What Changed

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) had released nearly $700 million in funding opportunities across seven programs for state, local and tribal law enforcement.

For casualty care, the line to watch is the Preparing for Active Shooter Situations (PASS) Program. According to the COPS Office, PASS exists to deliver "scenario-based, integrated response courses designed to counter active shooter threats or acts of terrorism." The FY2026 notice specifically requires "tactical medical intervention train-the-trainer for law enforcement."

That content is right. The question is scale.

The Numbers

All figures are from DOJ and COPS Office documents. They are funding available under released solicitations, not final awards.

  • COPS Technology and Equipment Program: about $400 million. The notice lists an expected total of $401,406,387 across 437 anticipated awards. It is limited to entities named in the Congressional Joint Explanatory Statement, meaning congressionally designated projects.
  • COPS Hiring Program: $158 million
  • STOP School Violence Prevention Program: $73 million
  • COPS Anti-Heroin Task Force Program: $34 million
  • COPS Anti-Methamphetamine Program: $13 million
  • PASS: $10.35 million
  • Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act Program: $9 million

The PASS details, from the FY2026 notice and fact sheet:

  • One award, for 12 months, starting October 1, 2026.
  • The recipient must train at least 20,000 first responders. Applicants that can't reach that number "will not be considered."
  • At least 10% of the training must go to audiences responsible for active shooter response in schools.
  • Audiences include police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, medical personnel, facility security and emergency management. Mental health and social service providers were added this year.
  • No local match. Applications closed August 11, 2026.

Simple math: $10.35 million divided by 20,000 responders is about $518 per person at the minimum target. PASS is roughly 1.5% of the total announced. The recipient had not been announced in the materials we reviewed.

Why It Matters Operationally

In an active shooter event, the first people who can reach a casualty are almost always patrol officers. That makes the first medical decision a law enforcement decision.

Military trauma data points the same way. The Joint Trauma System Damage Control Resuscitation CPG states that "point-of-injury hemorrhage control (per Tactical Combat Casualty Care guidelines), rapid evacuation, and pre-hospital blood resuscitation saves lives." The JTS Vascular Injury CPG links "the widespread training and use of tourniquets on the modern battlefield" to "allowing casualties that would have died from extremity hemorrhage in the field to now reach medical care." Note the first word in that pairing: training. That evidence comes from the battlefield, where TCCC applies. Civilian law enforcement works under C-TECC's TECC guidelines, but the principle carries over: bleeding control at the point of injury only works if the person on scene has trained it.

Train-the-trainer is a sound model. It also means the long-term cost moves to local agencies. A department that sends one instructor to a federally funded course still needs paid time, training days, supplies and scenario space to pass those skills to everyone else. None of that comes with the award.

ODM's Position

Position: PASS is funding the right thing: scenario-based, integrated, medically competent active shooter response. But a single one-year award next to roughly $400 million in equipment money says integrated casualty-care training is still treated as an add-on. Equipment without training is not readiness.

Evidence: The PASS notice itself makes tactical medical intervention and multidisciplinary scenario training requirements. The JTS guidance above ties survival to point-of-injury bleeding control and rapid evacuation. Those are skills, not purchases.

Strongest counterpoint: This comparison is not apples to apples. The Technology and Equipment money is congressionally designated. DOJ didn't pick those projects, and many of them may fund legitimate needs. Hiring money matters too, because an understaffed agency can't release officers for training. This release is also not the whole federal, state and local training picture.

All true. But the budget is still a list of priorities. When integrated casualty-care training shows up as a single national award, most of the sustained work falls to local budgets. In our view, local training money is too easy to cut in a hard year.

What good looks like:

  • Integrated police–fire/EMS casualty-care training is a recurring budget line, not a one-time grant.
  • Every equipment purchase (tourniquets, kits, shields, vehicles) comes with funded training and sustainment.
  • Instructors trained through programs like PASS get protected time to teach locally.
  • Training happens in scenarios that look like the real job, including residential and cluttered spaces, and includes moving casualties under stress.

What Your Agency Should Do Now

  • Watch for the FY2026 PASS award announcement and find out how agencies can request training from the recipient.
  • Audit your current active shooter training. Does it include hands-on bleeding control, casualty movement and joint work with fire/EMS, or only a lecture?
  • If you receive equipment funding, write the matching training and sustainment plan before the gear arrives.
  • Brief your city council or county commissioners on the cost per officer of real, repeatable medical training, and ask for it as a recurring line.
  • Track which officers have actually applied a tourniquet under stress in the past year, not just who attended a class.

Bottom Line

The COPS release puts real money into law enforcement, and the PASS curriculum is right. But $10.35 million for one year of integrated active shooter training, in a package of nearly $700 million, is a signal. Federal money can start a program. Local leaders have to decide whether it lasts.

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