Editor’s Note: This week’s PoliceOne First Person essay is from PoliceOne Members Kevin Jeffries and Lance Nickell — part three of a four-part series addressing the most critical element of officer safety: the need to think first! In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an e-mail with your story.
By Kevin Jeffries, Probation Safety Specialist, Arizona Supreme Court
and Lance Nickell, Probation Safety Specialist, Arizona Supreme Court
In our previous installment in this series, we stated that when we act in a manner contrary to the perpetrator’s plan, we cause the perpetrator to rethink (orient, observe and decide), which causes hesitation prior to Acting and provides officers with an opportunity to escape or enhance their defense. This allows officers to get inside the assailant’s OODA loop and force the assailant to sort through their OODA loop again.
This concept is referred to as: visualization, mental imagery, or crisis rehearsal. In fact, many athletes attribute this principle to assisting them in winning gold medals, championships and/or personal bests. With this technique, they envision an athletic event and their successful participation and conclusion to that event. In a probation/parole setting, officers would imagine a use of force situation that concluded successfully. The idea is that mental rehearsal tricks our mind into believing that we have been there before. Through this, officers react more quickly, more confidently, and in a reasonable manner, in accordance with Graham v. Conner.
I encourage officers to take advantage of the time spent driving from contact to contact to mentally rehearse. Consider escape routes to use when confronted in the home of a probationer or a hallway of an apartment complex. Consider being attacked by various types of weapons and by various types of people (older, younger, bigger, smaller, male, female etc.). Visualize yourself in threatening situations that others in your department have encountered or even something read in a book or seen on TV…be realistic, but also be creative. Be sure to always see yourself as being confident, in control, and winning the encounter by retreat or force used. Also, be sure to rehearse using a reasonable force option. It is now that we can — within the safety of our imagination — consider alternatives so that when confronted with reality, we can react quickly and reasonably. I am proud to say that I decided 15 years ago how I would act in a crisis that may not happen until tomorrow, next week or next year. Because of that, I am prepared to win…are you?
Some years ago, I was a unit supervisor with Ohio Adult Parole Authority in Youngstown, Ohio. Late one morning, one of our officers came walking in the office carrying an AR-15 rifle. I asked him where he got the rifle, as I knew his normal field partner was off that day, and he was working alone. I asked if he had considered not taking the rifle? He told me the probationer saw that he had seen the rifle, and the officer was concerned that if he did not take it, he would be shot by it. The officer went on to say that he had considered a situation like this before and decided that if it ever happened, he would confiscate for his safety. I was then, and am still, impressed with that officer’s mental rehearsal and action.
As mentioned earlier, officers must have a firm grasp of the agency’s use of force policy, state law, and use of force case law. They also must be able to recognize emerging and immediate threats. Further, they must be able to identify the type of threat as deadly or non-deadly and choose a reasonable force option (or plan of retreat) to deal with the threat.
Officers should look for behavioral cues to assist in threat assessments. Behavioral cues can be divided into subcategories. The first is unarmed threatening assailant. The behavioral cues in this category are the subject’s resistance both verbally and physically while threatening the officer or another. The unarmed threatening then turns into the unarmed assailant when the threatening subject attacks the officer by grabbing, striking, biting, kicking, etc. The closing of distance is the officer’s warning that the threatening is about to turn into unarmed assailant. Of course, the assault is obviously a behavior cue. (Gillespie, Hart, and Boren, 1998).
The unarmed threatening assailant should not be seen as harmless. People who threaten often carry out those threats. When the unarmed threatening assailant is closing distance, it is important for us to know that we can use preemptive force. The cases of Wardlaw v. Pickett and Prymer v. Ogden clearly state that an officer can act in a preemptive manner if a reasonable officer would believe that a physical attack is immediately pending.
How can officers know when they are in a deadly force encounter? Officers can use this strategy to identify deadly force situations. There are three injuries that can cause death or “serious physical injury.” They are large gaping wounds, major internal organ damage, and major broken bones. There are three types of weapons that can cause those three types of injuries: firearms, edged weapons, and blunt trauma instruments (Gillespie, Hart and Boren, 1998). So when officers are confronted with these three weapons (coupled with hostile intent), this should lead a reasonable officer to believe they are in a lethal force encounter. Keep in mind, a person who is standing still while holding and threatening with a knife or a blunt trauma instrument must demonstrate intent before lethal force can be used. This intent can be demonstrated by the armed threatening subject moving toward the officer or verbally threatening to use the weapon to harm the officer.
These talking points often prompt officers to question how the 21-foot rule comes into play. The 21-foot rule only applies when the subject is actively charging. Anytime someone is standing flat-footed, threatening us, we need to get a reasonable tool off of our belt for our protection and/or leave. There is no downside in being prepared to protect ourselves. Drawing a reasonable force option will not escalate the situation — it will more likely deescalate it. If we wait until the subject is charging us, we are way behind the curve and more likely to be injured. Do not ignore reality.
In an effort to help frame reasonableness in a deadly force situation, the FBI instructs its agents in the following four categories. “If an agent has probable cause to believe any of the four examples exist, and the subject poses a threat of serious physical injury, then deadly force may be permissible under the policy” (Petrowski, 2002). The four examples are:
1.) The subject possesses a weapon, or is attempting to gain access to a weapon, under circumstances indicating an intention to use it against the agent or others.
2.) The subject is armed and running to gain the tactical advantage of cover.
3.) The subject, with the capability of inflicting death or serious physical injury or otherwise incapacitating agents without a deadly weapon, is demonstrating an intention to do so.
4.) The subject is attempting to escape the vicinity of a violent confrontation in which he or she inflicted or attempted the infliction of death or serious physical injury. Note that number 3 includes the possibility of a person with no weapon as being a lethal threat.
It is important to know that our mind is always making threat assessments on a subconscious level, and sometimes it will perceive danger and communicate it by an unexplained bad feeling. This bad feeling is sometimes referred to as instinct or a gut feeling, or the hair raising on the back of your neck. Whatever these feelings are called, they should not be ignored (De Becker, 1997). Officers should trust those instincts and safely remove themselves from that particular situation.
Check back in two weeks for our final installment in this series, ‘Complacency, confidence, and our conclusions.’
About the Author
Kevin Jeffries is currently employed by the Arizona Supreme Court in the Education Services Division as the Probation Safety Specialist. Kevin is considered a Subject Matter Expert in Defensive Tactics, Firearms and Use-of-Force. Prior to his employment at AOC he was a unit supervisor with the Ohio Adult Parole Authority (APA) supervising the Mahoning County Probation Unit. While with the APA he was an Unarmed Self-Defense Instructor, Field Tactics Instructor and Chairman of the Akron Regional Training Advisory Council.
Kevin is a Lead Firearms and Lead Defensive Tactics instructor for the Arizona Supreme Court Administrative Office of the Courts and was instrumental in developing both the firearms and defensive tactics curriculum. Kevin has presented Officer Safety trainings for the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) and is a guest columnist for APPA’s Perspectives Magazine. Kevin also instructs on a national level as an adjunct faculty member for the Community Corrections Institute. He holds certifications as a Simunitions instructor, TASER instructor, NRA Tactical Firearms Instructor, NRA Handgun Instructor, and Glock Armorer.
Kevin received his Bachelor of Science in Law Enforcement Administration from Youngstown State University and his Master’s Degree in Public Administration at Western International University.
Lance Nickell is the Lead Firearms Instructor and Range Master for the Maricopa County Probation Department and develops curriculum and policy for his department’s officer safety related topics. In his 17 years as a Probation Officer, he has had numerous assignments including the Sex Offender Unit, Fugitive Location Unit, and Staff Development and Training. Lance assisted in establishing and currently manages his department’s firearms training programs and leads the department’s 20 firearms instructors.
Lance is also a Lead Firearms Instructor and Use of Force subject matter expert for the Arizona State Supreme Court. He has been recognized twice by this court as the Firearms Instructor of the Year. He has presented nationally for both the American Probation and Parole Association and the National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology. As an avid shooter, Lance has won numerous Gold, Silver, and Bronze in the Arizona Police Games and continues competing at area matches.
References
De Becker, G., (1997). The Gift of Fear. Dell Publishing, New York.
Gillespie, T., Hart, D., and Boren, J., (1998). Police Use of Force, A Line Officer’s Guide. Varro Press, Kansas City.
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).
Grayson, B. and Stein, M. I., (1981). Attracting assault: Victims’ nonverbal cues. Journal of Communication, 31, 68–75.
Grossman, D., (1995). On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Little, Brown and Co., New York.
Kenagy, J., (2010). Acting your way to a new way of thinking. For Your Advantage, retrieved 3.16.11 from http://kenagyassociates.com/resources.writing.php
Petrowski, T. D., (2002, November). Use of force policies and training, a reasoned approach (Part 2). The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 71 (11), 24-32.
Pinizzotto, A., Davis, E., and Miller, C., (2006). “Dead Right” Recognizing Traits of Armed Individuals. The FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, retrieved 3.18.11 from http://www2.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/publications/leb/2006/mar06leb.pdf
Prymer v. Ogden, 29 F.3d 1208 (7th Cir 1994).
Thompson, L. and Mesloh, C., (2006). Edged weapons: traditional and emerging threats to law enforcement. The Law Enforcement Bulletin, retrieved 12.21.10 from http://www2.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/publications/leb/2006/mar06leb.pdf
Thornton, Robert L.,(2003). New Approaches to Staff Safety, 2d ed. Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections.
Wardlaw v. Pickett, 1 F.3d 1297, 1299 (1993).
