Journal - (2024)

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ILEETA Journal Archive

2024

Training knowledge worth preserving

The surviving 2024 editions capture both continuity and transition. The conference remains the association’s center of gravity, ILEETA reaches outward to a European trainer gathering, and the Journal follows emerging research and technology. A year-end message from Ray Merlin records the new executive director speaking directly to members after the planned succession.

A note for today’s reader: These articles are preserved in their original historical setting. Law, policy, technology, terminology, medical knowledge, and training practice may have changed. Read the complete article, then compare it with current authority before applying its recommendations.

Volume 14, Edition 1

Conference Edition 2024
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The conference edition prepares members for St. Louis and presents a broad curriculum of tactical, instructional, leadership, wellness, legal, and technology topics.

Featured reading

Elevating Law Enforcement Training: The Imperative of Adaptive Leadership

Al Bello

Bello argues that leadership education should not be reserved for personnel who have already been promoted. Modern officers face rapidly changing conditions, public scrutiny, stress, and complex decisions regardless of rank, making adaptability a practical field skill. Written in connection with a four-hour conference block, the article frames adaptive leadership as a way to improve preparedness, resilience, community relations, and organizational responsiveness. Its historical value lies in showing leadership development moving closer to the center of trainer conversations rather than remaining a specialist or supervisory subject.

Topics: Adaptive leadership; officer development; resilience; conference training

Citation: Al Bello. (2024). Elevating Law Enforcement Training: The Imperative of Adaptive Leadership. The ILEETA Journal, 14(1), 45-46.

Volume 14, Edition 2

Spring 2024
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This edition reports on ILEETA’s international contact in Germany and pairs that institutional news with training research, gamification, questioning, feedback, leadership, threat assessment, and technology.

Featured reading

ILEETA at the 2024 European Police Trainer Conference

Harvey Hedden

Hedden recounts attending the European Police Trainer Conference in Leipzig with Joe Willis at the invitation of PiD chairman Eckhard “Ecko” Niebergall. More than one hundred trainers participated in lecture and hands-on sessions, with the concurrent GPEC exhibition offering access to equipment, technology, and additional workshops. Joe Willis presented responder-readiness and suicide-prevention instruction. The account documents a concrete expression of ILEETA’s international aspirations: reciprocal relationships among trainers, comparison of shared problems, and knowledge exchange beyond the annual U.S. conference.

Topics: International reach; PiD; European Police Trainer Conference; professional exchange

Citation: Harvey Hedden. (2024). ILEETA at the 2024 European Police Trainer Conference. The ILEETA Journal, 14(2), 8-9.

Taser to Firearm/Firearm to Taser Transition Research: Results and Recommendations

Harvey Hedden

Hedden summarizes research by Paul Taylor and colleagues on the time officers required to transition between a handgun and an electronic control device. The reported results show substantial differences between directions of transition and wide variation among participants. Hedden draws instructor attention to limited prior transition practice, holstering difficulties, equipment handling, decision time, and the gap between a controlled experiment and a dynamic encounter. The article demonstrates the Journal’s role as a bridge between published research and concrete training questions without pretending that laboratory timing alone settles policy or tactics.

Topics: TASER; weapon transitions; use-of-force research; training design

Citation: Harvey Hedden. (2024). Taser to Firearm/Firearm to Taser Transition Research: Results and Recommendations. The ILEETA Journal, 14(2), 20-21.

Volume 14, Edition 4

Winter Edition 2024
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A substantial year-end edition featuring ILEETA updates and articles on evidence, AI, feedback, competence, crisis encounters, use of force, wellness, report writing, and life after law enforcement.

Featured reading

Message from the Executive Director: 2024 Year in Review

Ray Merlin

Merlin’s year-end message thanks members and sponsors and speaks of advancing the training profession together. It is brief, but institutionally significant: the new executive director addresses the membership after the transition announced the previous year and looks toward 2025 as a new chapter. The language emphasizes partnership, global support for trainers, family sacrifice, continuity, and forward movement. As a primary source, it helps mark the public voice of the incoming administration while avoiding claims of abrupt organizational reinvention.

Topics: Executive leadership; Ray Merlin; continuity; member community

Citation: Ray Merlin. (2024). Message from the Executive Director: 2024 Year in Review. The ILEETA Journal, 14(4), 6.

Embracing AI: Opportunities and Challenges for Instructors

Kerry Avery, M.Ed.

Returning to artificial intelligence after her 2023 article, Avery examines both efficiency and risk. Generative systems can accelerate outlines, objectives, scenarios, and brainstorming, freeing instructors for deeper work. Yet polished output can disguise shallow knowledge, weaken the incentive to develop expertise, or reproduce unreliable claims. Avery recommends using AI as a starting point rather than a substitute for subject-matter judgment, context, and verification. The article records a maturing discussion: the question is no longer simply what AI can generate, but how trainers can use it without surrendering rigor.

Topics: Artificial intelligence; instructional design; expertise; verification

Citation: Kerry Avery, M.Ed.. (2024). Embracing AI: Opportunities and Challenges for Instructors. The ILEETA Journal, 14(4), 37-38.

The ILEETA Journal Archive
Preserving the ideas, experience, and professional conversations of law-enforcement educators and trainers.