Evaluating Police Tactics Quotes

“Second, most of the officers in this study did not have experience as tactical officers, and the teams they formed had very limited practice time together. It is possible that, with practice and experience, the effects of a threat on the performance of the dumps observed here can be overcome. This is the essence of the habituation findings in the orienting response literature (Sokolov et al., 2002). A SWAT team that regularly practices may be able to overcome the natural tendency to orient on a threat and cover their respective areas, producing exposure times that are consistent with those produced by the slice (many SWAT officers that we have spoken to insist that this is the case); however, we would like to point out that this means conducting training specifically to overcome a natural instinct, and this process is likely to take considerable effort and time. In the case of patrol officers, who are likely to be the first on the scene during an active shooter event, the officers are unlikely to receive the amount of training that is needed to overcome these natural instincts. With these caveats in mind, we think it is clear that the slice is a better style of entry to teach to patrol officers during active shooter training. The structure of the slice does not attempt to overcome the officer’s natural tendencies. It allows these tactically less-experienced officers to deal with the problem in smaller pieces and provides the officers with more time to think through the situation. For these reasons, the specific entries tested in the other studies presented in this book are conducted using a slice style.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“In the first part of this work, we examined the impact of using a dump or slice style entry on officer performance. We found that, compared to the slice conditions, officers took approximately twice as long to respond to a second gunman in the dump conditions. Once the officers in the dump conditions detected the second gunman in the room, they were almost 5 times more likely to violate the universal firearms safety rules and commit a priority of fire violation. The first officer also momentarily stalled in the doorway during 18% of the dump entries but never stalled during a slice entry. We did observe more instances of the officers in the slice entry shooting at the innocent suspect in the room, but this difference was not large enough to be confident that it was not the product of chance assignment error. Taken together, we argued that the data suggested that the slice was a better entry style than the dump to teach patrol officers.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“This is despite the fact that the decision to shoot for the entering officers was much easier than the decision would be in the real world. The officers knew there would be a suspect and that the suspect would be armed and hostile. They also knew that no one would be hurt and that disciplinary and/or legal actions would not follow the decision to shoot. These differences should have produced faster firing times for the officers than would be observed in the real world.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“When applied to room entries, the OODA loop suggests that the entering officer will be slower to act than a suspect who is already in the room. The entering officer must first scan the room to see if there are any potential threats. The officer must then put what he or she sees into context (e.g., There is a person with a gun. Are they behaving in a threatening manner? Are there other threats? Is it another police officer?). Then the officer must decide what action to take (e.g., shoot/ don’t shoot, give verbal commands, back out of the room, close distance). Finally, the officer must act. The suspect who has already committed to shooting people has a much shorter process to navigate. The suspect must simply observe the officers entering the room and then shoot. The suspect has already done all of the orientation that is needed and decided on his or her course of action. Therefore, the OODA loop predicts that the suspect will be able to move through the cycle faster than the officer. Given the reaction time and decision-making literature, we predict that officers will not generally be able to shoot before the suspects when conducting room entries. We test this hypothesis in the next chapter.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“This suggestion is reinforced by the literature on the decision-making process. In the tactical world, this process is often explained using Boyd’s Cycle (Boyd, 1995). Boyd’s Cycle consists of four distinct steps that all people in competition with each other go through when taking action. The first is observe. The person must see or sense what is happening. The second is orientation. The person must put what she or he has seen into context. The third is decision. The person must choose the action the he or she will take. The fourth is the action. The person must do what he or she has decided to do. Together, the steps are referred to as the OODA loop. It is a loop because, after the action is taken, the process starts all over again. When people are opposing each other, this process is time competitive. The person who is able to maneuver through the loop the fastest will win.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“The advantages/disadvantages of these techniques have been the subject of intense debate among police officers. Unfortunately, these debates have not been informed by empirical evidence. Instead, they have taken place informally among the supporters and detractors of the techniques. The most common arguments were discussed by Blair et al. (2013) and are summarized below.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“In the case of the entry styles examined here, there are clear cognitive processes in operation. Officers will naturally orient on threats. They will also tend to experience acute stress response (ASR). ASR frequently produces a variety of perceptual distortions including tunnel vision and audio exclusion. The styles of entry can be considered to be the environmental structures. While it may be possible to conduct enough training to overcome the cognitive limitations of the officers (this is the point of much tactical training; Friedland & Keinan, 1992), it is easier to alter the entry style (i.e., structure of the environment) to one that is better adapted to the situation. This approach has also been suggested in other policing situations, such as how investigators can better detect deception (Blair, Levine, Reimer, & McCluskey, 2012). We now turn to discussing the specific entry techniques that dictate exactly where the officers go when they enter the room.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“More generally, the lack of feedback applies to all higher-level use of force situations for officers. While officers are trained in how to properly utilize force, the need for more serious levels of force is rare. For example, the Bureau of Justice Statistics conducted the 2008 Police-Public Contact Survey as a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey. An estimated 1.4% of those surveyed had force used or threatened during their most recent contact with law enforcement (BJS, 2008). In a related study, Hickman, Piquero, and Garner (2008) found that 1.5% of police-citizen contacts resulted in either the use of force or the threat of force. Of these cases, only a very small percentage (0.2%) of police-citizen encounters resulted in lethal force (i.e., use of a firearm) being applied or threatened. Geller and Scott (1992) determined that the average officer would have to work 1,299 years in Milwaukee, 694 years in New York City, or 198 years in Dallas to be statistically expected to shoot and kill a suspect.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“Additionally, many, if not most, of these assaults did not involve room entries. These statistics show that the opportunity for feedback about room entries for individual officers is extremely limited. Of course, feedback could be obtained through realistic force-on-force training exercises in which officers and role-player suspects engage in simulated gun battles, but many agencies do not engage in this type of training and the lessons learned may be inaccurate, as discussed later.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“However, implicit knowledge is not always correct. Kahneman and Klien (2009) have conducted extensive research into decision making and have identified two conditions that are necessary in order for people to develop correct implicit (i.e., intuitive) beliefs. The first is that there must be cues in the environment that provide accurate information about the actual state of things. That is, the environment must be consistent enough for people to be able to make accurate judgments. Making an accurate determination regarding which route is quickest to drive provides many reliable cues. For example, highways will generally be faster than surface streets because highway speed limits are higher and there are no stoplights or stop signs. Being a highway, however, is not a perfect indicator, as there may sometimes be an accident on the highway that makes it slower than the surface street. What is important is that highways are usually faster. If there were frequent accidents on the highway such that it was not usually faster, then highways would not be a reliable indicator for the quickness of a trip.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques

“When the first author began his graduate studies in policing, he was consistently surprised by the almost complete lack of rigorous empirical validation (i.e., scientific research) relating to police tactics. He had assumed that police tactics had been well studied; yet, time and time again, he found that validation was lacking despite frequent calls for criminal justice policy and procedures to be rooted in science (Sherman, 1998; Sherman, Farrington, Welsh, & Mackenzie, 2002; Weisburd et al., 2005). Some areas of police practice have, of course, received attention (e.g., routine patrol, hot spots policing, eyewitness identification, and interviewing), but many areas of police practice remain largely untouched.”
― Pete J. Blair, Evaluating Police Tactics: An Empirical Assessment of Room Entry Techniques