Tear Gas Consultants: 7

Dennis Fivecoat has over 25 years of Use of Force and Firearm experience in the military and private sector including significant training in the area of Civilian Law Enforcement.

Mr. Fivecoat is a retired US Army physician assistant with a wide variety of functional background and experience. He has seen service in eight different countries encompassing desert, jungle, snow, and maritime missions. His past responsibilities range from combat in SW Asia to hospital duties as an ICU nurse in South Carolina. He has responded during national hurricane relief efforts and somewhat smaller Defense Support to Civil Authority (DSCA) missions.

Training Courses:

As a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, Mr. Fivecoat participated in Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm. Later, he also participated in the relief and stabilization efforts after Hurricane Andrew in August 1992. In March of 1994, Dennis participated in response to the Pope AFB plane crash incident. In 2003, Mr. Fivecoat became a “plank owner” in the newly created US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) where he represented FEMA regions VI & VII (encompassing 9 US states).

Mr. Fivecoat has participated in training with all branches of US military service, various special operations forces, the US Coast Guard, and numerous alphabet agencies. He is a frequently invited guest speaker and instructor for WMD/CBRNE, hazardous materials, and tactical/austere medicine. He is also a very active firearm and defensive tactics instructor with numerous nationally recognized instructor certifications.

Prior to retiring from the military, Mr. Fivecoat has been called to duty for such incidents as Hurricane Katrina, the Las Vegas ricin incident, the H1N1 pandemic, and the US Ebola exposure incident. He retired from the US Army in 2010 and began private consulting on terrorism, DSCA, and force protection issues.

View Dennis Fivecoat's Expert Witness Profile.

AGR Police Practice Group provides robust professional Policing Services to a mix of criminal justice entities and communities. AGR counsels and collaborates with organization leadership on risk management strategies, setting the highest Law Enforcement Performance Standards. They have the proven professional law enforcement experience.to achieve case-specific goals. 

Consulting Services:

• Organizational Assessments - Policy Model Review & Future Impact

Create sound and robust policies and practices for police leadership to advance a department’s ability to deliver the highest quality services to the community. AGR has experience with single – agency police implementation and reviewing national police organization model policies. 

• High-Risk Investigations - Independent Monitoring. Oversight. Auditing

Has a crisis, such as a police shooting or police misconduct, resulted in the loss of community trust and placed the agency on the defensive? AGR has broad experience in assisting agencies in complex and sensitive investigations.

• Auditing and Inspections - Enhance Accountability, Reduce Liability, Improve Compliance

Ensuring your police agency is doing what they say they are doing, by providing auditing and inspection services.

Chief Chet Epperson, (Ret.), MBA, principal of AGR, is a law enforcement veteran with over 40 years of active service. He served with the Rockford Illinois Police Department for 33 years and the last 10 years as chief. Chief Epperson serves as an expert with two Federal Police Consent Decree Monitoring Teams with special emphasis on use of force, police shootings, training, and policy oversight.

View Chief Epperson's Expert Witness Profile.

Aragon National, Inc.'s consulting extends to complex decision-making processes within Law Enforcement and Military Operations, and Health Analytics, and related Social Determinates (systems approach/ complexity / wicked problem approach). Aragon explores the link between visualizing intelligence, giving it meaning (sensemaking), critical thinking, insight generation, and decision-making.

Areas of Expertise:

Dr. John R. Black, President, has over 30 years of experience including International Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR), DoD Joint Technology Research Evaluation and Development, and the extraction of practical insight from Intelligence in support of Strategic Decision-making. He regularly speaks to police leadership, investigators, lawyers, and organizations about the process of inquiry, biases, and sensemaking.

Dr. Black (ret) has over 23 years of experience in law enforcement operations, including patrol, corrections, investigations, training, and command, combined with over 30 years with U.S. Army Special Operations and Peacekeeping (Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations.

View Dr. John R. Black's Expert Witness Profile.

Dr. Ron Martinelli, PhD, CMI-V, is a nationally renowned Forensic Criminologist and a federal/state courts qualified law enforcement and premises liability expert who is also a Certified Medical Investigator (physician's level) and a Certified Suicide Investigator. 

Dr. Martinelli directs the nation's only Forensic Death Investigations & Independent Review Team of 26 law enforcement, forensic and medical experts and specializes in officer-involved death cases, civilian self-defense shooting cases and premises liability/security cases. He is a forensic/law enforcement expert to the U.S. Department of Justice, several State Attorney Generals' Offices, numerous major municipalities and nationally prominent private law firms specializing in wrongful death, civil rights and premises liability. 

Dr. Martinelli is the prevailing expert in over 90% of his retained cases. He has saved defendants over $600M and earned plaintiffs over $280 million in jury verdicts and settlements since 2004. He is the media's go-to forensic expert for FOX News, One America News Network, CNN, HLN, Sky News, BBC, NPR, and the History & Discovery Channels. Dr. Martinelli is skilled in officer-involved shootings, in-custody deaths, crime scene reconstruction, forensics, applied sciences, human factors, psycho-medical emergencies and premises liability and security cases. His unique and extensive field experience, combined his academic and scientific credentials, excellent written reports and persuasive testimony, make him a very appealing expert to attorneys and juries alike.

Areas of Expertise:

• Arrests
• Search & Seizure
• Use of Force / Excessive Force - All Levels and Weaponry
• Officer Involved Shootings(OIS)
• In-Custody Deaths
• Criminal Investigations
• Law Enforcement & Corrections Practices, Training & Supervision
• Adult & Juvenile Corrections
• Law Enforcement Negligence
• Civilian Self-Defense, Premises Liability, Security, Foreseeable Harm
• Insurance Cases
• Human Factors

SIMCO specializes in Jail, Prison and Corrections Expert Witness and Consultation Services.  Founder, Joseph Gunja is a Jails, Prisons and Corrections Expert with more than 30 years of experience in the corrections industry.

Mr. Gunja had a distinguished career with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) for over 28 years serving as a Correctional Officer, Shift Supervisor, Investigator, Captain, Associate Warden, and Warden at three complex correctional facilities. He also served as Regional Director of the Western Region for over 2 years and was assigned to the FBOP's Headquarters in Washington, DC where he was responsible for authoring national policy and official publications, providing technical expertise to the Assistant Director of Correctional Programs and facility Wardens, Associate Wardens, and Captains. 

Mr. Gunja also served as the Keynote Speaker and Trainer at the FBOP's Management and Specialty Training Center on a monthly basis After retiring from the FBOP in 2007, Mr. Gunja has been providing correctional consultation services. In addition, he has worked for two of the largest private corrections companies, CCA and GEO Group, as Warden at the Northeast Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio, and the Great Plains Correctional Facility in Hinton, Oklahoma. 

Consulting Services Include:

View Joseph E. Gunja's Expert Witness Profile.

Roy G. Taylor is a current Chief of Police with over 40 years of experience in a wide-range of federal, state, local, and private criminal justice positions. He delivers comprehensive and intelligent Law Enforcement and Security Services to federal, state, and local governments, and is authorized to work on private or government properties including parks, any government owned buildings, land, public housing communities, hospitals, schools, or similar areas. 

Dr. Taylor's experience and expertise includes use of force and firearms instruction; recruiting, selection and assignment; employee supervision, evaluation and retention; curriculum development; policies and procedures design and implementation; canine utilization; budgeting; public relations; and emergency management. 

Current Positions:

• Chief of Police Blue Ridge Public Safety (2014)
• President/CEO Signal 88 Security of Charlotte (2012)
• President/CEO Capitol Special Patrol (2012)
• Chief of Police Capitol Special Police (2002)
• LT. Colonel – Provost Marshal, Army National Guard (2000)
• Antiterrorism / Emergency Management Branch Chief DoD (2007)
• Provost Marshal Joint Civil Support Task Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff (2014)

Specific Services:

View Roy Taylor's Expert Witness Profile.

Emanuel Kapelsohn is an internationally recognized Firearms Training and Use of Force consultant who has instructed thousands of police and security officers, federal agents and others throughout the U.S. and abroad since 1980. He currently serves as a consultant to

• Manufacturers of Firearms and related products regarding design, human factors, safety and training issues; product literature including warnings and owner's manuals; development of user, instructor and armorer training programs, materials and training aids; marketing issues; and risk management
• Cities, States, and Governmental Entities regarding development, review and implementation of use of force policies, law enforcement training programs and issues, response to critical incidents, and risk management
• Law Enforcement and Security Agencies regarding selection of firearms and related equipment; design and implementation of training programs; safety surveys and safety protocols; qualification standards; development and review of written departmental firearms and use of force policies; and evaluation of specific use of force incidents and firearms accidents

A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, Mr. Kapelsohn is a practicing attorney in addition to his consulting work. As vice president of the Internat’l Assoc. of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, he is a certified in force science and shooting scene reconstruction, and as an instructor in numerous law enforcement disciplines. 

Mr. Kapelsohn is a featured presenter at national and international instructor conferences. He has authored over 130 published articles, is Associate Editor of "Standards & Practices Guide for Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors," and principal author of "Firearms Training Standards for Law Enforcement Personnel," and "Guidelines for Simulation Training Safety."

View Emanuel Kapelsohn's Expert Witness Profile.