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Is your scenario training setting LEOs up for failure?

Scenario Based Training – often is failure training…

Okay, so you set up your scenario: Three officers respond to an open door. Armed with SIMs guns, they enter the building to secure it. There are role-players inside and instructor safety monitors….Afterwards, you (the instructor) facilitate a debriefing; talking about what went well and what went wrong; mostly the tactical errors they committed. Then, off to another scenario. Sound familiar? If so… You are setting your people up for failure.

The absolute key to winning any engagement for a LEO professional is the ability to adapt. Officers have been through countless scenarios and have developed mental “plans” of how to handle them based off of previous experience. The problem is that during a scenario, the officer is operating from the mid-brain and emotions. During a debriefing, they are in the cognitive portion of the brain and the “plans” they develop are based off a negative emotional memory.  “Plans are stored in memory just as past events are. To the brain, the future is as real as the past.” But real-life (what scenarios training is supposed to prepare for) does not imitate or match the plans.

Emotions are not memories and memories are not emotions, but the two constantly work together. Author Laurence Gonzales tells us “Mental models, which are stored in memory, are not emotions either. But they can be engaged with emotion, motivation, cognition, and memory. And since memories can exist in either the past or the future, to the brain it’s the same thing. You bookmark the future in order to get there.”  (p. 77).

Officers place their past experience and formulated plans based off of such, over a new experience like a transparency and hope they match. Most often they don’t. Training MUST address this.  “We suffuse the model with the emotional values of past realities. And the thrall of that vision (call it “the plan,” writ large), we go forth and take action. If things don’t go according to the plan, revising such a robust model may be difficult.” (p. 77-78).

In dynamic environments where things change rapidly, such as law enforcement, there are high-objective hazards. The longer it takes and officer to displace his/her imagined world/plan in favor of the new/real one, the greater the risk; to him/her other officers, and the public. Gonzales further explains “In nature, adaptation is important; the plan is not. It’s a Zen thing. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too.” (p. 78).

Scenario training must address this and teach the officer to yes, have a plan; but to be able to adapt to circumstances and win. What does this look like? Following a scenario debrief; the officers should identify the things that went wrong and walk through the scenario again and experience doing it right. The instructor needs to celebrate this with the student (positive reinforcement) and draw a positive emotional tie with doing it right. That positive-emotional memory that is formed will transfer to the real-world and create a reference point that is accessed much more quickly when needed. After all, in a high stress event, the emotions part of the brain is what is running the show.

Instructors need to take the extra time and have the student re-perform the scenario correctly rather than just talking about it during a debriefing. Notice I said have “the student perform it correctly”. Most often the instructor shows them how to do it correctly. It is critical the student experience the physical movements of performing the technique correctly so the brain makes a “success” memory that it ties to the circumstance. There also needs to be some type of celebration (high fives, shoulder pats..) to help create the positive emotional tie to that scenario. Be an active trainer, not just the guy who shuffles students one scenario on to the next one trying to get lunch time.

Reference:

Laurence Gonzales, “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why”, 2003. W.W. Norton & Company New York London,

Busy week training - video

Exceptional week training. Hit Highlands Ranch, Centennial, Douglas WY, and Santa Fe NM.

At the end of the week I partnered up with Tac*One's Joe Deedon (www.taconeconsulting.com) for some Officer Survival classes. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPQbBB_oqs

Reaction time demo

Short video of a demo I do in class to illustrate reaction time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt56J2SiJ7A&feature=youtu.be

Tactical Knife Options in Converse County, WY

Finished another great class in Converse County, WY with the SO:

Study confirms: Force-on-force benefits top traditional target training

Study confirms: Force-on-force benefits top traditional target training

In the first study of its kind, researchers have confirmed that force-on-force training is significantly superior to traditional firearms practice in at least three important ways:

1) Force-on-force (FoF) scenarios that enable "suspects" to shoot at trainees generally stimulate a stronger physiological stress reaction in targeted officers

2) They expose how badly officers' shooting accuracy is likely to suffer in an actual gunfight

3) They more strongly motivate officers to take training seriously and to adopt protective tactics on their own volition.

In light of their scientific documentation, the researchers conclude in a newly published paper that FoF handgun practice is "a potent training tool to prepare armed officers for performance in a stressful real-life environment."

"This study," says Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, "provides reassuring support for progressive trainers who are already engaged in reality-based instruction and should also prove valuable to those who are trying to persuade their agencies to upgrade and modernize outmoded firearms programs."

FSI was not involved in this research, although some of the Institute's work is referenced in the recent paper.

URBAN COMBAT "MISSION". The study was conducted by Dr. John Taverniers, head of psychology for the department of behavioral sciences at the Royal Military Academy in Belgium, and Pieter De Boeck, a military and social sciences expert at that country's Infantry School.

Their subject pool was comprised of 20 "healthy military men," ranging in age from 25 to 36, with four to 10 years of service. All were "in full preparation for operational duties abroad," having received specialized training in urban combat. Two had previously been involved "in real-life shooting incidents."

Working alone, each volunteer was assigned to clear a four-room house and an alleyway in which "two 'aggressive criminal elements' were entrenched." Each participant was to complete this four- to six-minute "mission" twice, several days apart--and with an important variant.

One time through, they were told in a briefing that their adversaries would be depicted by two "traditional" cardboard targets. But the other time, they'd be operating in a dynamic FoF environment, with live "aggressive opponents" armed with 9mm pistols that fired marker ammunition. These "suspects," the volunteers were warned, would "probably try to retaliate when confronted."

The participants were instructed to respond in the same manner both to the paper targets and the live threats: double taps to center mass with marker rounds from their "standard issued" handgun.

FOF VS. PAPER. In conjunction with the experiment, the volunteers answered subjective questions about their stress expectations and experience; multiple saliva samples were taken for stress-related hormone analysis; and their movements, including shooting responses and tactical behavior, were videoed throughout the mission for detailed examination later.

Across the board, the researchers report, the results from the FoF phase of the experiment proved superior from a training perspective. Specifically, the researchers noted the following:

• Anticipated distress. Right after their preliminary briefings, the volunteers were asked to rate on a scale of 0 to 10 the level of distress they anticipated during the upcoming exercise. On average, the prospect of facing live adversaries was perceived as over 1 ? times more distressing than confronting cardboard targets, even before any action began.

• Saliva sampling. Salivary samples taken throughout the experiment revealed a "significant" increase in the volunteers' secretion of stress-related biomarkers during the FoF phase, compared to baseline and cardboard-target measurements. This evidence of a physiological stress impact was more than 2 ? times greater for FoF than for the conventional targets, on average.

• Stress perception. Immediately after completing their missions, participants were asked to rate the maximum stress they experienced on a scale of 0 to 10. Results again showed "significantly more subjectively experienced stress in the FoF condition."

• Shooting accuracy. While stress increased in the FoF phase, shooting accuracy--an "essential performance characteristic"--suffered a "significant" and "ominous" decline upon the first encounter with a live opponent. On average, the volunteers' accuracy dropped by 30% when shooting in the FoF mode.

• Corrective behavior. Perhaps most important, the study revealed that the prospect or reality of Simunition rounds flying their way prompted participants "on their own accord" to improve their tactics and training commitment. Examination of the videotapes, for example, showed that they "chose to expose significantly less" body surface from behind cover when facing live adversaries in the FoF mode than when confronting cardboard targets. "This finding suggests a more realistic approach" and a "desirable surge" of training "seriousness" in the FoF condition, leading to "a desirable improvement" in training "earnestness" and commitment, the researchers report.

The research team does not recommend the abandonment of conventional target training. "Cardboard-target practice is the obvious means for skill acquisition in the early and mid-stages of training," their paper explains. But to better prepare officers to perform well under the stress of life-threatening situations, they need to advance to a more sophisticated and realistic rehearsal level.

"Of course," Lewinski told Force Science News, "even force-on-force training cannot match the intensity of a truly life-or-death encounter. But with repeated exposure to good force-on-force scenarios, officers are forced to acknowledge the adverse effect of high stress and they can gradually learn to perform reliably and use it to enhance their performance."

The Belgian study, titled "Force-on Force Handgun Practice: An Intra-Individual Exploration of Stress Effects, Biomarker Regulation, and Behavioral Changes," appears in the journal Human Factors. A free abstract can be accessed at http://hfs.sagepub.com/content/56/2/403, where the full study is available for a fee.

Note: Ken Murray, whose excellent book Training at the Speed of Life is referenced in the study's bibliography, is widely recognized as the premier authority on FoF training. For more information on his classes, access the website for the Armiger Police Training Institute at: www.armiger.net

Our thanks to Chris Lawrence, a faculty member for the certification course in Force Science Analysis, for alerting us to this study, as well as to the one reported below

Travel and Training

Busy week... Headed up to Douglas, WY today and tomorrow (Tactical Knife Options)

- back to CO and Highlands Ranch at the CSOC-HQ (Train the Trainer) til Wed.,

then off to Santa Fe NM (more TKO and Officer Survival) for a couple of days...

Then back home for some R&R

Deadly Force to sto a suspect vehicle? What the Courts have to say...

2014-08

Plumhoff et al v. Rickard

United States Supreme Court

No. 12-1117. Decided May 27, 2014

(Created by Philip J. Baca, Esq.  pbaca@co.jefferson.co.us)

 

A claim that law-enforcement officers used excessive force to effect a seizure is governed by the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” standard.

Facts:

Near midnight on July 18, 2004, Lt. Forthman of the West Memphis, Arkansas PD pulled over a Honda Accord because the car had only one headlight. Rickard was the driver of the Accord, and Kelly Allen was the passenger. Forthman noticed an indentation, “‘roughly the size of a head or a basketball’” in the windshield of the car.  He asked Rickard if he had been drinking, and Rickard responded that he had not. Because Rickard failed to produce his driver’s license and appeared nervous, Forthman asked him to step out of the car. Rather than comply, Rickard sped away.

Forthman gave chase and was soon joined by five other police cruisers driven by Sergeant Vance Plumhoff and Officers Jimmy Evans, Lance Ellis, Troy Galtelli, and John Gardner. The officers pursued Rickard east on I- 40 toward Memphis, Tennessee. While on I-40, they attempted to stop Rickard using a “rolling roadblock,” but they were unsuccessful. Reports described the vehicles as “swerving through traffic at high speeds,” with cars attaining speeds over 100 miles per hour.

During the chase, Rickard and the officers passed more than two dozen vehicles. Rickard

exited I-40 in Memphis, and shortly afterward he made “a quick right turn,” causing “contact to occur” between his car and Officer Evans’ cruiser. As a result of that contact, Rickard’s car spun out into a parking lot and collided with Plumhoff’s cruiser. In danger of being cornered, Rickard put his car into reverse in an attempt to escape. As he did so, Evans and Plumhoff got out of their cruisers and approached Rickard’s car, and Evans, gun in hand, pounded on the passenger-side window. At that point, Rickard’s car “made contact with” yet another police cruiser. Rickard’s tires started spinning, and his car “was rocking back and forth,” indicating that Rickard was using the accelerator even though his bumper was flush against a police cruiser. At that point, Plumhoff fired three shots into Rickard’s car. Rickard then “reversed in a 180 degree arc” and maneuvered onto another street, forcing Ellis to step to his right to avoid the vehicle. As Rickard continued fleeing down that street, Gardner and Galtelli fired 12 shots toward Rickard’s car, bringing the total number of shots fired during this incident to 15.

Rickard then lost control of the car and crashed into a building. Rickard and Allen both died from some combination of gunshot wounds and injuries suffered in the crash that ended the chase.

Issue:

Did the officers violate the Rickard’s Fourth Amendment rights by using deadly force and firing 15 rounds into his car to terminate the chase? No.

Court Decision:

The District Court and 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Rickard. The US Supreme Court reversed the decisions of the lower courts.

Restatement of Law:

A claim that law-enforcement officers used excessive force to effect a seizure is governed by the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” standard. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989); Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985). In Graham, we held that determining the objective reasonableness of a particular seizure under the Fourth Amendment “requires a careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” 490 U. S., at 396. The inquiry requires analyzing the totality of the circumstances. See ibid.

We analyze this question from the perspective “of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Ibid. We thus “allow for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” Id., at 396–397.

A “po­lice officer’s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 at 385 (2007).

An official sued under §1983 is entitled to qualified immunity unless it is shown that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right that was ‘clearly established’ at the time of the challenged conduct. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U. S. ___, ___ (2011).

Court Reasoning:

The chase in this case exceeded 100 miles per hour and lasted over five minutes. During that chase, Rickard passed more than two dozen other vehicles, several of which were forced to alter course. Rickard’s outrageously reckless driving posed a grave public safety risk. And while it is true that Rickard’s car collided with a police car and came temporarily to a near standstill that did not end the chase. Seconds later, Rickard resumed maneuvering his car. Just before the shots were fired, when the front bumper of his car was flush with that of one of the police cruisers, Rickard was obviously pushing down on the accelerator because the car’s wheels were spinning, and then Rickard threw the car into reverse “in an attempt to escape.”

We reject that argument that the officers acted unreasonably in firing a total of 15 shots. It stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended.

It was certainly not clearly established law at the time of the shooting in this case that the number of shots fired, under the circumstances present here, rendered the use of force excessive.

Bottom Line:

Under these facts, the Fourth Amendment did not prohibit officers from using deadly force when employed to terminate the dangerous car chase that Rickard precipitated.

Stun device V. knife?

Is a hand-held stun device (ESD) an appropriate response to the deadly-threat of someone trying to stab you?

http://www.policeone.com/edged-weapons/articles/7277769-Prison-escapee-stabs-Pa-cop-steals-cruiser/

Woman fights off and stabs woiuldbe kidnapper; escapes

Police look for kidnapping suspect with stab wounds

EDGEWATER - A woman was kidnapped five hours after, and five blocks from where a man tried to kidnap a 10-year-old girl on Wednesday.

 Both the woman and the 10-year-old were able to escape from the men attempting to capture them, but one of the suspects is still on the loose.

Police said a woman who was kidnapped around 8 p.m. near West 24th Avenue and Chase Street stabbed her captor and was able to escape near East 17th Place and I-225 in Aurora.

Police are still looking for that man. Edgewater police say they've alerted several police agencies to be on the lookout for an African-American man, who has a stab wound in the shoulder and/or chest. Police said the suspect is believed to be associated with a blue diesel truck, but could not provide any further description at the time this article was written.

At 3:00 p.m. a 10-year-old girl fought off a sex-offender who tried to kidnap her in an alley near West 29th Street and Chase Street, five blocks away from where the woman was taken.

Girl fights off sex offender in attempted kidnapping

Thanks to descriptive information provided to police by the girl, police were able to locate the suspect, 35-year-old Dennis Willmore Jr., in his home a short time after the attempted kidnapping.

As of 3:30 a.m. the woman who was kidnapped at 8 p.m. was being interviewed by police at an area hospital where she was taken to be evaluated. Edgewater police hope to have a better description of the suspect to release to the public shortly. It is unknown if the woman was injured or to what extent.

The age of the woman who was kidnapped has not been released. Neither of the victims' names have been released.

http://www.9news.com/story/news/crime/2014/06/12/edgewater-kidnapping/10361169/

Kicking Butt!!!

Kicking Butt!!

When I was a cocky, young-strappin buck, I remember on numerous occasions my Dad telling me “Jeff, there is always someone bigger and stronger…”

At the time I took that as a cautionary warning not to get too big of a head. In reflection, there was a dual meaning. I think that he was also telling me that: yes, there are going to be bigger, stronger opponents out there. So, train to beat them; not to beat the average person.

His message was that even though you come across someone who is bigger or stronger…Does not mean they are unbeatable. I find myself training more and more professional warriors; some military – some LEOs. They are younger than me and in better shape (sometimesJ. ) I tell them that in a fight, I may not be the biggest, the most skilled, the fastest or strongest…But I will damn sure be the meanest and the most driven. And that is why at 45 years of age… I still win. That is how they should prepare.

I saw this quote this morning posted at a CrossFit gym and it reminded me of my Dad’s message:
The theory of evolution claims that “only the strong shall survive” Maybe, maybe not… The theory of competition says “just because they are strong doesn’t mean they can’t get their asses kicked…”

Thought I’d share….:)

G.H.O.G.H.

Supreme Court oks deadly force to stop dangerous pursuit

Supreme Court oks deadly force to stop dangerous pursuit

A new Supreme Court decision has been added to the ongoing controversy in law enforcement circles about whether officers should be permitted by policy to shoot at moving vehicles.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that officers were justified in firing fatal rounds at a driver to end a dangerous high-speed chase. Further, the court declared, the officers were not guilty of excessive force for sending a fusillade at the offender's vehicle--15 shots in all.

"The Supreme Court is making it clear that the Fourth amendment allows the use of deadly force to stop drivers in those exceptional cases when their actions pose a very serious threat to public safety," says police attorney Bill Everett, a legal consultant to the Force Science Institute. "By limiting legal liability in these circumstances, the Court is allowing agencies to put more emphasis on keeping the public safe when developing their policies."

A summary of this case (Plumhoff v. Rickard).

Here's the essence of the matter:

 

DESPERATE FLIGHT. The case began, the Court's decision explains, near midnight on a hot July night in 2004 when a lieutenant with the West Memphis (AR) PD pulled over a white Honda Accord "because the car had only one operating headlight." Closer contact revealed that the windshield bore an indentation "roughly the size of a head," as if the vehicle had struck a pedestrian.

The nervous driver denied any recent drinking but failed to produce a driver's license. When the lieutenant asked him to step out of the car, he sped away instead. Quickly, the lieutenant was joined in hot pursuit by a phalanx of five other squad cars as the suspect, with a front-seat passenger, headed on Interstate 40 for a bridge that spans the Mississippi River into Memphis, TN.

An attempt at a "rolling roadblock" proved unsuccessful. Undeterred, the driver swerved through traffic at speeds over 100 mph, passing more than two dozen vehicles.

Across the bridge, he exited onto a Memphis street and shortly made a sudden right turn, colliding with one of the chase squads closing in. The Honda "spun out into a parking lot" and there crashed into another cruiser. "Now in danger of being cornered," the suspect slammed his car into reverse "in an attempt to escape."

An officer and a sergeant exited their units and ran to the vehicle. "Gun in hand," the sergeant "pounded on the passenger-side window." Desperation mounting, the suspect steered into yet another police car. With his bumper "flush against a cruiser," he tromped on the accelerator, spinning tires and rocking his car back and forth, trying to break free.

"At that point," the Court recounts, the sergeant "fired three shots into [the suspect's] car." Undaunted, the driver "reversed in a 180-degree arc" and "maneuvered onto" another street, nearly striking another officer on foot in the process.

As the suspect continued "fleeing down" the street, two other officers now fired 12 shots toward the Honda, striking the driver and his passenger. The driver "lost control of the car and crashed into a building." Both he and his passenger, in the Court's words, "died from some combination of gunshot wounds and injuries suffered in the crash that ended the chase."

The pursuit had lasted "more than five minutes." All the shots were fired within a span of 10 seconds.

 

EXCESSIVE FORCE? A 1983 action was brought in federal court on behalf of the dead driver's minor daughter, alleging excessive force that violated the suspect's constitutional rights. The six West Memphis officers involved in the chase (including the three who fired shots), their chief, and the town's mayor were named as defendants.

Specifically, the civil suit contended that the 4th Amendment "did not allow [the officers] to use deadly force to terminate the chase," and that, "even if they were permitted to fire their weapons, they went too far when they fired as many rounds as they did."

The district court agreed with the plaintiff. It denied a defense motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, holding that "the officers' conduct...was contrary to law that was clearly established" at the time of the shootings. An appellate panel affirmed this decision.

The Supreme Court Justices, however, unanimously struck down these findings.

 

OFFICERS VINDICATED. First the Court's decision notes that 4th Amendment claims must be analyzed in accordance with its landmark Graham v. Connor decision; i.e., with the "totality of the circumstances" considered from the perspective of "a reasonable officer on the scene."

Then the Court points out that in a previous case in 2007 it held that a "police officer's attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death." [That case, Scott v. Harris, can be accessed in full by clicking here]

The Court concludes there's no reason to depart from that precedent. In the case at hand, the suspect's "outrageously reckless driving posed a grave public safety risk," says the decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito Jr.

Collision with police vehicles may have brought the pursuit "temporarily to a near standstill, [but] that did not end the chase.... [A]t the moment when the shots were fired, all that a reasonable police officer could have concluded was that [the driver] was intent on resuming his flight and that, if he was allowed to do so, he would once again pose a deadly threat for others on the road.... [T]he police acted reasonably in using deadly force to end that risk."

As for the lawsuit's claim that 15 shots were too many, the Court says: "We reject that argument. It stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended."

During the brief span when all the shots were fired, the suspect "never abandoned his attempt to flee. Indeed, even after all the shots had been fired, he managed...to continue driving until he crashed.

"This would be a different case if [officers] had initiated a second round of shots after an initial round had clearly incapacitated [the suspect] and had ended any threat of continued flight, or if [he] had clearly given himself up. But that is not what happened."

Given the circumstances and the absence of any compelling prior cases that proscribe firing at a vehicle to terminate a dangerous car chase, the Court ruled that the accused parties were fully entitled to qualified immunity in the shooting "because they violated no clearly established law."

Atty. Everett told Force Science News: "One of the startling--and welcome--aspects of this opinion doesn't have so much to do with pursuits as it does with deadly force in general.

"The Court flatly rejected the plaintiffs' tactic of using the number of rounds fired to make a good decision look bad. The opinion doesn't mince words: Officers are justified, the Court says, in continuing to use deadly force until the threat has been stopped.

"This should give officers more confidence that their training will hold up in court, and should also give a lot of would-be plaintiffs serious pause when considering certain lawsuits."

 

HELP AHEAD. "In this case," notes FSI's executive director Dr. Bill Lewinski, "the circumstances were relatively straightforward. The Supreme Court determined that the suspect vehicle and its driver posed a clear threat and shooting to end that threat was both practical and appropriate.

"However, in a broader context, including situations in which vehicles are used as assault weapons against officers, shooting at a moving vehicle can become a more complex issue. Then a myriad of behavioral science factors may come into play, including speed and distance calculations, changing trajectories, unconsciously altered perceptions of threat, psychophysiological and perceptual phenomena like "looming," and so on.

"Confronted with contradictory forensic evidence, officers may find themselves challenged to articulate why they believed a high level of threat existed when, in fact, the actual threat seems to have been much lower. They may be puzzled as to why rounds they insist were fired directly at a car bearing down on them ended up suspiciously impacting in a remote part of the vehicle.

"The dynamics involved in shooting at moving vehicles affect policy makers, trainers, street officers, investigators, force reviewers, and legal representatives alike. All need to understand the sometimes surprising nuances of human behavior under stress in these high-intensity circumstances."

A near-term goal of Force Science, Lewinski says, is to thoroughly explore this area for law enforcement. Currently in discussion are groundbreaking research projects and instructional courses that will "help to unravel the perplexities of this issue and will equip all those involved to make better decisions."

FSN will report more details as these future plans take shape.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Three days after the Supreme Court decision, a grand jury in Cuyahoga County, OH, indicted six Cleveland PD officers on criminal charges for their roles in a controversial pursuit-related shooting in which two unarmed subjects were killed. A patrol officer, who had fired nearly 50 rounds in the incident, was charged with voluntary manslaughter and five supervisors with dereliction of duty.

In news reports, the county prosecutor contrasted this case with the one ruled on by the Supreme Court. In the Cleveland incident, the suspect vehicle "was fully stopped," prosecutor Timothy McGinty explained. "Escape was no longer even a remote possibility. The flight was over. The public was no longer in danger because the car was surrounded by police cars and 23 police officers in a schoolyard safely removed from pedestrians and traffic."

An attorney for the police union, however, lambasted the prosecutor and the indictment, charging that McGinty "had the benefit of hindsight," spending about 18 months dissecting decisions and actions made in seconds.

Suspect Control and Reaction Time

Excerpted from ForceScience News #257
(High-risk stops and suspect control – reaction time)

Question:

“My agency trains that on high-risk vehicle stops the suspects should be walked forward, facing the arresting officers. The reasoning is that if the subject draws a firearm from his/her waistband, the members will have more time to see and recognize the movement, as well as the object in hand, and react. I disagree. Looking at your research, a subject can draw a firearm from a front or rear waistband remarkably fast, come up on target, and fire. I don't believe we could process that action, confirm identification of a firearm, and fire a round (let alone multiple rounds) before the subject could draw unimpeded and fire at us. Also, walking forward the subject will have time to focus on their target before drawing and thus could quickly deliver a more accurate shot.If commanded to walk backward, however, a subject will have to spin before firing and will need time to process a potential target to be accurate. That would work to our advantage, I believe. Are my thoughts on this consistent with your research? Have there been studies on this particular issue? “

Response:

Dr. Bill Lewinski, executive director of the Force Science Institute, responds:

Yes, you are right: A suspect who is allowed to face officers as he is commanded to move toward them on a high-risk stop does gain a fractional time advantage in drawing and firing a gun tucked into his waistband.

Our research has shown that once a forward-facing offender's hand touches his gun, he can draw and fire at officers in an average of about a quarter-second. If, however, he must draw, spin around, and fire after reaching the gun, that typically takes from one-third to one-half second or longer depending upon the movement the person makes as they are turning and shooting. Plus, as you point out, with his back to officers he is not able to visually locate a target before making his move, which will hopefully impair his initial accuracy.

In practical terms, either way can be lightning fast and the assailant may well get shots off before officers can react.

A critical factor is where the suspect's hands are when he starts to make his move. If his hands are raised high above his head or stretched fully out to his side, reaching a waistband gun can take twice as long and require a more dramatic move. Also, a gun in a waistband is less stable than one that's holstered, so grasping and drawing the weapon in a fast drive-and-spin may be somewhat impeded.

Whatever tactic is used to bring a high-risk subject to a point of custody, it's critical that officers maintain the best cover possible during the process. This is particularly true for the officer issuing commands, because his or her voice can accurately betray location even to a suspect walking backward.

www.forcescience.org

 

Inspire

Inspire:

Carlos Castaneda said “…we choose only once; to be Warriors, or to be ordinary”.

We choose only once because choosing to be a Warrior changes your fundamental approach to life.

Others, the ordinary ones, view everything as a blessing or a curse.

As a Warrior you see only challenges; and a Warrior lives to overcome challenges.

Learn Hurt – Trust Pain – Embrace Struggle

It is simpler to make a choice; a change in ones approach to life…Far more difficult to inspire others to do the same.

(Excerpts from www.wariorpoet.us)

Words from the Grave

Words from the Grave: 

The world is full of people still sitting around; waiting for the “just the right moment”, for the right-timing, for opportunity to come knocking…. And they will still be waiting, wondering “when” as they take their last breaths and move on to the next journey; where they will wait again.

“The hell with circumstances, I create my own opportunity” Bruce Lee

Some people think that they will get better, richer, more successful, stronger, or faster by simply hoping they will… Hope is a wasted energy without action.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit” Aristotle

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “…nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm”. I might add that sweat, blood and sometimes tears are also shed in the pursuit of greatness.

“Greatness is made up of individual moments. Moments where you made a decision: A decision to get back up; to push through or over an obstacle; to have honor; to speak the truth; to fight; to have discipline. Greatness is a culmination of all the small moments when you did the right thing.”