Being both Cautious and Friendly

[GRV]

It seems to be both safe and effective, police in making person encounters need to do two things:

1) They need to develop rapport in order to maximize the effectiveness of their investigation. They need to be friendly, relate to the person, and make the person feel comfortable, trusted, and understood. This is regardless of whether the person is a criminal, a witness, or whatever. They need to adapt their personality to the person in question.

2) They need to remain cautious and "switched on", lest they make themselves tactically vulnerable and end up far down the reacting side of the curve in the event that the person, or a third party, decides to become hostile. This involves maintaining proper interview position, and so on.

I've done a few roleplaying training scenarios where I've seen myself fail on either of these issues. It seems pretty easy to be "switched on" and be a robot professional. It also seems easy in many cases (although requires skill and experience in general) to connect with people and basically develop a temporary perceived friendship. But I'm finding that it is hard to do both. It is very easy to get mentally submersed in the latter mindset and very quickly end up letting your guard down, dropping your hands, or taking a vulnerable position. It strikes me as very human. When developing rapport with someone, we naturally do things like mirror them and show physical signs of openness.

It seems to me that this creates a dangerous switching dynamic. You're either in one mode or the other, and in either case you're probably working extremely sub-optimally. Moreover, the switch can't be thrown quick enough when it has to be.

Instead, it seems that one has to show all the outward signs of (1) while maintaining all the inward mindset of (2). This is something which seems totally contrary to nature, as demonstrated by the fact any cop with enough experience can read a person's inner mindset off their outward physical actions.

For those with experience, do you have any tips on how to develop and maintain this elusive simultaneous state?

[BehindBlueI's]

Reading body language, verbal and non verbal indicators, etc. This is hard in role play because indicators are absent or seriously muted. Training on recognizing pre-attack indicators and the confidence that comes with experience and successful use will help tremendously.

You don't have to treat everyone the same, and you don't have to treat the same person the same at all times.

[Chuck Haggard]

You can indeed do both at the same time. It's also a learned skill. Too many cops don't figure out that you can be very "tactical" without being an asshole, or friendly without being unsafe.

[TC215]

I worked interstate interdiction for a couple years before I went to narcotics. That's where I really learned to do both well at the same time.

[pablo]

There's never any reason that an officer "needs" to be friendly to anyone on a call. Be professional and as polite and courteous as the person he's dealing with will allow. He's not there to coddle people, he's there to do an investigation. That doesn't mean act like a bag dicks either. If an officer wants to be friendly that's his business, if he wants to be robot professional that's his business too, but ultimately that should be up to the officer to decide.

It's much easier to show up switched on and then take it down a couple notches if the situation warrants, then try to take it up a couple notches after things go south.

[KeeFus]

I worked interstate interdiction for a couple years before I went to narcotics. That's where I really learned to do both well at the same time.

^^^This. If you wanna get into cars via consent you learn both.

[GRV]

Are there any tips or advice you have for learning/training this skill, or is it just Experience?

[TC215]

When I was starting out, it helped me to watch other, more experienced officers who were good at it.

[BaiHu]

Are there any tips or advice you have for learning/training this skill, or is it just Experience?

Have you done any MUC work with SouthNarc?

[pablo]

Are there any tips or advice you have for learning/training this skill, or is it just Experience?

I don't think it's possible to effectively train personality. Pretending to be friendly person, when you're not is going to backfire. If the goal is to communicate effectively with people and build trust, you'll very quickly run out of friendly BS to dish out and back yourself into a corner as a disingenuous asshole. Criminals spend their entire lives trying manipulate people, they may not realize it but they are masters at reading other people, you're not going to fool them by being something you are not.

If you're not a friendly person don't worry about it, there are plenty of great cops that would loose a personality contest to a pine board. It really doesn't matter.