Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy has kicked off a national dust-up over police training after publishing a USA Today opinion piece that he says was inspired by a course he found "disturbing." In the column, he warned that "a DA can't prevent police killings if the police are trained to kill." The private company that ran the training flatly rejects that description and insists it does not teach officers to kill, while local police leaders and Tennessee prosecutors are pushing back, turning one op-ed into a broader fight over how officers are trained and who gets to shape that training.
Mulroy's op-ed
Mulroy wrote in a USA Today opinion column last Saturday that he had attended a three-day Force Science course in Nashville about a year earlier and that parts of the class left him "disturbing." As reported by WREG, he said "one thing I learned was a DA can't prevent police killings if the police are trained to kill" and explained that he chose a national outlet because he believes the training raises a national issue, not just a local one.
Force Science responds
In a statement on its website, the Force Science Institute pushed back hard, saying its coursework is built around human-performance science and "does not train police to kill." The organization said it plans to review attendance records and the specific quotations Mulroy attributed to its instructors, and added that some students who were in the same class told the institute that Mulroy's account did not match what they heard in the room.
Local law enforcement reaction
Closer to home, not everyone in law enforcement is buying Mulroy's framing. Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane told reporters that the op-ed's sweeping language risks undermining public trust in officers. WREG also reported that multiple Tennessee district attorneys criticized the column, that the Memphis Police Department does not use Force Science for its use-of-force training, and that the Shelby County Sheriff's Office sometimes sends detectives to Force Science classes when they are available.
What the training covers
According to its own description, Force Science pitches its certification course as a deep dive into human-performance factors such as perception, attention, decision-making, reaction time, memory and performance under stress, rather than a simple shoot-or-don't-shoot playbook. Materials on the Force Science website say the program is meant to sharpen officers' judgment under pressure, not encourage aggression. The group says it will review its records to sort out the dispute over what was actually said during the Nashville class.
Where it leaves Memphis
For now, local leaders and residents are waiting to see what Force Science's internal review produces and whether any agencies rethink the outside courses they use. Mulroy's column has shoved long-standing questions about private police training into the national spotlight, and it lands in the middle of an already tense political climate around his office, including earlier fights over his policies and an ouster effort detailed in Hoodline coverage of an ouster effort.
