7 patrol habits veteran officers say you can’t ignore

One tactic every patrol officer should consistently practice is identifying potential scenarios and mentally rehearsing a quick response plan. Too often, officers are caught off guard because the habit of thinking ahead and anticipating what could go wrong is overshadowed by the emotional presentation of a victim, witness or suspect. Tears, demeanor or even the perceived simplicity of a call can create a false sense of security. In reality, even the most “routine” civil issue has the potential to escalate into a dangerous or deadly situation without warning.

Progressive contingency-based thinking is critical. Even gaining a millisecond advantage can make a significant difference in outcome. A simple mental framework can guide this process: What are two things that could go wrong on this call? If they do, where is my cover? What am I saying over the radio? What tools will I need? Running through these questions quickly allows officers to ground themselves, regulate their breathing and activate a heightened level of awareness.

No two calls are the same. While a welfare check on a 97-year-old woman may seem low-risk, variables can change instantly. A stressed or agitated family member at that same scenario, could shift the entire dynamic. The question becomes: “Were you prepared for that possibility?”

Having contingency plans gives your mind direction under pressure. It builds confidence, sharpens decision-making and enhances officer safety. This mindset is also contagious; when one officer demonstrates preparedness, others begin to evaluate their own readiness. Ultimately, this habit ensures that when a situation worsens, you remain composed, think clearly and lead effectively. I have been a part of the SWAT team and there is a saying we reiterate “calm breathes calm” and preparation makes that possible.

An underlying discipline of good patrol work is emotional control.

Ask experienced officers what matters most on patrol and you will hear tactics, awareness, pre-incident planning and decision-making. All of this matters. But beneath these essential skills sits something more fundamental: control of yourself.

Patrol work demands far more than tactical competence. At its core, it requires mastery of self.

Every shift places officers in volatile environments, dealing with people gripped by powerful emotions: anger, desperation, grief and fear. Some moments require empathy. Others demand firm command presence and decisive action. Often all of these qualities are required within seconds. Officers who cannot regulate their internal state risk allowing emotion to cloud judgment.

Emotional discipline is not about suppression. It is about conscious control.

The psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” Patrol work unfolds inside this precarious space, often in seconds.

Part of navigating that moment is metacognition, the ability to observe your own thinking and emotional state while events are unfolding. Officers who recognize rising frustration, adrenaline or impatience gain a critical advantage. The best officers learn to monitor themselves while they monitor the scene.

This awareness allows you to regulate your breathing, slow down, recalibrate and stabilize situations that might otherwise spiral. The officer who governs their physiology often governs the tempo of the encounter. Control creates clarity. Clarity creates time. And time often creates better outcomes.

Patrol officers must also respect the cumulative weight of our work. It is rarely one incident that erodes performance, but the accumulation: repeated exposure to trauma, constant vigilance and emotional residue carried from call to call.

It also helps to pay attention to how your partners and co-workers are doing. Taking a few minutes to check in and debrief after particularly difficult calls can help process what the job places in front of you.

Physical training, sleep and nutrition are not lifestyle preferences. They are professional maintenance that help metabolize stress and accelerate recovery.

Officers are issued equipment for the job. Perhaps one of the most important instruments you bring to every scene is a regulated nervous system.

Train it. Maintain it. Protect it.

When I teach tactics, I teach four core concepts: Unobserved approach to observation, closer is not always better, bring them to you and surprise. It all starts with getting as close to the site of the call without being seen as close as possible. You don't have to watch many body cams to see officers violating this principle regularly. Doing things like driving up directly in front of a call location, walking up the sidewalk and standing in front of the door.

If you can avoid or at least delay your detection by a suspect, they don't have as much time to execute a plan that might include assaulting or fleeing from you. The proliferation of security cameras with live feeds to cellphones and home computers has made this more difficult, with advances in drone technology. However, they are the latest tool that cops can use to see, but not be seen.

The number of officers killed each year in ambushes outside the residence when officers respond to a domestic is alarming. Don't let complacency rob you of the opportunity to set yourself up for success by not employing this valuable concept at every opportunity.

Once you have arrived unobserved, always take the time to stop, look and listen. Pause to assess the scene. Look for anything that seems out of place. Listen for any cues about the situation before you make your presence known.

The best thing I can recommend you do, which will aid any situation that requires mental acuity, physical responsiveness, complex decision making, battles of brawn and wits alike … is to breathe.

One sharp, deep and deliberate nasal breath before you do anything of importance.

This isn't fluffy zen stuff (although I'm a fan of that in time/place/context). This is physiology. Under stress, most officers fall into shallow, chest-dominated breathing. This goes from tone-out calls to stacked inboxes. Oxygen delivery to the brain drops, cortisol rises and our performance plummets.

Focused breathwork can slow the heart rate, keep not only our hands steady, but our minds clear. It can help us assess, decide, communicate and act.

We know what happens without it. Watch any viral police video, whether it’s a clunky use-of-force, someone repeating conflicting commands over and over, or an officer simply stuttering an insult back in response to someone that won the game of getting under their skin. The common thread is emotional highjack. A common theme is not enough oxygen to aid the cognitive processes necessary.

Breathe before putting the car in drive. Breathe before keying up on the radio. Breathe before entering, passing swiftly through the fatal funnel. Breathe before responding to the flagrant complaint. Breathe before making a public information statement. Breathe before walking into the boss’s office.

Breathe at the end of your shift. And breathe before you doff your gear, lock it up, and walk into the home of the people who need you most, so you can give your most: “Real you,” not “Cop you.”

A patrol tactic that is frequently overlooked is verbally announcing one’s law enforcement role upon initiating contact.

Whether spoken by a defendant trying to weasel out of criminal culpability, or a criminal plaintiff suing police, I hear variations of this a lot:

“I’m not responsible for what I did … because the people chasing me/grabbing me/entering my home/displaying guns did not identify themselves as police officers.”

As an explanation for why uniforms or other visual clues were missed, there is usually a supplement:

“It was dark. They pointed flashlights in my face. I focused on their guns.”

This excuse-making too often tips in favor of criminals.

For instance, in northwest Oregon more than 10 years ago, a SWAT team deployed to arrest a murder suspect at an apartment. A neighbor exited his dwelling in a different building and was verbally engaged by uniformed SWAT officers (the man’s medical records later revealed he had meth in his system at the time). He went back inside briefly, but reemerged with a large handgun. He pointed the firearm at the same officers. The resulting OIS case went to trial in a federal courtroom. In spite of officers’ testimony to the contrary, the jury fell under the spell: no verbal ID by police, so the man is entitled. The jury’s monetary award was dumbfounding.

In too many contacts, LEOs don’t verbally identify themselves or we cannot provide evidence that we did. Our explanation often is, “Because my function as a law enforcement officer was contextually obvious.” Paradoxically, what seems obvious to us in the moment is sometimes less obvious to others looking through a microscope later.

“Police officers. Don’t move!” “Sheriff’s deputies. Are you OK?” Two identifying words upon initiating contact can go a long way later.

First, not every problem needs to be solved right now.

There's a certain brand of officer — motivated, aggressive in the best sense — who treats arrival on scene as the starting gun. But they get frustrated when people don’t follow their commands immediately. They think waiting is a weakness.

Time is a tactic, and officers chronically underuse it.

Time lets backup arrive. It lets the subject's adrenaline drop, while you stay under control. It lets you gather information, build a picture and plan based on something other than the pressure you're manufacturing for yourself. Time creates options where rushing creates none.

Officers who press when time is on their side aren't being decisive — they're being impatient. There's a difference. Decisive means acting at the right moment with the right information. Impatience means acting now because waiting feels like losing, and those officers desperately have to posture and let you know that they are in charge.

It’s a simple enough equation: when time favors you, use it. When it doesn't — when someone is in immediate danger — then you move, and you move with purpose. But when the scene is contained, the subject isn't going anywhere, and additional units are two minutes out? Let the clock run; it will make your win that much easier.

Controlling the pace of an incident is one of the most underrated skills in patrol. It requires confidence — the kind that doesn't need to prove itself by forcing a resolution before the situation is ready.

Second, the radio can wait. The threat can't.

Communication is good. Calling for help, updating dispatch and other team members is good. But somewhere along the way, a dangerous habit formed: officers keying up mid-engagement to transmit a history lesson.

"Shots fired." "I'm shot."

These additional/follow-up transmissions have a place — after the fight is done. Not during it. Not while a conscious, breathing, armed subject is still an imminent factor. The radio doesn't stop the threat. Your actions do.

This isn't about communication discipline. It's about cognitive bandwidth. The moment you shift focus to constructing a transmission — finding your radio, keying the mic, forming words — you are no longer fully in the fight. You've handed a slice of your attention to dispatch while someone who just shot an officer is still on the scene, still armed, still capable.

Finish the fight first. Then transmit.

If backup is already on the way, what they need most isn't a real-time narration — they need you alive and functional when they arrive.

The radio is a tool for coordination, not a reflexive response to stress. When your hands should be on your weapon, your eyes on the threat, and your mind on the fight, your mic hand is in the wrong place.

Finish the fight. Then tell the story.

One patrol tactic every officer should practice on every call is maintaining constant visual focus on the suspect’s hands while accessing and managing their equipment. This can be built through a simple but highly effective “tool belt drill.”

The concept is straightforward: practice removing and replacing every piece of gear—flashlight, TASER, radio, handcuffs, pepper spray and baton — without ever looking down. Keep your eyes forward, locked on an imaginary suspect and run through each movement repeatedly until it becomes second nature.

This discipline should also include manipulating equipment in real time—activating and deactivating your body-worn camera and returning tools to your vest or duty belt — without breaking visual contact.

Why does this matter? Because hands kill. The moment an officer looks away to locate or stow gear is the moment they lose awareness of a suspect’s movements.

Consistent, deliberate practice builds the muscle memory needed to operate efficiently under stress, reducing hesitation and increasing officer safety. Like a skilled tradesperson who instinctively knows where every tool is, officers must reach a point where gear management is automatic.

The drill costs nothing, takes only minutes and can be done almost anywhere — but its impact is immediate: sharper awareness, faster response and better control of every encounter.