Thread of olde, arise from thy grave
I just discovered this thread yesterday, and lo and behold, Greg Ellifritz has a post on just this subject:
https://www.activeresponsetraining.n...olice-shooting
Thread of olde, arise from thy grave
I just discovered this thread yesterday, and lo and behold, Greg Ellifritz has a post on just this subject:
https://www.activeresponsetraining.n...olice-shooting
Wow, I'm usually a fan of Ellifritz, but he missed the forest for the trees in this case. Officers are afraid to act or use deadly force because they are vilified for doing so, plus you have idiots like PERF and US DOJ positing that cops should ALWAYS de-escalate all the things. He was quick to condemn these officers without a thorough explanation of their background, initial training and agency policy. Were they CIT-trained? I'd bet they were, based on the verbal pleading. Is Ellifritz CIT-trained?
There were many things wrong with this incident, but shooting from the lip doesn't help us determine how and why these officers performed so poorly.
This is so true. In 42 years of Police work, I've lost count of the number of times I've pointed guns at suspects. Some were impressed by the gun, many were not. More were impressed by my demeanor, and then again some were not. I had one suspect I took at gunpoint who had a knife in his hand. He dropped the knife, but you could see the thought process in his expression on whether he was going to try me or not. When I was taking him to jail, he said; You were going to shoot me, weren't you. I replied, yes I was. He replied, I thought so.
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Be Aware-Stay Safe. Gunfighting Is A Thinking Man's Game. So We Might Want To Bring Thinking Back Into It.
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Some guy named Pat once said, "Policing is regional." While I might agree that in this instance, verbal pleading is counter-indicated, your statement as regards verbal pleading not being "right" in all cases is incorrect. CIT is great when the situation is contained and relatively static, i.e. perimeter up, less-lethal with lethal cover, primary contact/negotiator, etc. The problem occurs when officers try to apply CIT-based training to fluid, rapidly-evolving tactical situations, as happened here. Command Staff, in many parts of the country, are encouraging or mandating that de-escalation and using CIT techniques be applied prior to all use of force applications. Some of the draft proposals for CA's recent UOF law re-write included a mandatory effort to de-escalate before lethal force is used. Also, the local ambulance chasers are routinely asking if a CIT-trained officer was on scene when lethal force was used when they are evaluating the dollar amount they can wring from the agency after an OIS. My point still stands as regards the climate the officers in this case have to work in and the effects of that climate on what should be simple tactical decision-making.
As examples I point to the Whittier? shooting with the suicidal 17 year old girl in the empty lot who chases the officer backwards almost a block before he shoots her and the San Diego shooting of the guy with a lock on a chain, swinging it at the officer, where the officer retreats almost two blocks before shooting, the former Marine in Ohio with the murder suspect who chased the officer up the hill in the rain while reaching for his waistband, multiple times, etc. Something has changed in the 27 years I've been doing this job. Up until the last few years, all of these suspects would have been dumped after a few feet of retreat, and it would have been legal, morally righteous and justified. Now, we are having multiple officers placing themselves and the public in danger. I don't buy that they are all special snowflakes that we shouldn't have hired. There's too many instances of this to write it off to one cause. Leaving out the political influence, IMO, is a grave miscalculation.
FWIW I worked in the Bay Area for 7 years and now work in TX. Due to my current assignment we frequently work with the local PD and SO mental health details. They are full time CIT officers and most are train the trainers for CIT.
Having personally been in at least one donnybrook with them and a “mental health consumer” and being familiar with two shootings these units were involved I can assure you Chuck is spot on that CIT done right does not equal the hesitation you are seeing here.
Verbal pleading is not part of CIT.
I think some of what you are seeing is driven more by the region you are in. The local politics has an effect on how policies are implemented but it also has an effect on selection, recruitment and retention.
The second officer in the video, the one who sealed the deal, is a rookie who 1) is either still on or just finished FTO and 2) has already had a prior justified OIS in March. He appears to be taking his lead from officer one.
What you are seeing in Officer one failure to acknowledge that using deadly force is something he may have to actually do. As a result he is in denial, stalling because inside he is thinking “I can’t believe this is happening” instead of accepting it and dealing with it. When the suspect pushed things too far he panics. His training kicks in enough at a subconscious level for him to get off a burst of minimally effective fire and then he goes into condition black - too panicked to act when the suspect gets up again.
Officer one is probably a nice guy, but this is a combination of his failure to prepare mentally and his agency’s failure in selecting, recruiting and retaining him.
Having been an academy instructor and still an inservjce trainer, I can tell you we are definitely retaining people who would not have been retained 20 years ago and should not be retained now.
BTW I think we are so focused on Officer one’s failures that we are not fully acknowledging what an awesome job the rookie did making a successful hostage shot in the middle of the shit show his senior created. He is no snowflake, rather he is your hope for the future and we need to do what we can to make sure he stays in LE.
Last edited by HCM; 07-04-2019 at 02:12 PM.
I think the truth resides betwixt the twin poles expressed here. (Regional differences clearly adding to the failure to nail down the mercury.)
There's nothing civil about this war.
paherne pointed out the regional nature of the job. Different places do things in different ways.
While the CIT program I went through did not, does not teach pleading, there were CIT phrases used, and there was pleading on that video.
Add to that the screening, selection, hiring being done within the profession - not everyone, every place, but enough. What does their academy or in-service training teach? How was it presented to them? Was it correctly understood?
Even though AB-392 is a CA only thing at this time, is that idea having adverse effects elsewhere? Is an over-emphasis, unrealistic emphasis on de-escalation, which requires the suspect's consent & participation driving behaviors, outcomes like this?
Are our peers' misunderstanding & misimplementing what they are being taught in CIT?
After the officers abandoned and fled from the patrol car, what would have been everyone's position had the suspect stolen it & gone mobile?
When I was much newer to the job, I got backed up a car length or so by a driver who got out of their car with their hand on a sheathed knife. I had nowhere to go other than into traffic or a ditch once I hit the front of my car. Fortunately, an older, more experienced cop showed up at that point and visually convinced the driver to change their behavior.
I understand giving a bit of ground to try gaining compliance, to get a better backstop. However what was shown here and in any of the other instances paherne referenced. While they may exceptions to a rule, they appear to be proving a new rule.
I think that both of you are correct.
Yes paherne, it has changed, and neither for the better nor for the safety of those who are charged with stopping the behavior.
And Erick, the new rule is, "It is no longer the one wearing the badge, representing the rule and force of law, that will receive the support of society. No, it is the perpetrator of evil and violence whose life must be spared at all costs, and the costs considered acceptable include the unconsolable grief of widows and children."
I had to look up CIT; from what I see it came along after my time. It is not the first attempt to advance the life-safety priority of perpetrators above those whose job it is to enforce law and keep peace.
Betraying my anachronistic mentality, the entire premise of on-scene psycho-babble (I know that this will raise some hackles, but please, in any divergence, show me the science according to the original premise of scientific methodology.) is beyond the purview of those who are principally tasked with enforcing the law. Why anyone was doing anything was never my concern, nor did I ever require such inquiry from subordinates. I was very much Rhett Butleresque in that regard.
Interesting thread.
My one story is this: I inadvertently "shot down" a friendly aircraft during an exercise. I was the Officer of the Deck of a ship that, for the purposes of the exercise, was given an AAW capability. OODs on AAW-capable ships carried a flare pistol with colored flares (my memory is that it was green). Friendly aircraft approaching ships were supposed to approach, without radio contact, on a specified relative bearing. When the call came from the lookouts that an aircraft was approaching, I brainfarted and thought the safe bearing was a true bearing. So I loaded the pistol and shot off a flare.
The aircraft commander was not amused. He broke radio silence and made a vociferous complaint.
My CO asked me what happened and I fessed up. He said that I was expecting to see an enemy aircraft and that when an aircraft appeared, I acted in accordance with my expectations. He told me that the trick was to be able to question my assumptions and yet do it fast enough to be effective.
I think about that from time to time.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.