An ICE firearms instructor has been involved in at least 4 fatal shootings

What is with you A company that trained paramilitary Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents testified that he was involved in at least four fatal shootings, according to a 2021 deposition related to a lawsuit reviewed by WIRED.

The work of David S. Norman, founder and owner of law enforcement training company TruKinetics LLC, was a Phoenix police officer from the late 1990s until his retirement in 2020. Before founding TruKinetics that same year, according to records 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 shot an armed suspect and exchanged gunfire in at least two of the shooting incidents.

TruKinetics, based in Gilbert, Ariz., offers training in small team tactics, hostage rescues, close-quarters combat, building searches, night vision firearms proficiency, handgun and rifle courses, vehicle interdiction, explosive penetration and sniper tactics, according to the company’s website.

TruKinetics received $27,748 for a one-year contract to conduct a mandatory 40-hour training course that some members of the Department of Homeland Security’s Special Response Teams receive annually at Fort Benning in Georgia, according to government procurement records reviewed by WIRED. At least 700 SRT agents from CBP’s Office of Field Operations, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Division, and ICE’s Office of Enforcement and Removal units pass through Fort Benning for annual training.

In an interview with WIRED, Norman says his company conducted sessions with a Special Response Team from the Arizona Office of Homeland Security Investigations. “They are some of the best guys, and it was an honor to work with them,” he told WIRED. Norman confirms that his courses, held in Arizona and Fort Benning, Georgia, did not include crowd control tactics or active shooters, but he would not specify further. “You seem to be one of those guys who does a hit piece on HSI,” he says.

TruKinetics posted two photos on Instagram in August 2024 of Norman and three TruKinetics instructors along with 19 uniformed operators from HSI’s Arizona Special Response Team, posing in a “kill house” training course — a set of rooms and hallways filled with obstacles and targets designed to simulate close-range combat.

CBP did not respond to WIRED’s questions about how many SRT teams and operators have passed the Gilbert, Arizona, company’s training course.

In the 2021 Law Enforcement Podcast, Modern policemanNorman describes himself as a “fucking brute” who sought out high-risk experiences and shootings as a cop. “I wanted these experiences. I was very aggressive,” Norman said. He also appeared to joke about the police shooting, telling the host, “You’re hoping it’s your Friday, so you can actually have days off.”

Previously reserved for armed or high-risk suspects, pursuit operations, and potentially dangerous building entrances, SRTs are now used for civil immigration enforcement, crowd control, and basic warrant service, operations that the unit was previously restricted from performing. Renee Judd and Alex Peretti were both killed while protesting increased federal militarized immigration in Minnesota, with SRT members implicated in their deaths. While recent controversy over violent immigration crackdowns by the Department of Homeland Security has focused on whether agents receive adequate training, the background of SRT’s training contractor raises questions about who is training ICE’s paramilitary units, and what they are being trained to do.

For dozens After two years as a Phoenix cop for two decades, Norman served on the agency’s Special Assignments Unit, a plainclothes fugitive apprehension team that Norman repeatedly described in a 2021 filing from a lawsuit filed the previous year as turning into what was considered a “SWAT” (special weapons and tactics) team. In those units, he served as a “cover point” man and at times served as a handgun instructor for units within the Phoenix police, according to his testimony and Phoenix police documents reviewed by WIRED.