On Wednesday, April 29, 2015, the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox played a game in front of exactly zero spectators. The two previous games in the three-game set were canceled outright (they will be played at some later date), but never in the history of Major League Baseball has a game been played with fans locked out.
The decision to close Camden Yards last week and relocate an entire “home” series of games to an “away” stadium was not made lightly, and I will not second-guess it. Those who made that decision did what they thought best for their city and their property.
However, those decisions should serve as a wake-up call for police leaders across the country because “crowd control” is not the absence of a crowd. Crowds gather for myriad reasons, and it’s the job of the police to ensure the peaceable assembly of people who wish to exercise their First Amendment Rights.
Now is a good time to review your agency’s policies and procedures for dealing with peaceful large-scale gatherings, as well as the strategies and tactics to be employed in the event such a gathering turns violent.
Double Down on Training and Preparation
Every police leader at every level of the organization has to ensure that every cop on the job fully understands — and can execute — the plan to prevent a large-scale public protest from going sideways. Containment, separation, and other tactics can be employed to great effect if everyone is on the same page.
Train in your crowd-control tactics. Fine-tune the balance between restraint and response. Be confident in your knowledge of the law and use-of-force policies.
Dan Marcou — one of the nation’s foremost experts on crowd control issues — eloquently wrote about his recipe for success with crowds. “Take a department full of officers with quality individual skills training, add a healthy dose of team skills training, garnish with the proper equipment, sprinkle in some planning, and flavor the mix with well-trained partners. Marinate the entire team with some pre-event rehearsal.”
Meanwhile, police leaders must continue ongoing efforts to strengthen relationships with constituencies that self-identify as adversarial to you. As much as it would be nice to have elected officials taking the lead on that, we know that those individuals frequently fan the flames of anti-police sentiment.
“I’m doing everything I can,” you say.
Maybe so, but simply by reaching out again, you are doing something more. It’s not a solution, but it’s a start.
“I don’t have that problem,” you say.
Maybe, maybe not, but you don’t want to find out the hard way — “right of bang” — that you do. Ask questions. Listen. It can’t hurt.
Prepare for “Bang” (Because “Bang” Happens)
I used a term just now — “right of bang” — in part because I’m presently re-reading Left of Bang: How the Marine Corps’ Combat Hunter Program Can Save Your Life by Patrick Van Horne and Jason A. Riley. Every cop in America should read this book, because it offers insights into identifying — and acting upon — the observable signals of an impending calamity that are evident in “the moments before something bad happens.”
The abovementioned strategies and tactics take place “left of bang.”
As much as we do to prevent problems, we all know — and Van Horne and Riley correctly state — “bang happens.” And sometimes, bang happens really, really FAST. Consequently, police must act quickly when action is required. As Marcou writes here, “a crowd does not start a riot. Individuals in a crowd incite riots.”
Swiftly extinguishing a small problem is likely to produce a far superior result than allowing it to fester, grow, and become a large-scale incident. As Marcou put it, “arresting the right person at the right time in the right way can send a powerful message. Arresting them in the wrong way can inspire chaos.”
Remember that in Ferguson, a candlelight vigil went wildly off the rails, resulting in mayhem in the streets. Law enforcement quickly “lost the initiative” there and for weeks thereafter, people commuted to Ferguson from far and wide to cause nightly havoc.
Review your P&Ps for what to do once anarchy erupts. How can you ensure the safety of your officers as well as the protesters who are not committing the violence? How will you quickly put an end to the disorder? Remember that knowledge of what you can and cannot do will give you the ability to act without hesitation when the time comes.
Dust off that binder outlining the mutual-aid protocols with neighboring fire, EMS, and police agencies. Talk with them. Talk about these issues in roll call. Talk about it with your partner out on patrol.
Law enforcement — as well as political and “community leaders” at every level — cannot allow widespread mayhem to become something a segment of the population accepts as a “normal response” to a controversial event. We cannot allow fear of “bang” to normalize the shutting down of normal day-to-day life for the average law-abiding citizen.
