NovDec Associate Magazine.2018.

In 2011, the IACP’s National Center for the Prevention of Violence Against Police released a study on felonious assaults against police officers. When the research was completed, it stated that 72 officers had lost their lives to felo- nious assaults that year. In 2018, we are expected to beat that number. Most of the studies and strategies that had been developed all focus on the type of incident, response to incident, weapons involved and departmental policy. While the report and study done in 2011 helps to better educate and creates an understanding of how not only officers, but police agencies approach critical incidents, it does not address when officers go “hands on” with suspects, what training they are missing or if the training they have is putting them in harm’s way (IACP 2011).

F B I N A A . O R G | N O V / D E C 2 0 1 8

L aw enforcement agencies across America are missing the mark when it comes to training officers in defensive tactics and use of force. We all know that domestic disturbances, traffic stops, warrant services, and ambushes are the incidents that pose the most risk to officers, but many studies do not look at officer- initiated physical contact with the suspect and the felonious as- sault that follows. Officers in America will make approximately 37,000 arrests a day, and in every one of those arrests, the officer must make physical contact with the individual. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 40 million persons had contact with police during the most recent year for which data was gathered (BJS 2008). An estimated 776,000 (1.9 percent) of the 40 million contacted respondents reported the use or threatened use of force at least once during these contacts (IACP 2011). The question that is proposed is twofold: Could officer deaths and injuries be avoided with a change in defensive tactics and would less offenders be killed or seriously injured if the of- ficers were more confident going hands-on with a suspect rather than feeling pressured to use a tool from his belt? Police officers today have come to relymore on their duty belt tools and less on their own abilities when it comes to apprehend- ing or subduing a suspect. When you look at many police agen- cies use of force policies, you will see the use of chemical irritants or tazer device directly after the use of verbal commands. Most if not all the change in use of force policy over the past fifteen years is a direct reflection of lawsuits and demands from the public to minimize excessive force by officers. Growing technology and in- creased demands from society have placed less importance on the officer’s ability to defend himself or gain compliance. Officers are trained to place all their trust in the use of “tools” from their gun belt. There could be an argument that the problem with excessive force was always a lack of ability when it comes to an officer’s abil- ity to manually manipulate or control a person. The problem we now see with the use of “tools” is that the companies that once backed their products either do not support the officers or agencies like they did in the beginning, or they have changed the rules to such an extent that it makes using the “tool” almost too risky to implement. Everyday companies are attempt- ing to sell police agencies the newest and greatest tool in suspect

compliance and control as an alternate to an officer going hands- on with the suspect. Often, officers can be seen swinging their impact weapons with little or no effect on the subjects, but then later must answer to the injuries the suspect acquired from the incident. In law en- forcement we teach an officer to swing a metal object at an indi- vidual to gain compliance, all whilemaking stringent rules in policy that can only go against the officer when a suspect fails to comply. Delivering strikes with any object while asking a suspect to comply is almost counter intuitive. Ask yourself, who would lay face down all while being struck with a fist or metal object? Strikes encourage the suspect to be aggressive toward the person delivering them, and this is often why when the strikes no longer are effective, the officer will fall back to his last resort, his service weapon. Across the country in law enforcement there is a push from po- lice officers with elevated levels of grappling experience to change the way we approach use of force situations and gain control of suspects. The concepts taught at select locations and groups are grounded in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, wrestling and Krav Maga. Many highly skilled Bra- zilian Jiu Jitsu black belts are traveling the country teaching and en- couraging officers to trust their grappling training. The training often focuses on being in the worst positions and gaining control without resorting to using any “tools” or weapons. As law enforcement executives, we owe it to not only our community, constituents, and police officers, but also to the families of our police officers that we develop plans and training grounded in fundamental techniques and not rely on the newest equipment out there. We need to recognize that the problemwith the use-of-force or use of excessive force has always stemmed from the officer’s lack of quality training. When officers are highly trained and confident in their abilities they will be less likely to use excessive force or make mistakes out of fear. Fear is created when officers don’t know what to do or they feel as if they have lost control in critical situations. Officers are required to train annually with their batons, chemical irritants, TASER and duty weapons, but rarely if ever train in defensive tac- tics. States mandate howmany times on officer must qualify with continued on page 33

15