Iron Sights

Live from the 2026 TTPOA conference with the TTPOA Podcast hosts and Anthony, a nine-year law enforcement veteran, SWAT officer in the Houston area, and founder of In The Black. From getting washed out of combat controller selection at basic training, to walking mail routes, to finding his lane in USPSA competition and eventually building a coffee and tea brand out of his garage, Anthony's brutally honest story is proof that the American dream is still very much alive for guys willing to do the dumb, hard, embarrassing work it takes to figure things out.

The conversation goes deep on what challenges law enforcement training, and Anthony doesn't pull punches. Teaching cops to show clear on an imaginary 50-yard line instead of building critical thinkers, spoon-feeding answers during shoot house runs, and confusing range safety with officer competence are all on the table. Anthony and the crew break down why that approach is not just inefficient but potentially dangerous, and what it looks like when a team actually commits to changing the culture.

But this episode is just as much about building something outside the badge. Anthony talks through the full origin of In The Black: starting with loose-leaf tea because nobody in the tactical space was doing it, pivoting to coffee after burning batch after batch on a home roaster, and finding his name in Jeff Cooper's color code system applied as dark humor during a brutal SWAT selection process. The creative energy behind the brand, the viral video that crossed a million views, and the role his wife plays in keeping the whole operation from burning down are all fair game.

If you have ever felt the pull between the job you were trained for and the thing you want to build, this one will hit home.

In this episode:

• Anthony explains why law enforcement departments training officers to 'show clear on the line' instead of building critical thinkers is not just inefficient but actively dangerous: when a real incident happens and officers are isolated during the investigative process, they realize they were never taught how all the pieces connect.

• The speed-accuracy balance in USPSA competition directly translates to tactical work: running reloads between positions rather than standing static on a line mirrors the reality of nearly every officer-involved shooting video in existence.

• Anthony's framework for teaching firearms is simple: make guys uncomfortable, show them exactly where the discomfort came from, then repeat the basic stuff far more times than anyone thinks is necessary before adding complexity.

• In The Black got its name from Jeff Cooper's color code system, specifically the unofficial fifth color 'black' that Anthony's SWAT team used to describe going full chaos mode during selection, turning a symbol of failure into a brand built on humor and self-awareness.

• The coffee line launched after Anthony burned every single home-roasted batch trying to listen for first and second crack while being partially deaf from years on the range, eventually outsourcing to a specialty roaster, where flavor profiles are locked into a system so he just pushes a button.

• Anthony's viral million-view video was built on three things: a French competitive shooter doing something bizarre on the range, Moe in a skin-tight shirt matching the moves shot for shot, and a Roxbury song edit that made it look like ballroom dancing with zero hits on target.

• The leadership problem Anthony identifies in law enforcement is a status play: people in senior positions avoid hard decisions because they are protecting their next promotion, which cascades all the way down to the individual officer who never gets pushed to think critically.

• Running In The Black entirely from his house while working full-time in law enforcement means Anthony wears every hat, from packaging and heat-sealing bags on a scale like a drug dealer to using ChatGPT to code the website, with his wife as the one constant 'yes' behind every idea.

Chapters:

0:01 The Capable Standard: intro and waitlist pitch
2:25 Live at TTPOA: setting the scene
3:36 Introducing Anthony and In The Black HQ
4:41 Anthony's background: military, mail routes, and law enforcement
11:19 Finding the shooting journey through TTPOA and USPSA
18:41 Training culture, critical thinkers, and what real firearms instruction looks like
28:39 Why siloed training fails officers when it matters most
38:39 Joining In Extremis Performance and developing as an instructor
45:04 The origin of In The Black: tea, coffee, and the entrepreneurial leap
53:49 The meaning behind the name: Jeff Cooper's color code and SWAT humor
56:18 The viral videos, creative process, and social media presence
1:07:05 Building a business from home, wearing every hat, and the support system behind it

Mentioned:

Jake Labhart — Founder of In Extremis Performance, described as a brainiac on human movement and a doctor who invited Anthony to come on as an instructor, and introduced Scott to the TTPOA community.

Gabe Rivera — Instructor and active LEO who competed at the match the day of recording and was referenced for shooting 500 rounds at steel on the last day.

Brandon Hernandez — Referenced as the person Jake Labhart texted when making introductions, described as wearing a sequin motorcycle helmet when Scott Howell first met him upstairs at the Kalahari.

Ben Stoeger — Referenced as a competitive shooter so mechanically consistent that Anthony describes him as 'not human' and 'a robot' after watching him shoot.

Jeff Cooper — Originator of the color code system of situational awareness, specifically the white, yellow, orange, and red levels that Anthony's department extended with an unofficial 'black' designation.

Kim — The only American to attend tea college, located in the Houston area, who became Anthony's tea supplier and mentor for the loose-leaf side of In The Black.

Dana — Anthony's wife, whose coffee preference was narrowly his number two pick in the taste test and whose unwavering support he credits as the foundation of everything he is building.

Rebecca — Person in the fitness industry getting into the tactical world, mentioned walking by during the recording at the TTPOA conference.

Joel — Person in the fitness industry getting into the tactical world, mentioned walking by during the recording at the TTPOA conference.

Preston — A Texas LEO Anthony has long looked up to as one of the guys getting after it in the competitive space.

Sal — A Texas-based LEO Anthony trains with and who appeared in an In The Black HQ viral video wearing a wig while doing a skit.

Kolton — A Texas LEO Anthony looks up to, mentioned alongside Preston as someone he was surprised to be invited alongside when Jake Labhart brought him into IEP.

Matt — Anthony's videographer and editor for In The Black content, referenced both in the context of the video production process and as someone Anthony texts with random creative ideas.

This is a conversation about the gap between checking the box and being genuinely competent and confident when it counts. Bryan Williams, Chancey Pogue, Matt Pranka, and Dustin Mowery walk through the real roadmap: why the stigma against competition shooting is rooted in ego and not evidence, why the qualification score is one of the most useless metrics in law enforcement, and what training in isolation actually means when you strip away the buzzwords and get honest about the work.

Dry fire is the thread running through the whole episode, and not in the vague, post-it-on-Instagram way. You'll hear what to focus on, how long to go, when to stop, how to marry it to live fire when you only have 50 rounds to your name, and why grip and vision are the only two things that matter until you have truly mastered them. The principles are simple. The work isn't. But if you understand why you are doing it, the framework and roadmap becomes clear.

If you've ever said, "I can't do that at my agency" or "I'm not trying to be a GM," this episode is specifically for you. The guys lay out exactly what it looks like to start wherever you are, eliminate the excuses, and build the kind of skill that holds up when everything is moving fast and the stakes are real.

In this episode:

• Law enforcement qualifications are a box to check, not a measure of skill: shooting at seven yards on a line with no time pressure is not a test of your ability to run a gun under stress, and anchoring your identity to that score is actively holding you back

• The stigma against competition shooting comes from ego, not evidence: the best shooters in the world are practical shooting competitors, and the 'targets don't shoot back' argument falls apart the moment you realize no targets on any LE range shoot back either

• Peer pressure inside a ranked department is a more powerful culture driver than any mandate: when officers can see exactly where they rank in ability, the bottom of the stack starts climbing, and culturally the whole group shifts upward over time

• Grip and vision are the foundation that everything else is built on: if those two things are not dialed in, every rep of dry fire and every round of live fire is reinforcing a flawed pattern, not building a better one

• Dry fire sessions should be short, focused, and honest: when your grip pressure, visual discipline, or mechanical consistency starts to degrade, that session is over for that task, point of diminishing returns is real and ignoring it means taking steps backward

• A 10 to 1 dry fire to live fire ratio maximizes limited ammo: settle grip and vision in dry fire first, then test it live, do not use your 50 rounds to figure out things that cost you nothing to figure out in your living room

• Chancey's recruit class averaged 98.6 out of 100 on their qualification after eight weeks of structured dry fire with zero live rounds fired beforehand, two 30 minute sessions per week, no fancy facility required

• Visual discipline and visual control are the two principles that govern the vision side: use the right aiming scheme for the distance and difficulty at hand, connect to the exact spot on the target you need to hit, and do not over confirm or under confirm, no more and no less

Chapters:

0:56 Welcome to TTPOA 2026 in Round Rock
2:17 Guest introductions around the table
3:57 Setting the stage: what is wrong with LE firearms training
11:05 Breaking the stigma against practical/competition shooting
14:22 Why the qualification score is a broken measuring stick
20:55 How practical shooting culture spreads inside departments
28:36 The ego reset: your first match is supposed to hurt
40:19 Training in isolation: what it actually means
47:57 Building the dry fire habit: capturing time wherever you can
1:05:40 Chancey's recruit dry fire protocol and the 98.6 average
1:28:46 Making the most of limited ammo: the 10 to 1 rule
1:37:34 Wrapping up: grip, vision, and the two principles that never change

Mentioned:

Bryan Williams — Nearly 39-year law enforcement veteran, former police chief in Central Texas, one of the first five USPSA Grand Masters in the nation and the first in Texas, joins the roundtable at TTPOA 2026.

Chancey Pogue — Lieutenant over the weapons range and all reality-based training at a large North Texas agency with approximately 2,000 officers, credited with implementing practical shooting and a structured recruit dry fire program.

Matt Pranka — Owner of X-Ray Alpha, retired Army Special Operations background, USPSA competitor for about 13 years and GM, has spent six years working to bring practical shooting and competition-style training to law enforcement and military.

Dustin Mowery — Retired Ohio police officer with 27 years of service, helped introduce practical shooting to his department's firearms unit around 2019 after connecting with Matt Pranka, now teaches classes independently and with Matt.

Kim Pastore — Described as a runaway train working tirelessly through the Jorge Pastore Foundation to get the right coaches in front of law enforcement and raise money to send officers to training for free.

Ben Stoeger — Referenced as having done more for the practical shooting training world than anyone, praised for his ability to reverse-engineer classifiers, self-teach to a GM level, and present foundational concepts in the simplest and most effective way.

Jerry Barnhart — Legendary practical shooter Bryan Williams saw run stages at the nationals in Reno in the nineties, described as a beast whose performance was a formative, eye-opening demonstration of what is possible with a handgun.

Sean Griffith — Described as a world-class shooter who teaches more cops on a day-to-day basis than almost anyone through the entity he works with, called out as a heavy lifter at the TTPOA match.

Gabe Rivera — High-level shooter whose dramatic skill improvement since 2019 is highlighted as an example of the hockey-stick trajectory possible with focused training; was about to appear in the booth after the roundtable.

Adrian Yun — High-level shooter praised alongside Gabe Rivera and Clay for the rapid skill development they achieved, also noted during the match for his grip awareness and in-stage self-correction.

Clay B — High-level shooter nicknamed 'speed demon,' noted for shooting with the wrong hand and called out as one of the heavy lifters whose improvement since 2019 is remarkable.

Jay — Person Chancey met who was highly skilled at shooting without ever having competed, described as someone whose natural drive and desire to improve explained everything about how he got that good.

In this episode of Iron Sights, Scott sits down with Anthony Coley of Aegis Consulting at the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association Conference in Round Rock, Texas to unpack one of the most detailed, honest, and actionable roadmaps for changing firearms culture at the agency level you will ever hear.

Anthony walks through everything: the professional class taker problem, how competition shooting cracked open his understanding of real-world performance, and why getting bit by the PCSL bug turned into a mission to drag as many officers with him as possible. He does not pull punches about the resistance he faced from inside his own firearms unit, the admin conversations he had to be fully loaded for, and why good enough has never been good enough to him. This is the debrief you wish you could have with the guy quietly grinding in the background of every department while everyone else is doing the bare minimum.

And then Kim Pastore Pastore walks in. The founder of the Jorge Pastore Foundation joins Scott and Anthony live on the floor to drop a major announcement: Anthony Coley is officially the Foundation's new Director of Training. The conversation that follows is equal parts raw and inspiring, built on a shared belief that the ripple effects of good training touch officers and families in ways you will never fully see. The legacy match, the PCSL monthly shoots at Texas Shooting Academy, the nationwide reach: it is all coming. And this episode is where it starts.

In this episode:
• The professional class taker trap: Anthony explains how taking course after course without deliberate instructor-mode observation turns into diminishing returns, and how flipping that lens into instructor development makes every class exponentially more valuable
• Competition as a gunfight simulator: Anthony breaks down hit factor math from his first match, showing exactly why a slower shooter with cleaner hits still loses to a faster shooter with acceptable hits, and why that calculus maps directly to real threat encounters
• The survey before the pitch: before approaching administration, Anthony personally talked to every officer in the agency one on one, built a spreadsheet of who had red dots, who had zero formal training on them, and compiled case law on liability before walking into the chief's office armed with an answer for every possible question
• The cookie cutter problem in firearms instruction: Anthony's baking analogy makes the case that a single teaching method guarantees you will always produce students missing an arm, and that instructor development means accumulating 20 different ways to explain the same concept
• Inside the Red Dot class: 400 rounds, five hard-fought hours, aggressive trigger manipulation drills starting cold with zero classroom warmup, self-diagnosis doubles, and a final volley at 25 yards where exhausted officers shoot the best groups of their lives
• Building up instead of down: Anthony explains why he went to line-level officers first, then patrol shift lieutenants, then commanders, then administration, so that demand for training was already visible before he ever made a formal ask
• The Legacy Match origin story: a customer service mistake on an optic plate, a single giveaway stage, 24 brands cold-called into donating prizes, and a sold-out 100-person law enforcement only PCSL match that spawned a monthly series at Texas Shooting Academy in Florence, Texas

Chapters:
0:03 Episode intro and Scott's mission statement
0:59 Setting the scene: TTPOA Conference
1:26 Introducing Anthony Coley and Aegis Consulting
2:20 Anthony's background: CHP, Texas, canine, and the training gap
5:20 The professional class taker problem
9:08 Getting into competition shooting
12:25 Competition as a gunfight simulator: hit factor explained
15:35 Confidence, competency, and isolating deficiencies through competition
22:32 How the Legacy Match started by accident
26:23 Anthony's backstory: broken leg, CHP academy, and training mentality
56:07 Building the case for agency red dot training
1:28:04 Kim Pastore joins: announcing Anthony as JPF Director of Training

Mentioned:
Anthony Coley — Guest, law enforcement officer, canine handler, PCSL competitor, firearms instructor, and founder of Aegis Consulting, announced as the Jorge Pastore Foundation's Director of Training during this episode.
Gabe Rivera — Active California LE SWAT officer and instructor at Mindset Tactical Solutions, credited with introducing Anthony to the term 'professional class taker' and referenced as an upcoming guest on Iron Sights.
Rick Crawley — Founder and chief instructor of Achilles Heel Tactical, whose dinner conversation pushed Anthony to stop waiting and start shooting competitions immediately.
Dave Mehulma — Instructor from Slick Training Solutions who taught the intro to competitive shooting class where Anthony was first invited to shoot a live match.
Kim Pastore — Founder of the Jorge Pastore Foundation, who surprised Anthony on air to announce his appointment as Director of Training for the foundation.
Jorge Pastore — Austin PD SWAT officer killed in the line of duty whose legacy inspired the foundation; Anthony had made an Instagram post honoring him that first connected him with Kim Pastore Pastore.
Paul Costa — Contact who connected Anthony with Ron from Walther, helping secure demo guns for the agency demo day that eventually snowballed into the Legacy Match.
Jordan — Owner and representative of Ryze manufacturer, whose accidental shipment of a wrong optic plate sparked the idea for Anthony's first competition giveaway stage.
Aaron — Owner of Texas Shooting Academy, described as a big three-gun and competition shooter, who signed up for the Legacy Match and whose facility hosts the monthly PCSL matches.
Eric Foss — Associated with Howitzer, running competitions and working alongside Gabe Rivera to give back to the law enforcement community in Southern California.
Rafael — Prior Iron Sights guest from Northern California who competed at a Howitzer match and performed very well, helping spread competition culture in his region.

On this Iron Sights episode recorded live on the vendor floor at TTPOA Conference, Scott Howell sits down for a collab with the TTPOA Podcast hosts Brandon Hernandez and Matt Smith. Their guests are Brad Ortiz, Director of Sales for the Law Enforcement Division at Silencer Shop and former officer, and Dewayne Manson, Project Manager at the American Warrior Association, to dig into the thing the Law Enforcement community has been slow to confront: the compounding weight of moral injury, and why the reactive system built to support officers is failing the people who need it most.

The conversation goes deep on what moral injury actually is, how it differs from PTSD, and why the officer who has never been in a critical incident can be just as broken as the one who has. Brad and Dewayne walk through what a culturally competent clinician actually looks like, why baseline brain and blood health mapping belongs in the academy, and how the American Warrior Association's R3 program is embedding proactive resilience training directly into TTPOA's regional structure, the first partnership of its kind nationally.

But this episode isn't just about mental health. It's about identity. What happens to the guy who IS the job when the job ends? Brad gets personal about his own struggles stepping away from full-time law enforcement, Dewayne shares the moment his teenage son had to pick him up after a DUI, and Scott connects it all to the broader truth that your calling and your identity are not the same thing, and that confusing the two is costing officers their health, their relationships, and sometimes their lives before and after retirement.

The back half gets into the business world and how everything these men learned going through doors, managing teams, and serving their communities translates directly into relationship-based sales, leadership under pressure, and building something that outlasts the badge. If you've ever told yourself you're not capable of anything outside law enforcement, this one is going to challenge that story hard.

In this episode:

• Moral injury is NOT PTSD: it is the cumulative damage caused when you perpetrate something, fail to prevent something, or are ordered to act against your moral compass, and it compounds silently over an entire career without a single critical incident ever being the trigger

• Culturally competent clinicians are practitioners who have lived the lifestyle or are married to someone who has: Dewayne walked out of his first VA appointment when the counselor opened with pronouns, then found a female therapist married to a 20-year infantry veteran and experienced a completely different outcome

• The American Warrior Association's R3 program is building proactive resilience frameworks inside agencies, including regional resiliency coordinators, vetted clinician networks, and fully funded Warriors Refuge retreats where flights and lodging are free to eligible officers and spouses

• Brad Ortiz's Sound Off program at Silencer Shop donates $2 per purchase to a vetted nonprofit fund, and every individual officer purchase routes through silencershop.com where buyers work directly with Brad and Chris

• The inflection point analogy: moral injury deposits are made silently every shift, just like compounding interest, and what looks like a single critical incident blowing up is actually the hockey-stick moment on a years-long accumulation nobody was tracking

• Social media pile-ons after a justified OIS caused Brad more lasting moral injury than the shooting itself, a blind spot no clinician or debrief ever addressed until he found the right cultural fit in counseling

• Baseline blood panels and brain mapping done at the academy level would give officers a before-and-after reference for physiological change across a career: the greater endocrine system and brain health are being completely ignored while TRT gets all the attention

• The law enforcement skill set transfers directly into business leadership: problem-solving under pressure, decision-making without perfect information, ownership of mistakes, and relationship-first sales are all things operators have already built on the job, they just don't recognize it as a resume

Chapters:

0:39 Iron Sights mission statement and welcome
2:02 Introducing Brad Ortiz and Dewayne Manson
2:49 Brad's background: The Uncommon Line podcast
9:40 American Warrior Association programs overview
11:43 Resilience training inside TTPOA: the first of its kind
12:08 What moral injury actually is and why it's not PTSD
14:20 Culturally competent clinicians: Dewayne's personal story
31:52 Compounding critical incidents over a career
38:37 Social media pile-ons as a hidden source of moral injury
44:55 Identity vs. calling: challenging how officers define themselves
1:12:18 Relationship-first sales, legacy brands losing ground, and the business parallel
1:21:46 How to access AWA, R3, and SoundOff resources

Mentioned:
Brad Ortiz — Director of Sales for the Law Enforcement Division at Silencer Shop, former law enforcement officer and fugitive investigator, and former host of The Uncommon Line podcast, joined as a guest to discuss the SoundOff program and the AWA partnership.

Dewayne Manson — Representative of the American Warrior Association, infantry veteran who served in Afghanistan and contracted there through 2020, shared his personal journey through moral injury and recovery as context for AWA's R3 program.

Matt Smith — Co-host of the TTPOA podcast with 21 years on SWAT, co-hosted this live conference episode alongside Scott Howell and competed in the TTPOA shooting competition the day prior.

Brandon Hernandez — Region 7 Director and Director of Training for TTPOA, co-host of the TTPOA podcast, referred to on air as the celebrity of the group when a passerby stopped to greet him.

Anna Heil — Associated with the American Warrior Association, attended a TTPOA show in St. Louis and briefed other state organizations on the AWA partnership afterward.

Chris — Works alongside Brad Ortiz at Silencer Shop on the SoundOff individual officer program, mentioned as a direct point of contact buyers will reach at soundsoftshop.com.

Neil Noakes — Former Chief of Police of the Fort Worth Police Department, cited as an example of a career officer who, when asked how many critical incidents he had been on, simply said he had lost count.

Simon Sinek — Author and speaker known for the concept of finding your 'why,' referenced when Brad Ortiz challenged every officer in the room to examine the deeper reason behind their career and identity.

You know there is a gap between how your team trains and how your team performs. You've felt it. Gabe Rivera felt it too, and instead of talking about it, he built a system to close it. Full-time SWAT officer, Lead Faucet Tactical instructor, and founder of Mindset Tactical Solutions, Gabe sits down with Scott at the Texas Tactical Police Officers Association Conference in Round Rock, Texas to walk through eighteen years of hard lessons: how to vet instructors without getting burned by theory masquerading as experience, how competition shooting exposed gaps that thousands of hours of tactical courses never revealed, and how a small group of motivated cops turned a text thread into a sold-out law enforcement shooting match movement spreading from Southern California to Tennessee to TTPOA.
This isn't a conversation about chasing classifications or social media clout. Gabe is relentlessly mission-focused: make the people around you better, lead by example, and build a culture where your weakest link is not weak for long. He breaks down how his agency went from a one-time thirty-two-hour active shooter block to annual refreshers, quarterly reps, and academy-level integration, and how the same forward-thinking philosophy is now driving a USPSA club, an intro-to-competition course for cops, and an intra-team quarterly competition with a plaque and serious bragging rights on the line.
If you are a SWAT officer, a range sergeant, a team leader, or any cop who has ever wondered whether competition shooting is worth your time, this episode gives you the full picture, from Gabe's first humbling match experience alongside JJ Racaza to the stage-design lessons learned from rain-soaked stages at TTPOA this week. The roadmap is here. The people willing to help are already lined up. The only thing left is for you to start.
Scott and Gabe also get into what it actually takes to put on a law enforcement match from scratch: finding a USPSA club willing to partner, building walls out of nothing, managing squad flow so nobody is standing around for eight hours, and leaning on sponsors like Howitzer Clothing to make the economics work. Whether you want to attend one of these matches or host one in your region, you'll leave this episode knowing exactly where to begin.
In this episode: 
• Vetting instructors on tactics means prioritizing people whose techniques have been stress-tested for real, not just proven effective in Sims houses: one-off experiences are worth learning from, but not worth re-engineering your entire SOP around
 • Gabe's agency moved from a single thirty-two-hour active shooter block to academy-level integration plus annual refresher training plus quarterly reps after a post-incident debrief trip to Dallas surfaced the gap between their readiness and what actually-trained agencies were doing 
• Competition shooting exposed performance gaps that thousands of hours of tactical classes and certificates never did: the move to 'one match a month' then 'every match I can shoot' followed directly from realizing that class environments reward relative performance, while matches reveal absolute performance 
• The intra-team competition format Gabe built scores each team's top three shooters PLUS its bottom two, forcing accountability at the weakest link rather than letting high performers mask squad-wide deficiencies 
• The Southeast law enforcement match in Tennessee was the proof-of-concept Gabe and his crew replicated in the Southwest: copy the model, learn from their stage-flow lessons (including a full-service staff-reset format), and let the virus spread region by region 
• A USPSA section chair approved Gabe's agency-affiliated club to run official classifiers inside law enforcement courses, meaning cops can get their USPSA member number and classification within a course environment specifically designed around duty gear and relevant skill sets 
• Intro-to-competition classes for cops specifically address the three barriers Scott hears most: fear of DQ, not understanding stage planning, and not knowing how to sign up, and Gabe's model walks officers through a live match with coaching squad support their first time out 
• Sponsors like Howitzer Clothing (Eric Foss, Project Blue Lion) are funding JJ Racaza team courses and law enforcement match infrastructure outright, and USPSA clubs with materials and range facilities are the key first partnership to secure when replicating this model anywhere in the country
Chapters: 
0:39 Iron Sights intro and show mission 
1:09 Welcoming Gabe Rivera and Scott's personal history with him 
5:56 Gabe's background: 18 years in LEO and full-time SWAT
 6:27 Origin of Mindset Tactical Solutions and active shooter training 8:15 Lead Faucet Tactical and the instructor vetting process 
9:38 Dallas debrief, annual training evolution, and closing the readiness gap 
24:26 What 'vet your instructors' actually means in practice 
29:47 First exposure to competition shooting and Ben Stoeger's course 
31:37 Training with JJ Racaza and the decision to go all-in on competition 
44:03 Building a competition culture inside the agency 
51:03 Launching the Southwest LEO match and learning from Tennessee 
1:24:13 USPSA classification inside LEO courses and what is next
Mentioned: 
Gabe Rivera — Owner and instructor of Mindset Tactical Solutions, full-time SWAT officer with eighteen years in Southern California law enforcement, and Lead Faucet Tactical instructor; primary guest of this episode. Dan Brokos — Founder of Lead Faucet Tactical; mentioned as someone Gabe assists as an instructor and who was teaching in Southern California during the week of the TTPOA conference. 
Ben Stoeger — World-class competition shooter whose Los Angeles-area private course required a USPSA B classification for entry, giving Gabe his first serious exposure to high-level practical shooting in 2015. JJ Racaza — World-class competition shooter who invited Gabe to shoot a match after training together, and who later ran private performance shooting courses for Gabe's SWAT team, funded in part by Howitzer Clothing. 
Cody — Referenced as a helpful contact associated with the Southeast law enforcement shooting match in Tennessee whose team provided guidance and support to the Southwest match organizers. 
Sean Griffith — Described as a top-ten shooter in the world who helped design stages for the TTPOA match and is cited as an example of elite-level competitors willing to invest time in helping law enforcement get into competition. 
Eric Foss — Associated with Howitzer Clothing and Project Blue Lion; credited with sponsoring JJ Racaza's private course for Gabe's team at no cost to the agency and with funding law enforcement match infrastructure. 
Anthony Coley — Mentioned as a recent Iron Sights guest whose attitude of asking for help openly was cited as a model for the law enforcement match-building community. 
Dustin Mowry — Named as a previous Iron Sights guest and one of the people involved in the TTPOA match effort whom Gabe has known since approximately 2015. 
Chancey Pogue — Named as a previous Iron Sights guest involved in the TTPOA match collaboration alongside Gabe.
 Bryan Williams — Named alongside Dustin Mowry and Chancey Pogue as a previous Iron Sights guest involved in the TTPOA match effort.