By Brian Willis
Is it reasonable for an officer to punch a handcuffed prisoner?
Is it reasonable for an officer to shoot an unarmed person?
Is it reasonable for an officer to shoot someone with a knife?
Is it reasonable for an officer to spray a subject who is
handcuffed, on his back with the officer sitting on top of them with
OC?
For the answer to these and many similar questions remember adult
diapers. Adult diapers? Yes, they are called Depends and Depends is
the answer to these questions. When your officers ask you these
questions in class looking for a definitive answer, the answer is
depends. You need to teach your officers that when someone asks them
these questions, the answer is depends. When an investigator or
administrator calls you and asks these questions, the answer is
depends.
Too many people think these are simple yes or no questions. They are
not yes or no questions, they are adult diapers questions and the
answer is depends.
There is no context to the question. There is not enough information
in any of these questions to determine totality of circumstances.
Based on the totality of circumstances the answer may be yes, or the
answer may be no.
Right after you answer the question with depends, ask follow-up
questions. Determine what the context is, what the factors are that
make up the totality of circumstances before you ever offer an
opinion. If the question come up in class ask the students questions
to help them determine what circumstances would have to exist for it
to be a reasonable responses from the officer.
By helping your officers to understand the link between adult
diapers and use of force you are helping them to understand the
dynamics of use of force and the art of articulation.
Brian Willis
Excellence in Training is a professional development course designed
specifically for law enforcement trainers. For a list of dates and
locations for upcoming Excellence in Training Courses go to
www.winningmindtraining.com and click on the
Training Schedule Link.
If you are interested in hosting an Excellence in Training Course or
booking me to deliver a Harnessing the Winning Mind and Warrior
Spirit or Pursuit of Personal Excellence presentation at your
agency, conference or event contact me at winningmind@mac.com or
visit
www.winningmindtraining.com.
Make sure you check out
www.warriorspiritbooks.com.
by
Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith
Reprinted
from
Offficer.com
Celebrating the Reduction in LODD’s by Stepping Up Your Own Game
Line
of duty police deaths are down significantly this year. According to
the Officer Down Memorial Page, automobile deaths are down 26%,
gunfire deaths are down 55%, and overall line of duty fatalities are
down by nearly half. This is great news for American law
enforcement. However, like anything else in life, when things are
going well, human nature takes over and we often become complacent.
The best way to celebrate these statistics is to re-examine your own
physical, tactical, and mental preparation each and every time you
hit the street.
Physical Considerations:
Physical readiness isn’t just about being “in shape,” but that’s a
great place to start. Take a good look at yourself and your fitness
routine. Do you run a few miles a day but never pick up any free
weights? Can you bench press 300 pounds but can’t run more than a
block or two? Or worse, does your ‘fitness routine’ involved hours
of “Call to Duty” on X-Box or is your strongest muscle the one that
pushes the button on the remote control? Overall physical fitness is
a key component to officer safety, and there are so many great
programs available that there really are no excuses to be out of
shape. In fact, this could be a good time to try something new. Add
some free weights to your aerobic routine, join a boxing gym, or do
what I did and embarrass your teenager by jumping into a “Zumba”
class. If time is an issue, take a look at the many high-intensity
routines that take a short amount of time to complete. Anything that
helps improve your strength, your cardiovascular capacity, your
speed and your flexibility will help make you a safer (and
healthier!) crimefighter.
Next,
write down what you ate (and drank) in the last 48 hours; and be
honest about it. You may be surprised how much garbage you’re
putting into your body. There are terrific websites and some great
apps for your ‘smartphone’ to help you keep track of what and how
much you’re consuming. Proper nutrition isn’t just about maintaining
a healthy weight. What you put in your body directly affects how you
perform. Too much sugar, fat, and caffeine are going to set your
body and brain up for a crash. Poor hydration is also dangerous; in
fact, it can impact your critical thinking skills. Make sure you’re
taking in enough fluid. Get into the habit of filling up a small
cooler with water and some fruit, protein bars or other truly
healthy snacks to take with you to work. See yourself as an athlete
whose ultimate ‘performance’ may be a fight for your life!
Tactical Readiness
If
you follow the number of officer-involved shootings that occur each
day in theUnited States, you know that criminals are still hard at
work, trying to kill cops. Not only are we being shot at with bigger
and better firearms, but the bad guys are using ‘MMA’ style tactics,
edged weapons, and even motor vehicles to try and stop us from doing
our job. Anecdotally, we seem to be winning these confrontations
more often, although edged weapons deaths are on the rise. We’ve
already had three officers killed by knife attacks. How well are you
searching suspects? Do you wear your body armor every day, on every
shift? Do you carry a second firearm, an offensive knife, a patrol
rifle or a shotgun or both? Do you study criminal behavior and body
language? In other words, are you ready? You don’t have to walk
around like a paramilitary ninja warrior, but you must have the
equipment you need and the mindset and training to use it properly.
This is also a good time to examine your driving habits. We are
still dying senselessly in high speed, one vehicle crashes. Slow
down, wear your seatbelt, and remember that like firearms, high
speed driving is a perishable skill. Practice!
Mental Preparation:
Whenever an officer is killed or hurt, especially in our own
geographical area, we tend to immediately become more aware, more
alert, more tactically sound. For a few days or a week or so we are
the model for officer safety, and then we often start to relax, we
allow complacency to seep in. You can prevent this in so many simple
ways. Use the Internet to read about officer-involved shootings
around the country and then imagine yourself in a similar situation.
Visualize how you would respond, how you would win! Watch
online training segments and dashcam videos to supplement in-service
training. Read an article or a tip each day and share them with your
co-workers or your team. Discussing an incident or a particular
skill helps your mind reinforce learning points. Don’t think about
“if this happens,” instead prepare yourself for “when this happens,
I’m going to do this.” Always have a plan. And as trite as it may
sound, recognize that someone may try and kill you on the next
traffic stop, during the next domestic dispute, or while you
transport the next prisoner. Your mindset truly is you most powerful
weapon.
Sixty-five officers in eight months is still far too many law
enforcement lives lost. Honoring our fallen is so much more than
lamenting a loss and wearing a black band on your badge. The more
you work on your own safety and survival, the more you honor their
sacrifice. Never, ever let them die in vain. Stay safe!
Web Links:
·
Female Forces online
About The Author:
Sgt. Betsy Brantner
Smith is a
29-year veteran of a large suburban Chicago police department.
Recently retired as a patrol supervisor, she has held positions in
patrol, investigations, narcotics, juvenile, crime prevention and
field training. As a sergeant, she supervised her department's K-9
Unit, served as a field training sergeant, recruitment team
sergeant, bike patrol coordinator, the Crowd Control Bike Team
supervisor, and supervisor of the Community Education/Crime
Prevention Unit.
As a patrol sergeant, Betsy served on the
Elderly Services Team, the Crisis Intervention Team, and was a
supervisory member of the Honor Guard Unit. From 1999 - 2003 Betsy
hosted various programs for the Law Enforcement Television Network
and served as a content expert.
A graduate of the Northwestern University
Center for Public Safety's School of Staff and Command, Betsy writes
for numerous law enforcement and government publications including
and is a regular columnist for many police websites including Police
Link. A content expert and instructor for the Calibre Press "Street
Survival" seminar since 2003, Betsy also serves as an on-air
commentator and advisor for Police One TV and was a featured
character in the Biography Channel’s “Female Forces” reality show.
Betsy has been a law enforcement trainer for over 20 years and is a
popular keynote speaker at conferences throughout the United States
and Canada and beyond.
Betsy is the lead instructor for the Calibre Press “Street
Survival for Women” seminar and manages Dave Smith & Associates.
Together, Betsy and Dave teach courses through “Winning Mind
Seminars,” an Illinois based company. She can be reached through her
website at
www.femaleforces.com.
Reprinted from
PoliceOne.com
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Often fellow officers unwittingly inflict secondary
assaults because they don’t know how to
appropriately relate to a colleague who has been
involved in an OIS or other critical incident.
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An officer whose shooting I’ve written about has taken medical
retirement because his wounds were so devastating
that he hasn’t been able to heal from them
completely. He told me recently that “what hurts the
most” is not his persistent physical damage but the
critical comments he’s heard from other officers
about his tactical errors in handling a dangerous
suspect moments before the shooting. None of these
critics, it should be pointed out, were present at
the incident.
“It would be nice if every officer could do everything perfectly
every time,” he says dryly. “That way none of us
would get hurt. I spent 24 years helping people and
arresting hundreds of bad guys and all that doesn’t
seem to matter because I made a mistake and got
shot.”
That’s the veteran of a “secondary assault” speaking. Police
psychologist Dr. LaMaurice Gardner used that term in
addressing a session at the IACP annual conference
last fall, and unfortunately it’s a common
phenomenon in the cop world.
In describing various
“precipitants of law enforcement trauma,” Gardner
explained that after surviving an initial attack by
a would-be killer, “many officers are then assaulted
in word and deed by their own.” Because of the
treatment they receive, “they feel betrayed and
abandoned by their own people, and the psychological
injuries they experience can hurt more than their
physical injuries.”
Often fellow officers unwittingly inflict secondary assaults
because they don’t know how to appropriately relate
to a colleague who has been involved in an OIS or
other critical incident. In an interview with
PoliceOne, Gardner itemized a post-event protocol
that will be healing rather than harmful.
First Words — “The
initial response by peers and command staff should
be, ‘I’m glad you’re alive,’ ” Gardner advises.
“This suggests concern, care, and support and very
effectively eases the immediate emotional trauma
that the involved officer may be experiencing.”
Make Contact — “Avoiding
an officer after a shooting may make him feel he has
done something wrong,” Gardner says. “Sometimes
peers are ordered not to contact the officer so as
not to damage an investigation, but this leaves the
officer feeling alone and anxious. At a minimum, if
you can’t discuss the incident or don’t know what to
say, give the officer a handshake, a hug, or an
understanding nod. These nonverbal gestures can be a
powerful indication of support.”
Avoid Second Guessing — “You
weren’t in their shoes during the incident,” Gardner
says. “You didn’t see it evolve from their
perspective. You may think you would have acted
differently, but no one knows for sure how they’ll
act in a life-threatening encounter until they’re
actually in one. So don’t second-guess another
officer’s actions. And discourage them from
second-guessing themselves. They likely had only
milliseconds to make their decisions, and usually on
only partial information. Second-guessing could lead
to dangerous hesitation the next time around.”
Share Experience — “If you’ve
been in a similar critical incident, lend an
empathetic ear and share your experience,” Gardner
suggests. “You can help normalize how they’re
thinking, feeling, and acting. If they’re having
some adverse reactions, it’s particularly important
that you emphasize that they’re not crazy but are
responding normally to an abnormal and crazy event.
If you’ve had counseling after your event, you can
ease their concerns about ‘seeing a shrink.’ ”
Watch Your Humor — Cops
traditionally use black, tasteless humor as an
effective coping mechanism in their everyday lives.
“But after a critical incident,” Gardner cautions,
“you must be very sensitive to the effect of cop
humor on an involved officer.” Members of one
department gave the nickname “Speed Bump” to an
officer who was hit, dragged, and run over by a
suspect’s vehicle. Funny—but not to him.
Use Restraint — “Don’t
lionize the shooter. They may not feel heroic,
especially if they’ve had to take a life,” says
Gardner. “At the same time, don’t dehumanize the
suspect who forced the officer into shooting.
Especially if the officer had eye contact with the
suspect as the suspect was dying, the officer may
see him or her in very human terms and resent
denigrating comments.”
Encourage Talking — “Don’t
allow the officer to withdraw from the world,”
Gardner cautions. “When that happens, intrusive
thoughts about the incident tend to become
overwhelming. For legal reasons, it may be best to
avoid discussing details of a shooting, but without
pressuring him, be ready to actively listen and not
judging while the officer unloads about his
emotions. A perpetrator can potentially leave
psychological skeletons in an officer’s emotional
closet. Helping the officer unload emotional garbage
by encouraging him to talk can be very beneficial.
Talk over coffee, though, not over alcoholic
drinks.”
Show Respect — An officer
surviving a threat to his life deserves to be
honored with dignity and respect. Not in the manner
that Gardner recalls from one case involving a vice
unit sergeant. After extended time off to recover
physically from being shot, the sergeant returned to
work and was greeted by a secretary in his section.
“Here,” she said, “these came for you.” She tossed
him an envelope. Inside were medals the department
had bestowed on him for bravery and excellence.
Gardner notes: “What they actually ‘bestowed’ in
treating him so unceremoniously was a great deal of
bitterness and resentment.”
These important do’s and don’ts require an openness and
sensitivity that many officers find challenging if
not downright intimidating, Gardner observes.
“I often ask officers in the academy to tell me the dirtiest,
nastiest four-letter word they can think of,” he
says. “After I hear a litany of foul words, I tell
them that the dirtiest, nastiest four-letter word
for a cop is HELP.
“There’s no hesitation is responding to an
officer-needs-assistance call on the street.
Officers will risk injury and even death to save
another officer’s life, even if it means getting
blood, sweat, and vomit on them from a fallen
brother.
“But when a response is needed to an
officer-needs-emotional-assistance call, it’s often
a different matter. That’s something to think about,
because responding appropriately to that kind of
call is sometimes exactly what’s needed.”
LaMaurice Gardner, Psy.D., is a Veterans Affairs
psychologist who also serves as a psychologist for
several law enforcement agencies in Michigan,
including Detroit PD. He is a SRT hostage negotiator
and reserve lieutenant for the Oakland County
Sheriff’s Office in Pontiac ( Mich.) He can be
reached at:
ricegard@hotmail.com.
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About the author
Charles Remsberg
co-founded the original Street Survival Seminar and
the Street Survival Newsline, authored three of the
best-selling law enforcement training textbooks, and
helped produce numerous award-winning training
videos. His nearly three decades of work earned him
the prestigious O.W. Wilson Award for outstanding
contributions to law enforcement and the American
Police Hall of Fame Honor Award for distinguished
achievement in public service.
Pre-order Charles Remsberg's latest book,Blood
Lessons, which
takes you inside more than 20 unforgettable
confrontations where officers' lives are on the
line.
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