Lions Work Together
I’m sure we’ve all seen a pride of female lions hunting while watching a Discovery Channel series where they’re able to bring down the much larger game as they work together as a unit. Each of them understands their role in the encounter and position themselves to have the best opportunity to fulfill that role. They learned how to hunt from their mother when they were young and have instituted strategies over time through real-world application and training. Their success comes when each member of the pride latch onto the larger animal and hang on them using their body weight, which causes the large game to become exhausted and fall to the ground where the lions continue to hold and improve their position. I use this same strategy displayed by the lions in police training that improves communication and success during the physical encounter. The trained officers know their role in the encounter and don’t become counterproductive because of teamwork, which often leads to more success in the field.
The reality we face in law enforcement is there are departments that don’t have a required training program, and there are officers that haven’t had training since the police academy. There are some academies as well that continue to teach programs that have no real-world application for law enforcement, which includes things like pressure points. I know there is always someone that will say there was this one time when they used a pressure point and it worked on the person, but the example they provide is often not someone who is fighting the officer, but often just being defensive by hiding their hands. The programs rarely talk about controlling individuals on the ground and don’t teach teamwork as a basic concept to success. I believe some of these training facilities haven’t made the change because change is often difficult for most and the status quo is just easier to maintain.
I agree the tactics used by the pride of lions can appear brutal, just like an encounter between an offender and officers can “not look good,” which it seldom does. The reason the physical encounter can appear more violent and lead to a higher level of force being used is often that the officers don’t communicate or know their role or position in the encounter that often leads them to attempt to handcuff prematurely. I’ve taken phone calls from officers looking to attend our programs where they often ask if we teach handcuffing in the course? My response is that we teach handcuffing in some of our programs, but that handcuffing is for compliant individuals that are ready to be cuffed. We see so many officers in encounters that believe handcuffing is immediately necessary to get the individual under control. This ideology often leads to the officers losing control of the individual, which allows them to push up from the ground and get back to their feet and escape or continue the fight. We see the same thing with the lion pride when a younger lion may fail in their role causing the pride to lose control of their catch, but the lions often reevaluate and improve.
We can be successful with training our officers but we need to start approaching training as a necessity and not an inconvenience to budgets or manpower. There are ways to implement training that reduces the strain on budgets and even manpower when solutions are explored. The chances of injury in an encounter both for the officers and suspect increases when officers are not working together with the same goal in mind. This change in philosophy doesn’t happen overnight and takes time with the help of dedicated department trainers. I often suggest that departments have several passionate trainers that can communicate with the administration where together they can devise a training plan that is both beneficial to the officers and the citizens.
The term “de-escalation” is a hot topic now in law enforcement and is useful to officers that see the verbal persuasion tools provided as a useful option and not something that places them in an increased danger of being hurt. The fact is verbal commands and communication still exist even when the encounter has turned physical. There are some individuals that won’t comply no matter how we phrase our sentences or smile with kind gestures. The use of force, or what we like to call response to resistance, is inevitable at some point in an officer’s career, and the increased likelihood of success is only achieved through a continuous training program. I’ve personally witnessed officers from agencies without a training program freeze or hesitate to respond during training scenarios. The delayed response is often a lack of a mental blueprint to solve the problem because no training or previous incident has provided them with the immediate solution, which causes a delay in their OODA Loop.
I realize we’re all in challenging times as law enforcement officers, but change only comes when we decide to be apart of that change. I recently had a conversation with a citizen that was surprised when I told them that there are officers that don’t receive any training other than state-mandated training after the academy and that some don’t want to train even when they know the training is beneficial to them coming home at the end of the shift. He told me he just assumed that most officers were well trained and that departments were providing that training on a regular basis, which is what most citizens believe should occur when asked. The current problem is definitely not a short-fix endeavor and takes time and dedication by all parties involved since it took decades of neglect that put us in this situation to start with. I wish you and your family the best in what continues to be a challenging year. Stay safe and watch your six.
Ray Beshirs
Blue Shield Tactical Systems LLC