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COPS 2018 Belgium Martin Turner , BTP Branch Earlier in the year, a friend mentioned a COPS training week in Belgium. Sven Maertens leads IPA Belgium’s Defensive Tactics Group. Sven is an experienced trainer and grew up heavily immersed in a variety of martial arts. Being a shade shorter than my 6’7” tall, he is a man mountain to say the least! C OPS was a training week held at Campus Vesta , the joint fire/ medical/police training site near Antwerp. The programme sounded extremely good and so I packed my bags and jumped Our cultural trip was to a nearby brewery, where beer and whisky were sampled and traditional food was eaten in the restaurant.

All too quickly another great week with the IPA ended and it was time to go home. It was a real shame to be the only UK member present but hopefully, as the UK Defensive Tactics Group training weekends gain more momentum, it may encourage other members to take advantage of the unparalleled training opportunities.

on the train to Antwerp. At Antwerp I was met by a couple of officers in a marked police vehicle and off we went to the training venue. Sadly, two police officers had recently been shot and killed only a few days before in Belgium and it was a sombre discussion I had with the officers around the training week ahead. At Campus Vesta I checked in to our accommodation – admittedly 8-man tents and portable bathroom facilities weren’t the most welcome in the hot and muggy conditions, but we all managed. The training over the next four days was intensive and thorough. I was handed a Glock 17 at the beginning of the shooting lesson. The response from the Belgium trainer and the US Smith & Wesson manager to my “I’ve not really fired a handgun before”, was an amusing “you’ll be fine, just go second and watch what they do!” indicating the other half of my team. To the surprise of the trainers and myself, I was pretty good. After firing off 200 rounds I was certainly better than when I started.

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POLICE WORLD Vol 64 No. 1, 2019