By TANYA EISERER
The Dallas Morning News
Related Story: Senior Cpl. Mark Nix
Studies shed light on how officers’ memories work in shootings
Sgt. Mike Flusche didn’t hear the shotgun blast and didn’t realize immediately that a chunk of his arm had been blown away.
The Dallas police officer still doesn’t remember dropping his gun or pushing other injured officers away from the door in a frantic effort to escape a gunman holding a woman and three children hostage in November 2003.
“It took a second to realize, ‘Buddy, you’ve been shot,’ ” Sgt. Flusche said in a recent interview. “All I remember is getting out.”
Experts say that in those fast-moving, adrenaline-fueled deadly force situations, the rational side of the brain can’t keep up with the pace of action, and it’s not uncommon for officers to unintentionally put themselves in mortal danger. Their behavior may occasionally defy logic or training.
Such appears to have been the case with the fatal shooting of Senior Cpl. Mark Nix, 33.
On March 23, at the end of a harrowing chase down an S-curved road in West Dallas, Cpl. Nix found his squad car nearly bumper to bumper with the car of a man he believed to be a murder suspect.
Before other officers could react, Cpl. Nix jumped out of his car, raced to the heavily tinted window of the Chevrolet Caprice and began beating on it with his expandable baton, known as an asp.
When the window didn’t break, he laid down his gun to swing the asp with both hands.
The man inside opened fire with an assault rifle from behind the darkened windows, mortally wounding Cpl. Nix in the neck.
“In the presence of all that adrenaline rush, and the pace at which the activity is taking place, there ain’t a hell of a lot of time to be making rational judgments,” said Dr. Anthony Semone, a police psychologist based in the Philadelphia area.
Reducing dangers
Police Chief David Kunkle called the actions of Cpl. Nix heroic and said the officer’s actions were not “necessarily unreasonable or wrong.” But he said the department is reviewing the shooting, looking for ways to reduce the dangers for officers.
“It is my job to keep officers safe and alive,” he said.
Like a computer
Think of the brain as akin to a computer, experts say.
In sudden-force situations, the thinking brain simply doesn’t have time to react. As if on automatic pilot, the brain pulls what could be best described as a computer file that instructs the person how to react instinctively within those first few seconds.
The brain simply can’t process all that’s going on. If a person is visually focused on one thing, he may not see other things going on around him. The brain also actively suppresses sound.
“We often think that we are paying attention to everything at the time, but in fact, we are only paying attention to a very small percentage of things,” Dr. Alexis Artwohl, a police behavioral scientist based in Tucson, Ariz., and co-author of the book Deadly Force Encounters.
Her research has found that 74 percent of officers involved in shootings gave little or no conscious thought to what they were doing, and half could not recall some of their actions.
That is why constant training – particularly the kind of training that simulates the real-life situations that officers may confront – is so crucial, experts say.
“You’ve kind of been mentally readying yourself for this one moment, maybe for years,” said Dallas police Senior Cpl. Lance Crawford, who has been shot and also has shot someone. “When that moment happens, then your brain just reverts back to what you’ve been doing over and over again in your head. You just act.”
Sometimes, officers make unusual choices based on the signals their brains are sending them. It’s not uncommon for officers to unintentionally do or say things that they don’t remember.
Dr. Artwohl remembers how in one case, an officer, thinking he was about to be killed in a high-speed pursuit of a violent suspect, called his wife and his dad.
“He has no memory of making these phone calls,” Dr. Artwohl said. “The officer’s subconscious mind was telling him, ‘This guy almost killed you. In case you don’t make it home, in case you don’t make it alive out of this encounter, you need to call and say goodbye to your wife and dad.’ ”
In the case of Cpl. Nix, the experts said, it’s likely that he gave no conscious thought to putting down his weapon because he was so caught up in the moment.
They theorize that his brain chose a “file” that told him to rush up to that car and get the suspect out – something that he’d probably done before.
“It’s my experience that officers believe that the sooner they can gain physical control over a subject, the safer a situation,” said Dr. Bill Lewinski, a behavioral scientist and director of the Force Science Research Center.
“Most of the time when they abandon the cover and safety of their vehicle, and cross that kill zone and haul somebody out of their vehicle, it turns out OK and they have physical control over the subject.”
What officers don’t realize is how much of a disadvantage they are at when confronted by armed criminals, experts say.
Training
Recent FBI research of people who kill officers has shown that many have much more firearms practice and street combat experience than the officers, Dr. Artwohl said.
The attackers also have absolutely no “hesitation whatsoever to shoot and kill somebody, including a cop,” she said, “whereas police officers demonstrate a great reluctance to shoot somebody.”
On top of that, Dr. Lewinski said his research has found that if an officer approaches the vehicle of someone who intends to shoot the officer, it takes a quarter-second for the person to bring a handgun from anywhere within his immediate reach and fire out the window at the officer.
“An officer who has a finger on the trigger ready to react or who has already made the decision to shoot is behind the reactionary curve,” Dr. Lewinski said. “That’s why we teach [officers] not to rush up. Unless you know what’s going on inside, the threat potential is too high.”
On felony stops, trainers typically teach officers to drive up behind the suspect and to park slightly to the right or the left so that the engine block can be used as cover from gunfire. Officers are supposed to draw their weapons and then use the public address system to order the people in the vehicle out of the car – one at a time.
Cpl. Nix “went there trying to do the right thing,” said Ed Nowicki, executive director of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association. “This shows you what happens when you get wrapped up in the emotions of it and your adrenaline is high, just how reasonable, well-trained officers do things that make you scratch your head and wonder why they did it.”
That’s why it’s crucial that the shooting be deconstructed and used to teach others, he said.
“It’s horrible that this thing happened, but this officer’s life would even be more in vain if we didn’t do something with it,” Mr. Nowicki said. “We have to bring this issue into the light, not only into a light, but into a spotlight, and let officers know these are things that can happen. Maybe we could save more officers’ lives.”
Copyright 2007 The Dallas Morning News