BRADENTON BEACH – Police officers face the unknown every day they put on their uniforms.
In 2022, nine police officers were killed in the line of duty in Florida, and while that number may not seem large in a highly populated state such as Florida, the threat of attack is always on the minds of these men and women as they go to work to protect and serve the community.
Bradenton Beach draws tourists from around the world, and may seem like paradise to many, but nevertheless, there are threats to officers who must train to handle these situations.
The Sun reported last year on an incident in which a man was on a jetty in Coquina Beach with a loaded firearm. Bradenton Beach officers arrived to find the man threatening to harm himself, but even though the officers believed he was not intending to harm them or the public, their job was to end the situation with the best outcome possible for all parties involved.
“I saw the way he was sitting with his right arm and hand between his legs, and I felt strongly he had a gun in that hand,” Officer John Tsakiri said. “I took out my binoculars to get a better look, but due to the way he was sitting, I still couldn’t see the gun. Lt. Diaz and I were walking towards the subject with our weapons drawn when we got a call on the radio from the MSO (Manatee County Sheriff’s Office) Marine Boat confirming he was holding a gun. The last thing we wanted was for anyone to get hurt, but after continuing to ignore our commands, and at one point starting to stand up, I told Lt. Diaz that if he pointed the gun at us, I would have no choice but to engage him with my firearm.”
This situation demonstrates that even in an area with a relatively low rate of violent crime, it only takes one incident to put officers in a situation where they must decide whether to draw their weapons and possibly have to shoot with innocent bystanders in the area, or deploy other tactics to de-escalate the situation.
DART system
The department now has a new tool that can help reach the best possible conclusion in multiple situations.
Thanks to help from the Anna Maria Island Moose Lodge 2188, the Bradenton Beach Police Department (BBPD) can offer training to officers on any situation they may encounter without driving miles to a firearms training facility or gun range, thanks to their new DART training system.
“This is a top-end system for its price point right now,” Officer Steve Masi said. “In DART Creator and DART Studios, we can create anything we want. If I want a guy to come from 15 yards to two yards in three seconds, I can create it. I can place him in any room I want, I can create walls, and I can give him any behavior I want.”
According to both Masi and Lt. Lenard Diaz, department officers only get two to four training sessions at the gun range a year. When officers do go to the range, they only shoot stationary paper targets that offer little more than accuracy of the officer’s weapons. The DART system allows police to enact real-world situations and even film their own scenarios they can use to train the department.
“We could film a scenario where there is a situation on the beach, then upload it to this program,” Masi said. “We could project this on the side of a building and allow officers to move around and act as if it were a real life or death situation. There are endless training possibilities.”
At a cost of $10,000, the department needed some help securing funds for this vital training tool, and they got it thanks to the Anna Maria Island Moose Lodge 2188 in Bradenton Beach. Byron Dalton, administrator of the lodge, said the relationship with the BBPD has been in place for a long time, and they wanted to help in any way they could.
“Part of what we do with the police department is community service,” Dalton said. “We told them if there’s anything we can do to help make the department a better place, just let us know. At that time the lieutenant who is now the chief said we have the perfect thing we’d like to do, can you help us with it? We said, heck yeah and we got involved.”
The AMI Moose Lodge assisted in the purchase of the DART system with a $5,000 donation that covered about half the cost of the system. The remainder of the cost was paid by the department. Masi called it an incredible addition to the department’s resources.
“My number one goal is to go home after work,” Masi said. “Anything can happen in an instant, and how officers react to a serious threat may determine whether they go home alive; this is serious training for serious situations.”
