By Dave Albert
I never expected one of my use-of-force incidents to become a training video. On Thanksgiving Day afternoon in 2012, I was dispatched with a cover officer to a report of a fight between two subjects at a homeless campsite. The victim reported another subject started yelling at him and kicked him while he was lying in a sleeping bag at a site behind a building.
I arrived and did not see either party at the described location, so I pulled into the empty parking lot in front of the building and was immediately flagged down by the victim, who appeared anxious. I got out of my car to talk to him, and he started telling me how he had been attacked unprovoked while sleeping at the campsite.
At that point, the suspect walked around the side of the building toward us, and the victim identified him to me.
I immediately recognized the suspect from previous contacts and remembered he had a history of mental health issues. I noticed he had the “1,000-yard stare” on his face and was walking methodically, leading me to believe he was in some sort of mental health crisis. I heard him repeating, “I am Satan,” to himself, and he did not seem to acknowledge me at first.
I ordered him to get down on his stomach onto the ground. He slowly turned his head toward me with an unfocused stare, but he slowly complied and got down into a prone position. Since he was compliant, I started updating dispatch that I was out with both parties and was about to detain one.
Before I could start handcuffing him, though, he pushed himself back up and started walking toward me with his arms outstretched like Frankenstein. I backed off and to the side, but he continued to follow me and was now focused on me. I gave more verbal commands for him to stop and requested Code 3 cover on the radio.
He continued coming at me, so I made a decision to engage with him and gain control. At this time, TASERs were optional to carry, and I did not have one. I also was not carrying my straight-stick baton with me, so I was relegated to going hands on.
I gave a hard open-hand jab to his face to avoid breaking any hand bones with a fist strike. This knocked him backward for a second, but he recovered before I could step in for a takedown maneuver. It seemed to “wake him up,” and I now saw he had a furious and determined look on his face. He came at me more quickly and intentionally.
I tried to grab hold of his nearest bare forearm to perform an armbar takedown, but his skin was slippery due to perspiration, and my grip slipped off. Now we were in close proximity to each other, and I didn’t have any backup actions planned. We basically ended up grabbing each other’s shirts by the shoulders and started grappling to gain control.
I attempted a front kick to the suspect’s groin area, but he was able to deflect it. I moved in to put him in a headlock hold with his head pinned in my left arm while he was behind me. This unfortunately exposed my holster on my right side to his free right hand.
I began punching the suspect in the face with my right hand while holding him in the headlock. I started to feel tugging on my holster side, however, and looked down to see he had grabbed the pistol grip of my holstered handgun and was vigorously pulling on it.
I looked down to see he had grabbed the pistol grip of my holstered handgun and was vigorously pulling on it.
I could see that he was not feeling around for the restraints on my holster. He was simply trying to pull it straight up out of the holster. My holster was a double threat, requiring rocking the handgun backward and down, then pressing a release button with the index finger in order to remove it.
My attention turned to protecting my gun’s security, so I stopped punching him and clamped down over his right hand with my right hand. I had pretty good control over his movements at this point, and I released his head so I could pull out my OC pepper spray and spray him in the face.
Once I did this, the suspect released his grip on my handgun, and I was able to shove him onto the hood of my patrol car, gain control of his arms and handcuff him.
The suspect ended up being arrested for felony obstruction of an officer. He had just recently been released from a state mental institution, and I believe the final verdict was him being placed back there and no criminal charges being brought.
This incident at the time was not that extraordinary to me. I was a 12-year veteran officer who had been involved in several physical altercations with suspects experiencing some sort of mental health crisis. Even though this was the first time anyone got a serious hold of one of my weapons, I had felt pretty much in control throughout the incident, and it ended as they normally do: with no serious injuries and the suspect in custody.
I went back into service, completed my patrol day as normal and enjoyed a Thanksgiving dinner with my family that night.
What I didn’t realize at the time, though, was that a resident across the street from the incident had video recorded a good portion of the physical incident. He later contacted our department and provided a copy of the video as evidence. He also uploaded it onto YouTube within a day or so, and it started getting a lot of viral views.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that a resident across the street from the incident had video recorded a good portion of the physical incident.
This led to a lot of different aspects of public service that I was definitely not used to. At the time, viral videos were still a relatively new phenomenon, and police interactions weren’t as prevalent to public viewing as they are now. This was also the pre-body cam era, so we didn’t have the ability to physically view every interaction we had on the street.
Aside from the negative aspects of having my own actions publicly viewed and critiqued, such as feeling a bit embarrassed by not exhibiting excellent martial arts skills and having family members see for the first time the types of dangers police work involves, I realized the video recording could have some training value, both to me and to other officers.
Instead of looking third hand at an incident and deriving objective conclusions about what went right or wrong, I could go through each step of what I was thinking, why I took certain actions and see subjectively how effective I was during the incident.
What the video taught me
I first used the video as a training tool for a basic academy class a few weeks after the incident. A friend of mine was the class training officer and asked if I could come and dissect the video with the class. He showed the video, then introduced me as the officer involved, and we went over the video again with me explaining all the thought processes throughout.
I found I was a pretty tough self-critic. I pointed out each mistake that led to me being in a disadvantageous position and described how I thought it could have been better handled.
I wanted the brand-new recruits to see that complacency and unpolished perishable skills could quickly escalate into dangerous predicaments. But I also wanted them to see that you can get yourself out of a bad spot, you can stay calm under duress and you can win the fight if you fall back on your training.
I have since shown the video to other academy classes and during in-house training at my department. Here are the takeaways I have commonly stressed when reviewing the video.
Complacency
The first deadly sin in law enforcement: Do not get complacent, lazy, assuming or predictable. Always approach every call like the worst can happen.
Not wearing a necessary and useful tool like a TASER or baton because it’s uncomfortable is a lame excuse. Get in the habit of having access to what’s provided for you, even if it’s something you’ve rarely or never used before.
Train, train, train
I’ve always taken defensive tactics training seriously, and at different times in my career I’ve participated in extra ongoing training off duty to make sure I was well prepared. But at this point in time, I hadn’t done much for a while and was rusty. It’s called a perishable skill for a reason.
Train hard and often, even if it’s the little things like footwork and grip positioning. It’s obvious in the video that I was hesitant at times with a follow-up move and was in poor positioning that made it a struggle to gain quick control over my opponent.
When the you-know-what hits the fan, you fall back on your instincts. Make your instincts tactically sound by constantly going through motor skills and visualization training.
Physical fitness
I have a husky build and was never a great endurance athlete, but I have always strength trained consistently and have been able to use that to my advantage.
The suspect was a large person and probably stronger than the average man. His crisis also made the encounter more unpredictable. But I was able to physically overpower him and control his movements when we were going force against force. This was the single greatest advantage I believe helped me win the fight.
Decision-making under stress
The most fascinating part to me about seeing a video of my incident was that I could recall every specific thought I was having during each moment. The video was a great tool for walking through my decision-making process with academy students so they could see firsthand what I was talking about.
I didn’t panic. Even though I showed some hesitancy, I made deliberate and methodical adjustments to my predicament. I adjusted from striking him to moving in close to get better control. When I felt my gun being pulled on, I took control of that threat and came up with a counter move. When I sprayed him with OC and he released his grip, I found a good restraint hold that allowed me to pin him down until help arrived.
Use-of-force considerations
This incident was a good example of how the use-of-force ladder escalated through a few different levels of legally justifiable force, and I could go through each escalation and de-escalation with the students step by step.
My initial contact with the suspect was using my legal authority over him. He first complied with my command to get into a prone position, and I could explain my justification for detaining him in that manner.
Once he got back up into a threat position and refused my repeated commands, I could explain why I was justified to escalate quickly into an impact force situation.
During the physical struggle, when he was making a concerted effort to gain control of my handgun, I could explain how this became a deadly force situation. I immediately considered accessing my backup handgun that was in a shoulder holster on my left side. His left hand was covering that area, though, and I did not want to release his hand on my gun with my right hand, so I started maneuvering into a position where I could access it with my off hand.
By the time I got into position to reach for my backup gun, I realized I had complete control over the suspect’s right hand. I did not believe I could, in good conscience, use deadly force on him anymore in that situation.
I made the decision to use the OC at this point to get him to back off of me. It fortunately had the desired effect, and I was able to gain control of him and pin him against my car.
Once I had control, the suspect stopped struggling and verbally indicated he was giving up. I dropped from the impact force level to the control-hold level and was able to end the incident with handcuffing.
Accountability
I wanted to use this experience for as much good as I could, which is why I was open to going through everything and feeling exposed in front of law enforcement peers. My goal was to show the fresh recruits what “falling forward” looks like. We preach this in field training, so what better example of learning from mistakes than driving home the point that it happens to all of us at some point in our careers?
The end goal is to learn, be self-critical when necessary and improve.
It was always amusing in the old days watching “Cops” or other reality videos of incidents gone wrong and critiquing the involved officers. “How could you let the suspect do that? What were you thinking? Why didn’t you pay attention to that?” But now that I was on the other side, it gave me a different perspective. What was the officer thinking when he or she did this? Was there something not seen on the video that the viewer doesn’t know?
So instead of being a critic, I try to view videos as learning tools. I hope that anyone who sat through a presentation with me showing my video came away with something useful for their career.
60-second roll call discussion
What are the most common forms of complacency officers encounter on patrol, and how can agencies address them through training and supervision?
What role do physical fitness, defensive tactics and regular skills training play in officer safety during hands-on encounters?
How can agencies use video review, body-worn camera footage and after-action discussions to improve performance and reinforce training lessons?
Have you ever reviewed video of your own performance during a critical incident? What lessons did it reveal that you didn’t recognize in the moment? Share below.
About the author
Dave Albert was a patrol officer from 2000-2021, with more than 19 years at the Santa Cruz Police Department in California. During his career, he served as a field training officer, firearms instructor and SWAT operator. Since retiring in 2021, he has worked as an academy training officer, scenario instructor/evaluator and police department training manager.
