Blackbird Training

Jeff Smith (Smitty) has over 29 years of faithful, energetic service to the community and almost three decades of a deeply committed, daily dedication to training and enhancing the productivity and safety of fellow law enforcement officers.

Jeff began his career in 1991 as a police officer and has spent 28 years working in law enforcement. Jeff’s police life has focused heavily on drug enforcement and specialty unit operations.

Jeff spent a total of 18 years in the Criminal Investigation Division and worked as a Detective, Detective 1^st Class, Corporal and Sergeant in the Narcotics Unit. Jeff was a Narcotics supervisor for a total of 10 years. Jeff’s unit was also cross-designated as members of the county drug task force and his unit has worked cases with DEA, FBI, HSI, US Customs, Maryland State Police, Delaware State Police, Virginia State Police and many other agencies all over the region.

In his time in drug enforcement Jeff has participated in thousands of operations both as a detective and supervisor. In his 10 years as a drug enforcement supervisor, Jeff’s unit was responsible for 1,226 arrests. Jeff has supervised several thousand undercover operations and participated as a detective in many more over the years.

Jeff has helped design and implement numerous long-term undercover operations that have resulted in as many as 41 arrests in one operation. His unit ran an undercover taxi company in Ocean City for 2 ½ years resulting in dozens of indictments for felony drug distribution offenses. 

The unit was often responsible for and regularly trained for their own tactical operations in open air buy bust operations, rolling buy bust operations, long term round-up operations, vehicle involved arrests and takedowns, officer and informant rescue and other tactical operations. They were the “go to” unit for the agency when there were special surveillance and non-traditional operational needs.

Jeff has attended dozens of specialized drug enforcement schools sponsored by over 30 different agencies totaling 1,080 hours of training in drug enforcement alone and another 35 schools focused in other areas of policing.

Jeff is regularly used as an Expert Witness for the State’s Attorney’s Office in Worcester County, Maryland in felony drug prosecutions.

Jeff has also worked as the Sergeant of the Major Crimes Unit and as a member of the Criminal Investigation Division Plain Clothes Unit.

Jeff spent 10 years as a tactical officer with the department’s SWAT team and has been a Crisis Negotiator and Assistant CNT Commander for the department’s SWAT team for 12 years.

Prior to police work, Jeff was a martial artist and subsequently spent 22 years teaching Defensive Tactics and Officer Survival to over 1,000 students. Jeff has held instructor certifications from FBI Defensive Tactics Instructor School, Monadnock, Pressure Point Control Tactics, Ground Avoidance Ground Escape (GAGE) Spontaneous Knife Defense (SKD), OCPD (DT Instructor), Axon / Taser, Defense Technologies as a Taser instructor,  FBI and OCPD (OC Spray Instructor), Monadnock (Baton Instructor) FBI (Tactical / SWAT Chemical Agents Instructor), Jaycor Pepperball Gun Instructor and Jeff holds 2^nd Degree Blackbelts in Jiujitsu and Tang Soo Do.

Jeff has designed and instructed many Force on Force training scenarios using hand to hand CQB skills, batons, OC Spray, training firearms, Hitman and FIST suits, CS, CN , OC chemical agents in tactical delivery, Noise Flash Diversionary Devices, Simunitions, and Tasers. These scenarios have included every level of force from personal weapons to active shooter and lethal force drills.

Jeff has been a Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commission Certified Instructor since 1996 and has taught numerous topics such as Defensive Tactics, Active Shooter, Building Searches / Building Clearing, Drug Enforcement, Tactical Drug Operations, Buy Bust Operations, Search Warrant Execution, Vehicle Involved Arrests (Vehicle Takedowns), Officer Rescue, Directed Stops, Basic and Advanced Investigations, Supervising Drug Units, Managing Informants, Surveillance, Drug Identification, Search Warrant Preparation, Courtroom Testimony, Marijuana Decriminalization, OC Spray, Baton, Taser, Traffic Stop Tactics, Pedestrian Stop Tactics and the Ocean City Police Department Citizen’s Police Academy.

Jeff has received 18 departmental commendations and awards in his career and 6 Officer of the Year nominations. Jeff is an active member of the National Tactical Officer’s Association and the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigator’s (NADDI).

Jeff also served several years as an executive board member with the Fraternal Order of Police and was a member of the Contract Negotiations Committee and Corporal Rank Development Committee.

Jeff Smith retired from law enforcement in January 2020. He currently serves as Owner and Chief Instructor of Blackbird Training, as well as an Instructor for Street Cop Training.