You know, it seems to me that hearing about a police officer shooting someone wasn’t widely reported in past years.

Now they are.

Perhaps it was because in the old days, the cops pretty much shot bad guys, and often it was in self defense.

Now there seems to be a rash of police officers shooting even unarmed people, some who appear not to be making aggressive moves on the police. Even here in good old Minnesota.

We know this, of course, because everyone in the world now owns a cell phone, and they are all taking cell phone videos of everything that happens around them.

One woman even made a live video, posting it to her Facebook account of her boyfriend being shot and killed by a police officer in Minneapolis as the two sat in the front seat of a vehicle and her son sat in the back seat. That officer is now facing manslaughter charges.

What the heck is going on here? I sure can’t figure it out. Can you?

And it also seems as though many of the shootings involve white officers and black victims. But certainly not all. In fact, from 1999 to 2011, law enforcement personnel killed 2,151 whites and 1,130 blacks. Granted, I am not sure how many were ‘innocent’ victims and how many were suspected criminals.

The most disturbing part to me are the reports that some of the victims had not done anything wrong, were not armed and were not making any really aggressive move towards the officers.

And the worst part for me is when the officer fires six or seven shots, emptying his or her weapon. Wouldn’t wounding a person be better than killing them?

Or perhaps even using some other non-lethal ways of defusing any situation, without resorting to gunfire.

That is precisely what our own Faribault County law enforcement officers were being trained for over a two-day period last week. Half the county’s officers took the training on Wednesday, the other half on Thursday.

I was able to sit in on some of it.

Police and sheriff personnel attended a full day of training. Half the day was spent in a classroom, the other half actually being trained in use of force and defensive tactics.

You may have seen a number of squad cars parked on Blue Earth’s Main Street last Wednesday and Thursday. No, there wasn’t a robbery going on at Dikkens. The officer training was going on next door at Timmerman’s Tae Kwon Do.

That is Troy Timmerman, as in county attorney Troy Timmerman. He runs the Tae Kwon Do facility as his side business. And, he is good at it.

But last week, instead of kids and adults testing for their next belt, it was all law enforcement officers learning when and how to use force or good defense to disarm a suspect and defuse a dangerous situation.

They were being trained by a petite, 50-year-old woman by the name of Paula Meyers. But, make no mistake about it, she is probably the toughest middle-aged woman you will ever meet. An absolute dynamo.

Meyers is an expert in martial arts, and has completed some of the most rigorous special forces training to be found in the world, and was often the only female to complete the nearly impossible courses. She is an expert and instructor in KRAV Maga, a self-defense system developed for the Israeli Defense Forces. She was the only female to take the training for that in Israel, and was one of the few people to finish it.

Meyers runs something called “Fight or Flight Academy” in the Twin Cities that teaches self defense techniques to kids and adults. But last week she was in Blue Earth training a group of law enforcement officers.

Part of the training included Timmerman explaining when the use of excessive force is necessary and allowed and when it is not. And how much force up to and including deadly force can be used in different situations.

Timmerman feels that in light of all the police shootings going on around the country, it is important for officers in Faribault County to know what is acceptable and what is not and what is legal and what is not.

And, to know how to protect themselves and others without having to pull out a weapon and shoot someone a bunch of times.

From what I observed, this training was very beneficial to our local officers. Several expressed appreciation to Timmerman and Meyers for all their help.

My question is, don’t all law enforcement people across the country receive this type of training?

And if not, why not?