Time and again we hear about officers being attacked during arrest situations in which they are surrounded by a hostile crowd. Earlier this year, we had two such incidents in the span of just a few weeks. In both situations someone from the crowd attacks the officers.
Before reading any further, please review each one.
• 2 cops attacked in N. Phila. melee
• Video of attack on Md. cop goes ‘viral’
Five Basic Observations
I am not aware if the officers involved have been trained in the concepts of contact and cover but I don’t see them being applied. There are numerous articles on Police1 on the topic so I will touch on a few training points out of these situations.
1.) One officer (contact) does what I call “the three ‘ates” — Communicate, Investigate, and Incarcerate. The second officer (cover) scans the surrounding area looking for outside threats. In each case the second officer has shifted their attention to assisting in the arrest and lost sight of the surrounding crowd of obviously agitated onlookers.
2.) The cover officer only becomes involved in the arrest process when the contact officer becomes involved in a confrontation and requires or requests assistance.
As police officers, we don’t want to get into long protracted physical altercations standing or on the ground. If you go hands on and the suspect resists in a way preventing you from quickly gaining control, then escalate the use of force. In either of the above videos, if the contact officer had disengaged the wrestling match and used their TASER (if they had them) they would have stayed on their feet and the suspect would have gone to the ground.
The hostile crowd surrounding the officers allows the officers to raise their level of force because of the number of other hostile people in the area. I don’t know the officers involved departmental policy regarding use of force but I doubt that they weren’t authorized to change their tactics based on the totality of circumstances.
3.) When the Cover officer joins in there must be a coordinated effort. A coordinated effort means the officers are willing to work in unison to gain and maintain control of the scene and suspect.
Do you, your partners, or department train in coordinated arrest and control with multiple officers? To be honest, most cops don’t and as a result we don’t do well in multiple officer arrest situations. Everyone has their own personal plan — one puts on a handcuff before control is established, another tries to roll the suspect over, still another tries to stand them up, and the arrest goes nowhere.
4.) If the cover officer joins the fight, they still have to be responsible for the contact officers’ safety.
If other suspects join the confrontation they need to immediately disengage the initial arrest and take responsibility for making sure no one else joins in the fight. Once again multiple suspects allow us to escalate force.
In the one instance the officers go from wrestling to the threat of deadly force. Following the above suggestions might very well have stopped the situation early enough to avoid the officers getting into a position that required that level of force. In the Maryland case, the officers are assaulted by an outside party and then both officers go after that suspect, once again allowing anyone who wishes to attack them to do so because they both focused on the same suspect.
Fortunately, in that case the suspect chose to escape and didn’t attack.
5.) Calibre Press has taught that officer should ask themselves a question during use of force situations.
“Am I Winning?”
When the answer is yes, then keep doing what you’re doing. When the answer is no, then ask yourself, “What are my good options?”
Commit to making the decision that keeps you safe in the performance of your duty. If the answer is no, then withdraw. We’ve all had the opportunity to make arrests surrounded by large hostile crowds. You have to ask yourself in those situations if the benefit of the arrest outweighs the risk to officers. We have to put ego aside and let a suspect go when it is appropriate to do so. Making that decision is determined by: how many officers are on scene, how soon backup can get here, how big the crowd is (and how fast it may grow bigger), as well as what the charge(s) on the suspect are known to be.
Conclusion
The concepts of contact and cover were started by the San Diego PD after two officers were shot and killed by a single suspect during a misdemeanor arrest. Those lessons have been known for more than 30 years. We need to ensure that we take the lessons that are written on the streets of America in the blood of officers injured and killed and never forgot them and make sure that they are not repeated.
