Tech takes active-shooter training beyond paper targets as deadly real-world threats rise

COLUMBIA, Missouri — A startup’s portable target system could transform the way law enforcement agencies train for active-shooter scenarios, said Kris Knutson, a former IT consultant propelled into the govtech market amid a rise in real-world threats.

Shot Bot — patented by Knutson in 2019 — provides realistic, adaptable, and comprehensive training experiences, the Missouri entrepreneur explained, setting new standards in law enforcement preparedness. Such advancements could be key to officers’ responses when faced with deadly scenarios like Wednesday’s deadly ramming attack and shootout on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Kris Knutson, Shot Bot; courtesy photo

“It sadly hits home,” Knutson said of the early morning New Year’s Day incident, which left two law enforcement agents injured and the shooter killed by authorities. “It will be interesting to read the After Action Report. In that moment, the bad guy wanted to die while killing anybody around him. Officers responded quickly, but two were hurt. Would more frequent critical incident firearms training, like what Shot Bot product supports, add additional value to their officers in active shooter scenarios?”

“Even more so than a product, my goal is to try to create more training, to reduce the mistakes, and to create a higher-qualified agency,” he added.

“For me, it’s the innovation,” the Shot Bot founder continued. “The programming is just a simple, little Arduino software base, but when I can deliver it and watch officers learn off of it and train more often for cheaper, it becomes more than just a product. It becomes that passion.” 

Knutson has had the opportunity to work with the Boone County Sheriff’s Office, Missouri School Resource Officer Division, and the Law Enforcement Training Institute in Columbia, he said. He’s also started building a national brand with sales in Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee.

“I’ve had an officer that I look up to — a 15-year officer — come up and say, ‘I want to shake your hand; this is great,’” Knutson recalled. “He said, ‘I’ve never had an adrenaline rush like this on simple, little paper targets.’ So that just gave me more fuel to that passion and it continues to add to that passion.”

Click here to see how Shot Bot’s wobble targets work.

Knutson — an information technology consultant who had worked in IT for CarFax for 20 years — started developing the prototype for Shot Bot about seven years ago after connecting with a law enforcement agent in Columbia. The agent — who knew that Knutson had designed a clay-pigeon launcher — asked if he could design an action target that could be placed anywhere.

“He says, ‘My skill set is diminishing,’” Knutson recalled of meeting the agent, who was also a veteran of the Iraq War. “‘We’re not training as hard. We’re not training on active targets, and I’m losing that skill set I had.’”

Simulating the unthinkable

Unlike outdated static targets, Shot Bot’s “force-on-target” system — a 12-inch-by-12-inch, 35-pound portable device that can be set up in minutes — simulates unpredictable, high-stakes environments, allowing officers to experience the dynamic nature of real-world threats, Knutson noted. 

Active target drills featuring Shot Bot’s wobble target technology; courtesy photo

“The trainer can place them in a bathroom stall, in a hallway, out on the range — 200 yards away, 50 yards away for qualifications,” he explained.

Knutson can even lower the height of the target and put it in the front seat of a car to simulate a traffic stop where the officers don’t know if the occupant has a gun, he said.

“How do those officers engage a target that they don’t know is a threat or a no-threat until it turns on them?” he explained.

Right now, Knutson noted, a lot of the moving targets on the market are on big rails or monolithic movers, which are expensive — “They cost $80,000 for a mover with hydraulics” — and they are limited to a shooting range.

“It’s an engineered environment for that target system,” he added, “where mine puts it more into their environment.”

Shot Bot portable target systems empower officers to sharpen their decision-making, situational awareness, and reaction times, he said, ensuring they are ready for the most critical situations. Force-on-force training — a role player scenario — is still the closest thing to real life, he acknowledged, but that takes logistics, more people, and there is liability.

“How often can they get role players that want to be shot at?” he said. “And can they do that every week? Well, that gets difficult, so now we have an action target that we can set up in a bathroom stall and do a bathroom-stall-clearing scenario or down a hallway where you can do it nightly, if you wanted to.”

Virtual reality training systems are available, Knutson noted, which are great — especially for de-escalation training — but they still lack the ability to have the same same physiological effect as the real-world environment, such as a school resource officer running down their school hallway and having a person who is no threat jump out in front of them.

“If they’re carrying their weapon incorrectly, and they jump, they might shoot the no-threat target because it now jumped out in front of them and they were running, they were out of breath,” he explained. “Again, that’s how you try to get as close to the real world as you can and do it more often.”

Support for starting in Missouri

Selling a product in the government sector has been a learning curve for Knutson, he shared.

“How do you negotiate?” he explained. “If you’re not in the budget ahead of time, you have to wait a year. They have to go through evaluation. Then you have political things that happen.”

The Missouri APEX Accelerator and the Missouri Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in Columbia, he noted, have been pivotal in helping him understand government contract acquisition and the intricate details of navigating the government marketplace. 

The tailored support they provide — which spans from business model canvas workshops to intensive market research, personalized coaching, and accountability measures — has propelled his startup to not only launch but also to effectively compete in the demanding government sector, he continued.

“The research that I have available at SBDC and APEX, you can’t beat it,” he added. “I will advise any startups from time to time to use those resources. Someone starting new that has no clue about those resources is losing the whole gamut of tools available to them.”