An ICE firearms instructor has been involved in at least 4 fatal shootings

What is with you The company that trained Paramilitary Immigration and customs Agents testified he was involved in at least four fatal shootings, according to a 2021 affidavit related to a lawsuit reviewed by WIRED.

David S. Norman, founder and owner of a law enforcement training company Trukinetics LLCserved as a Phoenix police officer from the late 1990s until his retirement in 2020. Before founding TruKinetics that same year, according to records reviewed by WIRED, Norman was involved in six on-duty shootings that left four people dead and two others injured. In each case, the Phoenix Police Department said Norman shot an armed suspect and exchanged gunfire in at least two of the shooting incidents.

TruKinetics, based in Gilbert, Ariz., offers training in small team tactics, hostage rescues, close-quarters combat, building searches, night vision firearms proficiency, handgun and rifle courses, vehicle interdiction, explosive penetration and sniper tactics, according to the company’s website.

TruKinetics received $27,748 for a one-year contract for mandatory operation 40-hour training course Which some members of the Department of Homeland Security’s Special Response Teams receive annually at Fort Benning in Georgia, according to the government Purchasing records Reviewed by WIRED. At least 700 SRT agents from CBP’s Office of Field Operations, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Division, and ICE’s Office of Enforcement and Removal units pass through Fort Benning for annual training.

In an interview with WIRED, Norman says his company conducted sessions with a Special Response Team from the Arizona Office of Homeland Security Investigations. “They are some of the best guys, and it was an honor to work with them,” he told WIRED. Norman confirms that his courses, held in Arizona and Fort Benning, Georgia, did not include crowd control tactics or active shooters, but he would not specify further. “You seem to be one of those guys who does a hit piece on HSI,” he says.

TruKinetics published Two photos on Instagram In August 2024, Norman and three TruKinetics trainers, along with 19 uniformed operators from HSI’s Arizona Special Response Team, showed up for a training session around a “kill house” — a set of rooms and hallways filled with obstacles and targets designed to simulate close-quarters combat.

CBP did not respond to WIRED’s questions about how many SRT teams and operators have passed the Gilbert, Arizona, company’s training course.

In 2021 Law Enforcement Podcast, Modern policemanNorman describes himself as a “fucking brute” who sought out high-risk experiences and shootings as a cop. “I wanted these experiences. I was very aggressive,” Norman said. He also appeared to joke about the police shooting, telling the host, “You’re hoping it’s your Friday, so you can actually have days off.”

Previously reserved for armed or high-risk suspects, pursuit operations, and potentially dangerous building entrances, these teams are now used for civil immigration enforcement, crowd control, and basic warrant service, operations that the unit used to conduct Once restricted of performance. both of them Rene is good and Alex Pretty They were killed while protesting military increases in federal immigration in Minnesota, along with members of the SRT involved in both of them From their death. While recent controversy over the Department of Homeland Security’s violent immigration crackdowns has focused on whether or not agents will receive Appropriate trainingthe background of the SRT training contractor raises questions about who trains ICE and CBP paramilitary units, and what they are trained for.

For dozens After two years as a Phoenix cop for two decades, Norman served on the agency’s Special Assignments Unit, a plainclothes fugitive apprehension team that Norman repeatedly described in a 2021 filing from a lawsuit filed the previous year as turning into what was considered a “SWAT” (special weapons and tactics) team. In those units, he served as a “cover point” man and at times served as a handgun instructor for units within the Phoenix police, according to his testimony and Phoenix police documents reviewed by WIRED.