Joy Beyond Expectation

Inspired by father, Firearms Instructor Brad Penton shoots for more than hits

I was born and raised in Mobile. As a young child, my father was a reserve officer with the City of Mobile Police Department. At that time, they allowed civilians to complete a curriculum of training which occurred during the evenings and on weekends.

I saw my dad put on that Mobile Police uniform and walk out the door to voluntarily go serve the citizens of Mobile. I looked up to him. I respected what he did. Because of my age, I didn’t fully grasp the dangers that he faced doing this. It was the 1970s and it was still a violent time in our country’s history.

In my early 20s, I still hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do with my life, other than being a rock-n-roll drummer in a band. Lieutenant John Graham, then a sergeant, was a courtesy officer at the apartment complex where the girl I was dating worked as a manager. I ended up spending some time with Sergeant Graham and listened to a bunch of his cop stories. Coincidentally, the television show “COPS” had just started airing, and the rest is history. I just knew I wanted to do what Sergeant Graham and the officers in “COPS” were doing.

This was a time in American History that kids still grew up wanting to be police officers. It was an honorable profession and the respect people had for law enforcement was palpable. The first time I took the test at the Mobile County Personnel Board was with over 2,000 applicants.

I placed in the top 200, but still didn’t get hired. In the world we live in now we couldn’t even hope to get 200 applicants much less 2,000.

I then found out about the Public Safety Officer Classification with the Mobile County Personnel Board. This was a law enforcement position, which also fought fires. One would drive to the scene, remove the gun belt, shirt and vest off, and put on the turnout gear which was kept in the trunk of the car. Fires were fought along one or two full-time firefighters, which were on duty. Afterward, you helped get the fire truck replenished for the next fire and then you went back on patrol.

I ended up being hired by the City of Chickasaw and started my law enforcement career on Friday, September 9, 1995. I served 17 years there before coming to the Mobile Police Department.

I never had any desire to be a firefighter, and it was while working as a Public Safety Officer I discovered how much I truly loathed fighting fires! I respect what firefighters do. They really work hard when they are fighting fires, and it’s exhausting. It is also something for which I wanted no part.

My goal when joining the Mobile Police Department was always to obtain a training position. After working patrol and general investigations for a while, I was finally able to get assigned full time to the Metro Range and I have been here for over three years.

My heart is truly in training, specifically teaching new recruits, and doing my best to make sure they have the best training they can receive. I take it personally.

I’d like to say the Mobile Police Department Firearms Training Unit has the finest firearms instructors they could ever hope to have. The things our unit is able to accomplish with recruit training and in-service training is second to none. I will put our Firearms Training Unit up against any other law enforcement agency in the country. What we do works, and it works in such a short time. Outside agencies, including the FBI, don’t see how we do it.

A little over five years ago, I got back into shooting competitions. I say got back into, as I shot some with my dad years ago. My dad and I talked about getting back into competitive shooting but just never got around to it. I wanted to start shooting competitively for a couple of reasons. I wanted to improve my firearms skills, and I wanted to add stress to my shooting. Anytime you are on a clock it adds some stress. Shooting on the clock while other people are watching adds more stress. If I could perform and not let the stress rattle me, I was (for lack of a better term) creating some stress inoculation.

Around the time I had made the decision to shoot competitively, I found out that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer. He was unable to shoot competitions with me so I would shoot a competition and then go see him. We would talk about the competition and maybe, in some small way, he could live vicariously through me. As my dad’s condition worsened, I was spending more of my off time with him. Shooting competitions gave me an escape. I could go shoot a competition and kind of get a break from the reality of the fate I was having to accept about my dad’s cancer.

When that timer went off and I began to shoot, it was just me and the gun —shooting my stage plan, figuring out where I was going to make my magazine changes, focusing on the fundamentals of shooting, making good hits, and doing my best. Afterward, I could still talk to my dad about how I shot.

After I lost my dad, I continued shooting. One or two competitions a month became three or four, and I began shooting more disciplines. I guess if I have to say it, when I shoot it’s just me, but deep down I like to imagine my dad is there with me in some way. He would have enjoyed shooting with me again, and I know he would be very proud of what I’ve accomplished.

Here I am years later, and I currently have classifications in four different disciplines. I really love shooting competitively and believe it gives credibility to my instruction. I’m not just telling you how to shoot, I’m actually doing what I teach, and having a decent amount of success at it. I’ve tried to encourage a lot of officers to come with me to shoot a local match. It’s a great way to improve your firearms skills and stop worrying about that clock ticking away in your head. I’ll keep inviting officers, and maybe one day more will come with me to shoot a match and see how much fun they will have —while training for the gun fight that we all pray will never come.

Submitted by Angel Cooper, MCPAAA