely to encounter operationally, we can build their capacity to handle those stressors, rapidly process information, self-regulate our physical/emotional state, and then respond accordingly to the threats presented. By utilizing stress inoculation as a systematic and progressive exposure to stressors individuals are likely to encounter in their operational environments, they will build tolerance and adaptability to that stress. Much like strength training, the idea is that gradually increasing the amount of stress someone is exposed to builds their resistance to that level of stress, making it less frightening and therefore reducing the unnecessary cognitive load to cope with it. This allows the brain to focus on higher processing skills and better decision-making, therefore allowing better performance. Simply put, the more available cognitive capacity we have, the better we can adapt to the dynamic situation, enabling us to achieve optimal performance. It is very clear that the stress inoculation GVERT had utilized paid off. The team members were all calm both under fire and after the shooting and, as a result, were able to properly triage all the conflicting priorities.
Conclusion
The GVERT team and the agencies involved in this event made a lot of very good decisions long before the event occurred which allowed them to perform at an exceptional level in a very challenging environment. They were prepared for a catastrophe; they had trained hard; they pushed themselves to failure in training; and they built an elite level tactical medical program for precisely this type of event. As a result, their performance on this day was exceptional which allowed them to neutralize the suspects, free the hostages and, most importantly, save the lives of all their teammates. This event in a less prepared team would have been catastrophic and likely would have cost at least two teammates their lives. Anytime an event like this occurs, we have an obligation to look at the lessons learned and utilize them to inform future training. To not do so is to waste the suffering of those who were injured or killed.
Jon Becker is the Founder/CEO of AARDVARK Tactical and the creator of Project7 Armor. He is also the host of the podcast, The Debrief with Jon Becker, now in its fifth season. Mr. Becker has almost 40 years of experience equipping and training tactical units ranging from small municipal and county law enforcement agencies to federal, military and international counterterrorism units. He can be reached at jbecker@thedebrief.live or by visiting thedebrief.live.