ICE Firearms Trainer Involved in 4 Deadly Shootings

Owner of a company that trains warrior Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents testified that they were involved in at least four attacks, according to a 2021 filing related to the case reviewed by WIRED.

David S. Norman, founder and owner of a legal training firm Company profile TruKinetics LLCserved as a Phoenix Police officer from the late 1990s until his retirement in 2020. Before founding TruKinetics that same year, according to documents 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 fired at the gunman and fired at least two of the shots.

Based in Gilbert, Arizona, TruKinetics offers training in small group tactics, hostage rescue, close combat, house searches, night firearms skills, firearms and ammunition training, “traffic control,” burglary and explosives, and shooting techniques, according to the company’s website.

TruKinetics was awarded $27,748 for a year-long contract to perform regulatory work 40 hours of training that some members of the Department of Homeland Security Special Response Teams receive each year at Fort Benning in Georgia, according to the government. purchase documents reviewed by WIRED. At least 700 SRT agents from Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division, and ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Office units pass through Fort Benning for training annually.

In an interview with WIRED, Norman says his company conducted sessions with the Special Response Team from Arizona’s Homeland Security Investigations office. “They’re great guys, and it was an honor to work with them,” he tells WIRED. Norman maintains that his training, which took place in Arizona and Fort Benning in Georgia, did not include crowd control or rapid-fire tactics, but he did not elaborate. “Sounds like you’re one of the top performers at HSI,” he says.

TruKinetics was published two photos on Instagram In August 2024, Norman and three TruKinetics trainers along with 19 uniformed personnel from HSI’s Arizona Special Response Team, stood in the training of “killing buildings” – rooms with rooms filled with obstacles and targets designed to simulate a close-quarters battle.

Customs and Border Protection did not respond to WIRED’s questions about the number of SRT teams and personnel that went through the Gilbert, Arizona, company’s training.

In 2021 legal podcast, The Modern CopNorman describes himself as a “brutal” who wanted extreme situations and shootings as a police officer. “I wanted these experiences. I was very angry,” said Norman. He also appeared to joke about police shootings, telling the host that “you better believe it’s your Friday, so you can have days off.”

Once reserved for armed or high-risk suspects, human chasers, and potentially dangerous locations, SRTs are now being used for immigration enforcement, mass surveillance, and basic operations, tasks that the team has done. once banned starting to do. All of them Renee Good and Alex Pretty He was killed while protesting the war in Minnesota, by members of the SRT concerned in all of them about their deaths. Even the latest controversy over Homeland Security’s violent immigration sweeps has focused on whether supporters are welcome adequate trainingThe history of the SRT training contractor raises questions about who is training ICE and CBP forces, and what they are being trained to do.

For twelve During Norman’s twenty years as a police officer in Phoenix, he worked in the Special Assignments Unit, a group of plainclothes fugitives that Norman described repeatedly in 2021 from the case he filed last year as having done what is called “SWAT” (special weapons and tactics) team. In those units, he worked as a “cover” and sometimes firearms instructor for Phoenix PD units, according to his resume and Phoenix police documents reviewed by WIRED.