We recently lost Evan Marshall, a valued friend and a famous cop. Evan Marshall was a strong and early voice in the officer survival training movement, and is believed to have originated the term “street survival.” He passed a few days before his 84th birthday.
Evan’s solid advice in gun magazines and law enforcement professional journals spread tactical wisdom to lawmen everywhere, and applied equally to law-abiding armed citizens. He walked the walk and talked the talk. He was a street cop in Detroit during some of the highest crime years, and prevailed in multiple shooting incidents. He did much to promote improved firearms training and tactical training. We’ll never know how many lives he saved.
Evan had a Master’s degree in education which he applied to police training with generous amounts of common sense. He was a driving force in providing better weapons, ammunition, body armor and tactics, and more sophisticated officer involved shooting investigation protocols. He rose from high-risk patrol to SWAT team weapons and tactics instructor and to homicide investigation in one of the nation’s highest crime cities.
Evan and co-author Ed Sanow wrote three books on defensive ammunition selection based heavily on Evan’s research with various police departments on what rounds were working most effectively in actual shooting incidents. This made him a target for vilification by people who were invested in different theories, but I can tell you that my own feedback on the same topic from departments across the country mirrored what Marshall and Sanow found in their extensive research.
Godspeed, Brother Evan. Your work saved more good people’s lives than we will ever know. Condolences to Evan’s close-knit family. His obituary is here.
