Law Enforcement Training Blog

Stupid Criminals: One of the Best Arrests I Have Ever Made

I stopped a woman for an expired tag. I soon arrested her for Driving While Suspended/Revoked as her history of poor driving makes it a felony for her to operate a motor vehicle. So, I am sitting there waiting for a tow truck to show up for the car, when a subject (here-after referred to as ‘dude’) walks up.

Dude asks “Do you work around here?” I point to the flashing lights on my patrol car and say “Yep. It’s not just a hobby.” Dude says “Good. My girlfriend, Donna, has a warrant. She won’t turn herself in. Would you arrest her?”

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Recognize A Deadly Force Situation: Tasers Are Not Appropriate

By Richard 5 Comments

Police officers have enjoyed the use of the Taser X26 (and the effective M26 before that) as an excellent intermediate force option that allows the quick incapacitation of an offender while minimize the chance of harm to the suspect and officers involved. Tasers tend to be effective where pain compliance techniques are not.

However, Tasers are not 100% reliable. For the Taser to work properly there has to be a completed circuit with electricity flowing through a wide section of muscle mass. The failure of a Taser to effectively work can happen if only one probe hits the suspect, or the probes land too close together, or there is a faulty battery, or thick clothes do not allow the probes to get close to the skin. I’ve seen Tasers fail to incapacitate in each of these situations. The point is: the X26 is effective but not 100%.

There is an understandable reluctance by police officers to use deadly force. Cops are not evil people and they do not want to harm or kill anyone. So, many times when a police officer faces a situation in which deadly force is the appropriate level of force, the officer may hesitate or seek some other lower level of force, which generally decreases their own safety. While in some respects this is admirable, the fact is the officer must survive and win the encounter, not just for his or her own well being, but for the community as a whole. For if the officer is incapacitated or killed due to their attempt at a lower force option, their killer is now free to harm other innocents…perhaps even with the officers own weapons.

If a police officer encounters a suspect armed with a deadly weapon, the officer’s appropriate response will be deadly force, not a Taser. A suicidal subject armed with a knife or a gun needs to see the business end of your AR, shotgun, or pistol…not the blast doors of a ‘green’ X26 cartridge. If you have appropriate deadly force cover (say your two zone partners are in a position of advantage covering the suspect with .223 rifles), then you might –in certain circumstances– attempt to use a Taser to subdue the suspect. The idea is that your backup can employ deadly force should the Taser attempt go wrong.

Keep in mind that the vast majority of us have Taser cartridges that are good to a maximum of 21′ or 25′. Perhaps 21′ sounds familiar? That distance should be known to all police officers as it relates to the Tueller Drill. The Tueller Drill was developed by Sgt. Dennis Tueller of the Salt Lake City PD. Sgt. Tueller discovered that an average person could cover 21′ and begin stabbing an officer in 1.5 seconds: the same amount of time an officer could draw his weapon and put a round on the threat. That, of course, does not take into account that a fatal shot is not likely to instantly stop the attack.

So, if you encounter a violent subject armed with an edged weapon AND you have lethal force cover AND you want to try to use a Taser, you better hope it works. If it doesn’t, you will likely have a subject on top of you in less than two seconds. Your partners better be very accurate and very quick. Even then you stand a pretty decent shot at getting hurt.

If the subject has a firearm, you don’t even have 1.5 seconds, as they just have to point and pull the trigger.

So, read your department SOP’s, know your state laws of the use of force, and work out plans with your zone partners before you encounter a deadly force situation in which you may want to try a Taser.

Foot Pursuits: Use Care When Chasing Suspects

By Richard Leave a Comment

Police officers receive a lot of training in vehicle pursuits, yet most cops get very little training in foot pursuits. The reason comes down to lawsuits.

If an officer initiates a vehicle pursuit and subsequently the suspect or officer strike an uninvolved citizen, the officer’s city will be facing an expensive lawsuit. If the same officer engages in a foot pursuit, there is a significantly smaller chance for the criminal or officer to seriously hurt or kill someone by running into them. Hence, significantly fewer lawsuits.

However, the city’s perceived “danger” should not be your perception as well. Every year, police officers are murdered when engaging in foot pursuits. Take the murder of Cleveland Police Officer Derek Owens who was shot during a foot pursuit on February 29. Owens and his partner chased several suspicious men who fled on their arrival. While being chased, one of the men produced a handgun, turned, and shot Officer Owens.

K-9 officers are especially vulnerable in a pursuit. K-9 officers frequently are chasing suspects, and probably find themselves more vulnerable than most patrol officers. Deputy Sheriff Matt Williams and his canine partner Diogi were murdered on September 28, 2006 when they gave chase after a man who had fled on foot from a traffic stop in Polk County, Florida.

So, what are some of the things you can do to make a safer pursuit?

Don’t Push A Bad Position – If the suspect has gotten out of sight, slow down. If you have the units available, set up a perimeter and get K-9 enroute to assist with a track.
Negotiate Corners Safely – If the suspect turns a corner, slow down and carefully negotiate the corner. Swing wide, slicing the pie as you go. Yes, this takes time, and the suspect may use the extra time to get away, but running headlong into an ambush is a fatal mistake.
Anticipate Trouble – Sometimes just showing up will cause your suspect to flee. However, if you are already in contact with your suspect, pay attention to the body language he is displaying. If your suspect is thinking about running, he will typically telegraph his intentions in his non-verbal communication. Even if you miss some of the cues, your partner should pick up on the signals if the two of you are using Contact and Cover techniques.
Stay Physically Fit – If you catch the suspect, you have to be fit enough to effect the arrest. If you are at the point of exhaustion when you catch the suspect, how can you handcuff or fight him?

Stay Safe!

Excited Delirium: Signs Police Officers Should Look For

By Richard Leave a Comment

The nature of excited delirium is debated among medical professionals and police trainers. Whatever its causes, and no matter what we call it, excited delirium exists, and it is dangerous.

A person who is in a state of excited delirium is clearly a threat to the officers and others, but they are also in danger from themselves. Oftentimes in-custody deaths are related to a suspect being in a state of excited delirium.

The best bet for an officer to avoid an in-custody death related to excited delirium, is to recognize the symptoms and summon emergency medical assistance when you encounter it.

Some of the symptoms attributed to excited delirium as identified by the Street Survival seminar are:

profuse sweating
paranoia
aggression toward objects (especially glass)
disrobing
running
yelling
hiding
hallucinating (especially that bugs are crawling on them)
seizure
thrashing before/after restraint

Keep in mind that someone with these symptoms may not be in a state of excited delirium, but it is far better to have EMS respond and clear the subject, than to have him or her die in your back seat.

Stay safe!

If-Then Thinking: The Ultimate Shortcut to Winning a Fight

By Richard 4 Comments

If-Then thinking is a simple visualization technique that you can employ to help yourself win a violent confrontation. The concept is relatively simple. Any time you have a free minute, think about IF something bad happened THEN you would respond in this way.

For example, you are pulling through a closed shopping center. You might start thinking “IF I saw a window that was broken in, THEN I would…” Stop and look around. Maybe there is a good cover location you didn’t notice when you first pulled in. How would you direct other units to you? What would you do if suddenly an armed man came out of the business. Think through possible scenarios and your actions you would take to win the confrontation.

I often find myself doing this just prior to a traffic stop. Just before pulling a car, I often start thinking about who and what I see in the car, what could happen when I hit my lights, and what the occupants may do. In just a few seconds, I can run through a number of possible actions the occupants may take and how I will handle them.

Dave Spaulding, a retired police lieutenant and long-time trainer, wrote an article called “What Really Happens in a Gunfight?” Spaulding interviewed a lot of gunfight survivors over the years and pieced together some common factors. One of the factors he found was that people who used visualization were prepared to take action, and were able to do so with little lag time. Basically, instead of thinking “I can’t believe this is happening,” people who had used visualization already had a programmed response and were taking action without having to take time to analyze everything.

Some of the concrete benefits of If-Then thinking include:

shortened response time
you are far less likely to freeze when confronted with violence
you tend to be more alert and more likely to use proper tactics
less likely to under- or over-react

Stay Safe!

Field Training Officer Burn Out: A Real Problem in Many Agencies

By Richard Leave a Comment

Field Training and Evaluation Programs (FTEP) are the foundations that police agencies use to build quality, career police officers. When a recruit officer is teamed up with motivated, knowledgeable field training officers, that recruit stands a very good chance of becoming a motivated, knowledgeable officer also.

The often overlooked benefit of a quality FTEP program is the high morale displayed by the FTOs will rub off on the recruit. Believe it or not, recruits who are exposed to positive, motivated FTOs, are more likely to stay with that agency for their career.

So what happens if the recruit officer is paired with FTOs that have low morale? Recruit officers normally emulate the behaviors displayed by their mentors and FTOs. The recruit wants to fit in and be part of the team. If everyone else is complaining, they are likely to pick up that attitude. A poor attitude translates to an officer who makes bad cases, gets more internal affairs complaints, and is more likely to leave for another agency.

I’ve seen the real benefits of a positive FTEP. Unfortunately, I have also seen the results of a FTEP with bad morale. It ain’t purty, fellas.

There can be a lot of different reasons why FTOs can develop poor morale and bad attitudes. It can come from administrative issues, improper selection of FTOs, or poor leadership in the FTEP itself. However, one issue I have seen time and time again –that never seems to be addressed– is plain old burn-out.

Sometimes a department is hiring so many new officers that an FTO always has a recruit in the car. A lot of times, the best FTOs get the worst recruits. The same FTOs often get recruits that are in remedial training; recruits that need extra help to do the job or find the door.

All FTOs can get burned-out. The best FTOs tend to be abused and do get burned-out.

With burn-out comes poor attitude and low morale. From there, the quality of training declines sharply, and suddenly the best FTOs are providing sub-standard training. All FTOs deserve down-time. Field training officers need time without recruits to clear their heads and re-focus their own police skills.

My own department is having some morale problems in the field training program. Some of it is a leadership issue. However, most of it is they are just plain tired. Most of the FTOs have been hammered for 18+ months with no significant down time between recruits. Most of the training officers are still in the program only because of the extra pay, not because they still want to do it.

If you are having morale problems in your FTEP, take a look at your FTOs. Are they just burned-out? Would a rest let some of them recharge?

To give FTOs a quality rest between recruits, the program may have to increase the number of officers that are assigned to it. I know some police administrators will claim they cannot afford to expand the training program. But, knowing the benefits a quality program can provide, can they afford not to expand the program?

Stay safe!