Most departments do low-light or altered-light firearm training. It may not be much, and it’s not enough, but at least most officers get some training in low-light conditions on the live-fire range. This is good, but we can do better.

Everyone knows firearms training is one of those high-risk/high-liability areas for law enforcement, which is why we train in low light. Even as far back as 1979, the courts have recognized that failure to train in low-light conditions could expose a department to liability issues (Popow v. City of Margate, 476 F. Supp. 1237 [D.N.J. 1979]). This makes sense and seems very reasonable to everyone. 

But if this makes sense with firearms training, why do we neglect to train in low light when it comes to other high-risk/high-liability areas? For example, most defensive tactics training occurs in a well-lit gym, even though Federal Bureau of Investigation Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted (LEOKA) statistics show that most law enforcement officers are killed or assaulted at night.

The numbers

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this article, let’s provide a little context. I promise I won’t geek out too much on the statistics, but I hope it provides the framework to help get this problem changed. Are you ready? Here are the numbers.

According to the 2024 Special Report, 64 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed. Even though the overall number of officers feloniously killed has remained steady since 2022, more officers were feloniously killed from 2021 to 2024 (258) than in any other consecutive four-year period in the past 20 years.

From 2020 to 2024, 47 officers were killed between 12 p.m. and 3:59 p.m., and 83 were killed between 4 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. For most departments, day shift covers the time between 0800 and 1600 hours; swing and night shifts cover the rest of the time by clocking in between 1600 and 0800 hours. Looking at these times from 2020 to 2024, day shift had 70 officers killed. But over this same period, swing and night shifts had 129 officers killed.

Last statistical dump, I promise. When it comes to assaults on officers between 2010 and 2019, there were 253,797 officers assaulted on day shifts. This is a big number and one to pay attention to, but check this out: On swing and night shifts, there were 293,776 officers assaulted. That’s a difference of nearly 15%. Are you doing 15% more training in low light than daylight?

Night shifts are hazardous

Anyone who has worked after the sun goes down knows working in low light makes things more dangerous. It seems like common sense, because it’s more difficult to see at night. But there are other reasons for the increased risk. Criminal activity and hazardous calls for service tend to increase during evening and night hours. At the same time, staffing levels are often lower because other divisions like traffic, criminal detectives, community resource officers and school resource officers aren’t assigned to these hours, despite the higher overall workload.

Another reason for the increased number of officers killed and assaulted during low-light hours is because swing and night shift officers are more likely to be younger and less experienced. The frosting on this cake is the added physical stress caused by disrupted circadian rhythms and chronic sleep deprivation that can impair decision-making in high-risk, fast-paced situations.

Training in low light

Even in the face of these statistics and increased risks associated with working after the sun goes down, most training occurs in daylight. It is rare to hear about a department doing regular training in low light. Even when it comes to firearms training, we get little low-light time compared to full daylight training hours. But compared to the amount of time we spend doing low-light training in other topics, our time on the range feels massive!

It’s not just the amount of low-light time on the range we need to increase. Defensive tactics, all the less-lethal options we use, first aid/CPR and emergency vehicle operations are all high-risk/high-liability areas where we should be training in low-light environments. If officers face more high-risk calls for service during swing and night shifts, it’s reasonable to infer they need to train all the skills required to achieve a high level of performance in each of these areas.

Training in low-light environments can have a dramatic impact on performance. As the training sergeant at my department, I was looking at the officer-involved traffic crash data to see if there was a way to reduce the number of crashes. I had recently completed our department’s annual use-of-force report, and I noticed the crash data closely matched our use-of-force stats. Most of our “at fault” traffic crashes occurred in low-light conditions. We decided to schedule an emergency vehicle operations low-light training week. All officers were scheduled for four-hour training blocks that included emergency lane changes, backing, winter driving conditions and a speed track giving officers an opportunity to put their skills to work on a timed course.

We did this training for four years straight. The results on the department crash rate were remarkable. For the years following this training, the department had exactly zero at-fault traffic crashes involving officers who had participated in the low-light vehicle operations training. The only at-fault crashes involved officers who had not taken part in the training due to academy training, vacations or other absences. The same type of training could improve officer performance in other topics, including less-lethal options, defensive tactics and first aid/CPR. There’s no reason to think otherwise. Training under the conditions in which the skills will be used can only improve performance.

We need to stop scheduling training for the convenience of the instructors and start scheduling training for the demands of the job. When officers are required to operate at peak performance during low light, but we fail to train them in the same environment, we fail to prepare our officers for success. We know when most officers are killed and assaulted, and it’s in low- or altered-light conditions. Let’s train them for success. Let’s do better.