The 4th High Liability

In law enforcement we train in three key high liability components. The first one is firearms utilization, the second is defensive driving, and the third is defensive tactics. For the last 18 years I have been a high liability trainer. All three of these are key components and there is a lot of topic threading in between them all that connects the dots.

     Today I want to talk about the 4th high liability that does not get talked about. The 4th high liability is emotional adversity management. A large majority of organizations in my profession train 90% of the time on the top three but less than 10% of the time on the 4th one. Have you ever thought about that? I remember being in the academy 20 years ago.

     The instructors would discuss the detriment factors in our profession. They would share how we have the highest suicide rate, depression rate, divorce rate, and addiction rate. They never explained why this happens. Sadly, we have been unconsciously incompetent to this question for to long. Fast forward 20 years later and nothing has changed.

    Let’s face it, we all have to respond to the calls we are sent to. There is no way around that. When we arrive, there will be an experience that occurs. It may be positive or negative, but it will happen. We have no real control over that. Here is the part I want you to consider though. What about the effects after the fact? You know the short- and long-term effects of the emotional adversity we face day in and day out.

     Without an emotional management system in place ahead of time you are set up for failure. Things we have no control over we want to have solutions to, and we just don’t. We go out and get triggered and trigger others in our community without even realizing why it happened. Imagine if you just realized the moment you were in was actually triggering you and causing a negative response that you can control and you understood why it happened?

     In 2019 we have the same issue. Suicides are going up not down. Most law enforcement organizations have little to no training that focuses on the officer’s well-being. Sadly, we only focus on the liability of the public at large. When do we stop and say enough is enough? What about the individual officer that goes out and faces emotional adversity every day and will over 90% of their career?

     So far, we have 173 officers who have killed themselves. Ten of those officers came from one agency! This number already dramatically over succeeds the numbers from last year. I have a question for you. Does your organization provide training that focuses on your mental fitness? If not, what are you going to do to make sure you are protected from the true enemy in our profession?

     Its time we focus on a building an internal Tactical Emotional Adversity Management System and start standing up as an individual, agency, organization, and profession and say enough is enough. The best part is this high liability topic threads in with the other three high liabilities so it does not take away from that training. Instead it enhances it and makes it better.

There is a lot of buzz going on in our industry about needing to take action. Who is ready to take the first step?

The author Sean Wyman is a 20-year law enforcement officer, 8-year military veteran, and the founder of Going Beyond the Call. His mission is to train public safety professionals to address the emotional adversity they face daily in their profession. At the end of the training a Tactical Emotional Adversity Management System is established to help bridge gaps in communities, reduce liability, and improve the mental health fitness of the public safety professional who goes beyond the call.

For more information:

Website: https://www.gbtc911.com/

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 850-508-1522