This tip is being written just strictly for a tactical FYI only — your level of training may dictate differently.
The average officer on the street gets — at best — minimal training in hand-to-hand during the academy, and once that is complete and they hit the street, it’s pretty much all over. Very few — if any — get in-service training in hand-to-hand and not many go out on their own to train.
So, why would the average working street officer ever want to get into a down-and-dirty, dragged-out street fight unless of course you had no other choice and couldn’t control the situation?
Lets consider your gear — your gun belt, radio and mic cord, sidearm, handcuff cases, baton holder, and your vest. All of these things can be used against you in an all-out down-on-the-ground fight. Let’s not forget your TASER, your backup gun, or that boot knife you carry.
That’s just too many things for the bad guy to hold onto and control you, to wrap around your neck or even beat you or shoot you with.
So if you know you are going to get to that level of action and you must take that initial move to arrest, use your tool belt wisely, justly, and swiftly.
Keep you distance at the onset of trouble, disengage the subject briefly for a better vantage point, and don’t make idle threats you may not keep. Don’t say if you don’t do this I’ll have to do that.
Use your verbal skills to the best of your ability, and when it’s time to go down and dirty, Go!
Use your skills and your tools and your common sense and take the fight to the bad guy — don’t let them take the fight to you.
One of our biggest enemies on the street is second guessing our own capability and the fear of how much force is too much force (and the outcome if we hurt the subject).
Take that thinking out of your mind. When it’s time to arrest and go hands on we don’t wrestle. We engage our tools of the trade and our tactical knowledge.
You are the one who goes home at the end of the day. They go to the lock up and the court or the hospital first.
I’m of the belief that you may only get one punch to get it right, so why not knock them out if you can.
God speed to all of you who still have to take the fight to the bad guy.
Be smart, be brave, be fast, be tactical.