Expanding the use of force toolbox with Brazilian jiu-jitsu

[Torsius]

I work in a heavily saturated BJJ school town. Our academy teaches escapes from the mount and how to apply the carotid restraint (“It’s not a choke!”) standing and on the ground. I’m not a BJJ guy, but I respect the cauliflower ears and teach my trainees to look for them.

[Poconnor]

We had a BJJ LE class at my department. I don’t think the brass knew it had choke holds because they never took the class. Sadly they stopped the class when the main instructor retired and we had a few injuries. I had been urging this training for over ten years because of the rise of MMA. I did notice a difference in the end of my career. I arrested several guys that had some degree of MMA training. Good times. The best was a domestic at a house party for a pay for view UFC match. A big guy (220-muscled) with a few years of MMA was drunk and beat his wife. I got hold of his arm and got him down on the ground. I had one cuff on and instead of complying and giving me his other arm he was trying to tap out. We dealt with him quite a few times until he moved. Funny, he never wanted to roll with me again.

[brooklynbacon]

BJJ is crucial to LE on numerous levels. From a mental perspective, it allows you to be calm in bad situations, along with not letting some perp get the best of you. When you're confident, you're less apt to do some silly nonsense, getting you jammed up. Next, it works. We are in the business of controlling people, not knocking them out. While we need to know striking, we need to have a broad understanding of what happens when we go to the ground. Maybe then, we will have less polyester dogpiling, resulting in less injuries for both officers and bad guys. So many cops have every excuse in the book why they can't train, but the reality is they don't want to be humbled by some 16 year old kid with a wrestling background, and be utterly smoked. It's scary..you don't know what you don't know..but better to lose on the mat, than getting tuned up in the street, or get your gun taken and smacked around like that cop in CA, recently. Just saying.