The BENCHMADE Knife Company is in strategic partnership with Cutting Edge Training, LLC, located in Bellingham, Washington. We are proud of our association with what we believe to be the finest law enforcement and military training organization in existence. Cutting Edge Training provides this and other outstanding training to US and International law enforcement, as well as to the military.

Cutting Edge Training, LLC, may be contacted at (360) 671-2007, or by e-mail at training@cuttingedgetraining.org.

LAW ENFORCEMENT TRAINING
Cops carry knives. Most officers carry at least one, and many carry more than one. When asked why, officers generally give two answers: 1. “To cut seatbelts, sir/ma’am” (the “acceptable” answer); and, 2. the primary reason: “To save my life if I need to.” Officers see the knives they carry as “life-saving tools.” So do we.

Cutting Edge Training’s “Duty Knife” courses are carefully designed to train the police officer, deputy, and agent how to reasonably and effectively employ the knife in those last-ditch situations where survival is doubtful and can, sadly, result in a police funeral. In fact, Cutting Edge Training has researched incidents where officers have been murdered, and where officers have saved their lives with a duty knife, and based this training on actual threats to officers. These courses take Duty Knife training a step further, by training officers in the latest risk-management strategies of articulating the objective reasonableness of the officer’s force response. Further, as part of law enforcement’s reality that appearance often means more than the facts, the Duty Knife courses train officers in a deadly force approach that limits the employment of the knife in such a way as its use proves the threat to the officer! Of the reported saves by participants, all—so far—have been bloodless.

This triple-threat approach—ultimate practicality with cutting edge risk management practices combined with the political sensitivity to the police use of the knife—makes Cutting Edge Training’s knife training the premier police duty knife training course in the world.

Above all else, BENCHMADE realizes that the knives we build must not only be the finest products of their kind in the world, but when used by police officers, must be used in a manner that is legally justified as well as effective. Our knives, when used for defense purposes, are life-saving tools, and Cutting Edge Training’s program employs the most current—and effective—method of teaching officers how to employ the knife effectively in an incredibly short period of time. At the same time, and as importantly, the limited manner in which the officer is trained to employ the knife, developed and trained only by Cutting Edge Training, demonstrates to the court, jury, and prosecutor the reasonableness of the force response. The liability awareness and reduction aspects of this training are nothing less than outstanding, and should be a required component of any force response course.

As Cutting Edge Training emphasizes throughout its training, this is not a “slash and gash” or a “ripper” class. They don’t teach “knife-fighting” to cops (that would be absurd—officers don’t “fight” with knives—so there are NO “knife-on-knife” training drills or scenarios. These Duty Knife courses completely avoid a “military” or “martial arts” orientation to police knife employment. This is a police-oriented training that requires a reasonable force response by real-police officers in the real world where the employment of deadly force by police is a grave undertaking. As such, the standards of articulating the totality of the facts known to the officer at the time of the knife employment are emphasized throughout the course.

Cutting Edge Training offers two law enforcement knife courses:
“Duty Knife: use and defense for police.” This 8-hour end-user’s course provides officers with comprehensive training in surviving the worst-case, last-ditch defense of life situations, and articulating that response. Officers are taught to problem-solve these situations in a manner that is simultaneously effective, limited, and defensible. Included also is Real-World Police Knife Defense, Employing the Knife as an Emergency Rescue Tool, and Safe Utility Knife Use.

“Duty Knife Instructor: TRAIN-THE-TRAINER.” This 24-hour course teaches agency trainers to prepare their officers to respond with objectively reasonable deadly force in last-ditch situations where officers in the past have lost their weapons and their lives. This is a course where your agency trainers actually learn to teach and train officers to be effective, rather than just another three-day course where the participants get better but can’t teach the material.

Pre-requisite: The 8-hour “Duty Knife” course.

MILITARY KNIFE TRAINING
(No civilians or police officers are permitted. If you don't qualify, please don't inquire.)

This course gives your unit trainer the answers to every troop's question: "What do I do if he gets inside the muzzle of my M4?" This is real-world, "good to go" training for your last layer of offense.

Cutting Edge Training provides the only basic to advanced knife employment and combatives training program based upon the reality and actual combat needs. They, frankly, don’t teach a never-gonna-happen, one-in-a-bazillion sentry removal course, or dubious “knife-on-knife” methods (used only in prisons and low-life bars). If the fighting is up-close-and-suddenly-very-personal, or your primary weapon goes down for any reason, and you can’t get to your sidearm, the knife is proven as a combat life-saver. It may allow you to arm yourself with another weapon, give you time to reload, or stop the situation altogether.

The knife truly is your “last layer of offense,” and this course teaches you and your troops a comprehensive method of keeping your weapon whether standing or on the ground, and continuing your mission after the bad guy gets inside your muzzle. Simple. Tactical. Practical. Real-world. No martial arts, just humans doing what they do.

A smart man once said, “You’ll fight like you train, only you’ll do it worse.” That’s why Cutting Edge Training doesn’t teach fairy-stories and martial arts fantasies about “trapping,” “knife-on-knife fights,” and/or precise disabling slices to various joints as a means of “wearing him down.” Cutting Edge Training has, for 30 years, been interviewing veterans of WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam< who have actually used a knife in combat. They have also interviewed corrections personnel who have witnessed hundreds of stabbings and uses of edged weapons. This program is built upon how human beings in combat actually employ a knife…and it ain’t like a lot of people want to teach.

This knife and combatives class emphasizes the quick de-animation of the enemy combatant using a proven, integrated method of negatively multi-tasking the subject with the knife and personal weapons. If a situation has deteriorated to the point where a knife is the only viable weapon, it must be utilized in a manner that quickly permits the warrior to dispose of any aggressive enemy in order to stabilize the situation, if only for the moment, and allow the operator or infantryman the opportunity to orient, obtain, and prepare a firearm for further action as necessary. This means from standing, kneeling, and/or on the ground with the enemy.

Cutting Edge Training has developed and implemented a training strategy that integrates the knife with the most simple, yet sophisticated Close Quarters Combat yet devised. The strategy is simple: effectively multi-task the enemy with a series of negative choices—every choice the enemy makes to relieve or defend against one attack leaves another unanswered. How this training teaches the soldier to implement this multi-tasking is brilliant because it is so incredibly effective, while simultaneously so incredibly simple.

Cutting Edge Training developed a 3-day “users” class that provides everything your troops need to survive when it gets close. The “REAL-WORLD KNIFE COMBATIVES Instructor: TRAIN-THE-TRAINER” course is 13-days involving 104-hours (48-hours of instruction in combatives philosophies and skill development necessary to provide troops with superior training in Real-World Knife Combatives; 32-hours of intense preparation in delivery of a 24-hour "user's" course; 24-hour final examination: a practical training by the instructor-candidates of troops mentored by Cutting Edge Training staff. Upon graduation, your unit trainers will be supported with professional training materials and be proven to be skilled in transferring real-world skills and problem-solving to their troops.

This essential task training is:

• Conducted in BDUs and RBA/LBE.
• High intensity with safety protocols built-in to ensure a dynamic training environment with few to no injuries--our goal is to intensively train your operators, soldiers, and Marines, and have them good to go for work the day following the course.<
• Realistic for today's warrior--it is achievable for all troops and operators. Each training course is tailored for the skill level and motivation of the troops attending.

STRATEGIC PARTNERS SINCE 1999
For years, both BENCHMADE and Cutting Edge Training had received an increasing number of requests for “knife training” from both military and police. In 1999, Cutting Edge Training approached BENCHMADE with an idea that soon took the knife training world by storm: create a “training knife” that is identical to the duty knives that officers and soldiers carry, yet is as safe as such a tool can be made for close, aggressive physical training. Because so many police officers, deputies, federal agents, and military personnel carry BENCHMADE knives into harm’s way, it was only natural that BENCHMADE be the company to build and introduce the training knife that would transform these specialized knife classes into the critical-skill lifesaving training that we see today.

BENCHMADE quickly set its talented designers and engineers to work building prototypes for testing and modification. After a year-long period of testing, rejection, modification, and redesign, BENCHMADE built what remains the only safe training knife available for serious training: the “Trainer” was born. A purpose-built knife that perfectly mimics its duty counterpart with the same mass and throw of the blade, constructed from the same materials, yet is as safe as a metal knife can be made for vigorous defense training. Anything less than this training knife could mean training injuries, or even death.

These training knives are featured in every Duty Knife course offered by Cutting Edge Training. They enable Cutting Edge Training to train your officers in the exact circumstances that officers in the past have died, using the exact tools those officers will use to defend their lives. The teamwork between BENCHMADE Knife Company and Cutting Edge Training has enabled the realistic, life-saving training of thousands of officers nationwide through its user and “train-the-trainer” courses.

Do you know of any KNIFE USE by OFFICERS in the LINE of DUTY, or SOLDIERS in COMBAT?

If you have, or if you know of someone else having employed a knife against either an offender in the line of duty, or against enemy personnel in combat, we want to talk to you!

All discussion can be, at your request, confidential regarding your name and agency/unit--we will always honor the confidentiality of your identity. Our courses are built upon actual incidents of police and military knife employment respectively, and we need your help to continue to provide meaningful training to save officers' and soldiers’ lives.

If you know of an incident, call us at 360.671.2007, or email us at training@cuttingedgetraining.org

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