By Chuck Remsberg
Senior Police1 Contributor
A domestic brawl involving an aggressor who’s drunk and armed with a rifle is a scenario that can swiftly escalate into a full-blown disaster. But two sheriff’s deputies in rural Wisconsin, both graduates of Calibre Press’ Street Survival Seminar, recently showed how good response tactics can keep a volatile combination like that from spinning out of control.
“Trainers understand the value of critiquing situations that are poorly handled,” says Sgt. Mark Williamson, a board member of the Wisc. Law Enforcement Training Officers Assn. “But even more valuable is analyzing calls where officers do the right things. This case can make an excellent roll-call training brief to reinforce good basics and motivate a tactical mind-set.”
 This case can make an excellent roll-call training brief to reinforce good basics and motivate a tactical mind-set.  |
The incident occurred Sept. 17, an unusually busy Sunday for the Langlade County Sheriff’s Dept., which patrols nearly 900 square miles on the fringe of Wisconsin’s North Woods. The day shift had already handled two gun calls, both resolved without conflict. Then at 5:15 p.m. a third rang in to the agency’s headquarters in Antigo. This one sounded more ominous.
A domestic disturbance in which a husband was “throwing his wife around” was in progress at a house on a country road about 15 miles northeast of town. The man’s parents, whose home was about 100 yards away, called in the complaint.
According to Langlade authorities, the woman who was under attack had earlier that day met with her ex-husband to hand over their son for a regular court-ordered visitation. Whenever that transaction occurred it tended to ignite an angry reaction from the woman’s current husband.
His parents knew trouble was brewing when he came home drunk that afternoon and began noisily skidding his pickup truck around his front yard, spewing rooster tails of dirt and grass. When he staggered inside and sounds of fighting could then be heard, his parents were concerned not only for their daughter-in-law but for the couple’s year-old twin boys, who were with her in the house.
Deputies John Kondzela and Russell Cook were dispatched in separate units. Both had been to the scene before in response to prior domestics. En route, the dispatcher fed them disturbing updates as fresh calls jangled in to the SD from the suspect’s parents and from a neighbor’s girlfriend across the road.
| ...most officers who get killed have 8 to 12 years on the job. I’m at 9 years on the road. |
It appeared that the neighbor, alerted by the suspect’s parents, had gone to the suspect’s house and had taken a high-powered .22-cal. rifle away from him, securing it in his own home. While the suspect was thus distracted, his wife had fled the house with the twins and had taken refuge with her in-laws. Subsequently, the suspect had shown up in his parents’ backyard. Everyone knew he kept a small arsenal of guns in his dwelling and could easily replace the one confiscated by the neighbor. His parents and his wife were fearing for their lives. His father worried that in protective desperation he may have to shoot and kill his own son, whom he described as “completely out of control.”
Kondzela, 43, was working his first shift after attending the two-day Street Survival presentation in Green Bay, Sept. 14-15. Cook, 48, had graduated from an earlier version of the program about a decade ago. He was working an overtime shift that day.
“Because of the program, I was in a very tactical frame of mind,” Kondzela says. “The first thing I remembered was a Bell curve the instructors showed. It indicated that most officers who get killed have 8 to 12 years on the job. I’m at 9 years on the road. In class, I perked up and paid attention.
“Driving to the scene, I was thinking of everything that could possibly happen once we got there. I was mentally prepared, even if he came out shooting. I knew I was going to go home at the end of the day.”
The deputies’ tactical thinking led quickly to a series of actions for containing and safely controlling what seemed to be an intensifying threat.
• Both deputies approached the scene with sirens silenced and were careful to position their units out of sight of the suspect’s house, which sits atop a hill near the residences of his parents and the neighbor. The deputies’ “invisibility” robbed the offender of what otherwise might have been a high-ground advantage.
• Cook, who arrived first, used his car to block the road north of the suspect’s house, and Kondzela blocked the road to the south. This perimeter inhibited any attempt by the suspect to escape via his pickup truck.
• Recon observations from a distance failed to reveal any evidence of him outside the dwellings. Through contact with the complainants, dispatch was able to verify that he apparently had retreated back inside his house. Occupants of the other two residences were advised to go to their basements as protection against possible gunfire. Cook began formulating plans for evacuating them at some point.
• Anticipating a possible barricade situation, Kondzela ordered up the SD’s 10-member Special Response Team. Other than Kondzela, a sniper, no SRT members were on duty, so arrival of an effective unit from off-duty locations was estimated at 20 minutes. Meanwhile, Kondzela contacted a sergeant who was not scheduled to go on duty until 7 p.m. and suggested that he mobilize immediately.
• A city officer from Antigo PD volunteered to drive out as backup. Because radio communication is sometimes hampered by troublesome dead spots in the area, Kondzela told him to stop when he reached a certain location a distance from the scene and call by cell phone so Kondzela could “walk him in” to where he would most be needed. Unlike Cook and Kondzela, this officer did not know the suspect by sight, so a description of him and his clothing was given.
• Despite the advisory to stay safely inside, the neighbor who had initially disarmed the suspect left his house and hurried down to Kondzela’s location. Kondzela gathered what intelligence he could from him on the situation and then, rather than send him back through potential lines of fire, told him to sit down behind one of the patrol car’s wheel wells for cover in the event the situation suddenly escalated. If he saw other squad cars approaching on the road, Kondzela told him, he should raise his hands over his head so he would not be mistaken for a threat.
• Meantime, Cook had taken his M-16 from his unit and had quietly moved into a woods about 15 yards from his unit and perhaps 60 yards from the suspect’s house. He picked a spot that gave him an excellent view of the property, while keeping himself concealed. Rifle ready, he waited.
During 18 years on the road, Cook had never had to shoot anyone. His hope was to finish out his career without needing to. But through his Street Survival experience and other training, “I knew I could.”
He didn’t have to wait long for the moment of truth.
After about five minutes, before any SRT members arrived at the scene, the suspect opened his backdoor and stepped into his yard. At first Cook could not tell if he was armed. Cook put his M-16 on semi-auto and felt a quick pucker factor. You gotta do what you’re trained to do, he told himself. Then he saw that his target did have a gun, a .308 bolt-action rifle—loaded, as it turned out, with five rounds.
Cook yelled, “Police! Drop the gun!”
The suspect did.
“Put your hands in the air!”
He did.
“Get down on the ground!”
He did that, too. “He was startled, completely surprised,” Cook explains. “He didn’t expect me to be there. He did everything I told him to do.” And consequently he was taken into custody without himself, officers or innocent civilians being harmed. At this writing, he is free on bond awaiting trial on a variety of charges.
Like countless daily examples of law enforcement professionalism, the incident didn’t grab major headlines or pique the attention of community activists. But the tactical skills and preventive actions Cook and Kondzela exhibited that Sunday did not pass without commemoration. Both were honored with departmental commendations.
Check out the Street Survival Seminar schedule for a location near you.
