Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) Near Miss is a voluntary, non-disciplinary officer safety initiative that allows law enforcement personnel to read about and anonymously share stories of close calls or “near misses,” which provide lessons learned that can protect fellow officers in similar situations.
Event Summary
Patrol officers responded to a call for service at an apartment complex to check a disorderly subject. Upon arrival, the subject was disorderly, and when officers attempted to arrest him, he became combative. Officers had to use a TASER to control him and take him into custody. The suspect was determined to be under the influence of PCP.
Two officers accompanied the suspect to the hospital where he was admitted for further evaluation. The suspect was handcuffed by one wrist to the hospital bed, and he was calm and cooperative during medical testing. After several hours, and during shift change, one of the two guarding officers was ordered to leave the hospital, leaving one officer to guard the suspect.
Shortly after the second officer left, the suspect began to spasm in the bed. Medical personnel requested the remaining officer uncuff the suspect so they could attend to him. As soon as the officer uncuffed the suspect’s wrist from the hospital bed, the suspect jumped out of the bed and attacked the officer. The officer hit the emergency button on his radio, but communications could not locate him because they did not have him on their screen as being on duty at the hospital with a prisoner. Apparently, when the second guarding officer was ordered to leave the hospital, the dispatcher cleared the call and hospital guard detail from the CAD screen. Fortunately, an officer working the road heard the emergency alert go out and told dispatch the officer in emergency status was at the hospital on a prisoner detail. Officers were then dispatched to respond and assist him.
While officers were en route to the hospital to assist the officer, the officer continued to violently struggle with the suspect, who was grabbing at the officer’s gun attempting to remove it from his holster. Hospital security personnel were not with the officer at the time and had to be summoned by medical staff to help.
After several minutes of the suspect pulling at the officer’s gun, the officer believed the suspect was going to be able to disarm him. The officer drew his firearm and stuck it into the suspect’s stomach and pulled the trigger, but it did not fire. The officer then re-holstered his firearm and continued to fight with the suspect. Eventually, hospital security and responding officers arrived and took the suspect back into custody. The officer was shaken but was not injured.
It was determined the officer’s gun did not fire because it was out of battery while pressed against the suspect’s stomach. An after-action review of the incident revealed that agency policy only required one officer to guard a prisoner at the hospital and only one point of security (wrist handcuffed to bed or ankle shackled to the bed) was required.
Lessons Learned
This incident offered several key lessons:
- Officers guarding prisoners need to ensure prisoners are properly restrained and should not blindly follow requests from medical personnel. In this case, the officer should not have been left alone to guard a prisoner who had demonstrated violent behavior.
- Agency policy should require two points of security (handcuff and ankle shackles to a bed) and stipulate that a prisoner should only be unsecured for medical treatment when an officer has backup from another officer or hospital security personnel.
- When an officer is clearing a prisoner detail, dispatchers should clarify if the detail is over or if it remains ongoing with another officer(s) guarding the prisoner at the location.
- Officers should understand that their firearm may not function in close quarters encounters due to the firearm being out of battery. This officer safety reminder should be addressed yearly during in-service firearms training.
- Officers should regularly refresh on defensive tactics and practice weapon retention.
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR NEAR MISS
Support this critical officer safety initiative by reading and sharing the near-miss stories and lessons learned that your fellow officers have shared, and consider sharing your own near-miss experiences at LEOnearmiss.org.