ABOUT RETRAINING POLICE…

A couple of posts back, we had a guest essay by one of our regular commentators.  Much of what I’d have said has already been posted by other commentators, so I’ll be fairly brief.

The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) is, as others have said, seen by some as being a bit left of center. I don’t actually mind that. I am more concerned that some, myself included, see PERF as tinged by “ivory tower” syndrome.  When you perceive yourself as very high above the street, you forget that the street is where policing takes place, and it’s easy to lose sight of realities.

Speaking as a sworn officer for more of my life than not: Yes, we understand that “the voices” may have told him to attack you (or us), and it “may not be his fault.” However, it’s not your fault (or ours) either, and cop or “civilian,” your right to protect yourself against his assault and meet force with force does not change.  Neither an artificially altered state of consciousness nor an official diagnosis of insanity makes your attacker – or mine – a protected species.  Yes, it would be nice if we could bring in an intensively trained Crisis Intervention Team to talk your attacker down and get him in touch with his inner child, or perhaps, his inner juvenile delinquent.  Time is the essence in any sort of negotiation, including verbal crisis intervention. “Detached reflection” is a key ingredient.  Unfortunately, that ingredient is missing from the recipe of reality in the cases that have brought about this discussion.  It has been almost a hundred years since Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “Detached reflection is not demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.” (SCOTUS, Brown v. United States, 1921.)  It remains the law, and the truth, today.

The police are actually pretty well trained in bloodshed-reducing crisis intervention already; witness the prevalence of George Thompson’s “verbal judo” concept, championed today by my old friend and master police instructor and martial artist Gary Klugiewicz.

But neither you nor I can fit a whole lot of detached reflection into a second or two when the soon-to-be “unarmed victim” is trying to stab you with his knife, or kill you with your own gun.

Unfortunately, in a time when screwing with cops in front of your iPhone so you can upload your douchebaggery instantly to YouTube is seen as something about to become a national sport, nobody has trained the public how to react to law enforcement. Police/citizen contacts ARE a two way street, after all.

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