The news lately has been a constant stream of deadly shootings—Oakland, Binghamton, Pittsburgh, and God knows where next—and our brothers and sisters are facing suspects filled with a terrible intent, often to kill as many police officers as possible.
While pop psychologists, pundits, and fools will talk about gun control, better screening for psychological misfits, and other issues they hope to maneuver into the public eye for power or profit, you will still be taking calls. Calls that will have the same ambiguity they always have, with deadly routine like a co-conspirator whispering in your ear, “You’ve done this before, don’t worry...”
The whisper: “We know this address, this car looks safe, this alarm is always false, this building is always empty...don’t worry!”
I don’t want you to worry; I want you to be prepared!
Now more than ever, it is important to keep our eyes clear and focused on the “now.” Attend to what you are doing on the street, both on and off duty. For some 30 years, “Preparation not paranoia” has been the motto of the Calibre Press Street Survival Seminar as we’ve worked to keep law enforcement officers alive and strong. We talk about being in “condition yellow” at all times on duty; and yet many things conspire to erode our “WHEN/THEN” mindset.
During the next few days—while these tragedies are so fresh in our minds—it will be easy to keep your head in the game but too soon routine will use familiarity and complacency to degrade our tactics and awareness if we don’t constantly combat it. You are either training or detraining, it is up to you.
Next time you go to a domestic and everyone is compliant, you experience a repetition that reinforces for you that “domestics are safe.” But if you take a moment to mentally rehearse everything going to hell, and having to take some action to protect yourself or others, you just had a positive training repetition. The brain doesn’t discriminate between physical and mental practice, which is why mental practice such a powerful tool. Conversely, it’s why negative rehearsal—more commonly called worrying—is not constructive, so don’t do it! And remember, when you do your crisis rehearsal, always see yourself WIN!
Everyone of our brotherhood who falls is a sacrifice not only to freedom but to you so you might be made more prepared and stronger. Your duty to the men and women whose names are on our “Wall” and those who, tragically, will be added next year is to dedicate yourself right now to be better, stronger, both physically and mentally, and constantly resisting the erosion of performance that routine causes both in you and your brothers and sisters! I ask you to challenge bad habits or lackadaisical behavior in others. For the next couple of weeks this will be easy, but being the trickster it is, memory will soon soften our now sharpened edge and routine will constantly seek to dull our skills and awareness even more.
Pray for the fallen, care for the survivors, both in the families in blue and the families at home and please stay prepared!
