In 1986, about a month before the Miami shootout, I attended an FBI Firearms Instructors Academy along with several other firearms instructors from my department. We were all seasoned instructors with 5 or more years of service, however we did not have the magic FBI certificate. The course was revolver and shotgun driven. As local cops we had a love/hate relationship with them and gave them a hard time about their ignorance of the semi-autos. They were good instructors and took the back and forth in a good way.

One 2 hour course of fire was with semi-autos and all of the instructors from our department carried 1911's and were good shooters, several shooting competition. As I recall we fired 100 rounds of mostly 38 super and 45 acp ammo. During the course of fire we did not have any malfunctions of any type. During the live fire portion, I noticed an FBI agent that I had not seen before behind us carrying a clipboard and making notes. After the live fire he quizzed us about the fact that we did not have any problems and we told him we shot nearly every day as instructors and kept our gear clean and top condition. He left shortly after and we did not see him again.

I became friends with one of the FBI instructors and asked about this person, and he informed me that he was sent from Quantico to document all of our malfunctions and make a report on this. We had none and I guess he left disappointed. Less that a month later the Miami shootout took place. I would give anything to read the report he filed. One of the FBI instructors was Don Gray and he was one of the finest shotgun gun men I have ever run across.