So, a little painful.  For you trainers out there, I am sure you squirmed in your seat at different things you saw here.  And before you say something like “officers at my agency wouldn’t do this or that,” let me tell you that they will.  One hundred percent, they will.  How do I know?  Because a lot of what we saw in this video is the result of human nature.  If your cops are human, then they will respond under stress as humans do.  So on to the lesson I want to highlight for this post. 

Learn to shut up

I know some of you keyed on the talking on the radio mid-fight.  That is not necessarily the point I want to make, but it’s a good start.  Does giving a play-by-play over the radio solve the problem in front of you?  Not likely.  Once you are in the fight, be in the fight.  When the scene stabilizes, then get on the radio and update dispatchers and follow-on responders.  When she keyed up on the radio to announce shots had been fired, she already had expedited back-up units’ response and the problem was not yet resolved.

The talking that I will concentrate on is the repeated commands given to drop the knife.  I counted sixteen commands during the course of the incident.  This repetition of a demand that is not being met, at the least, is a wasted effort.  At worst, it can prevent you from thinking through the issue to a solution.  Of course, you can see this same effect in many police videos where the officer sounds like a scratched record, putting out the same message on a playback loop.  Perhaps the tenth time is the charm and the knife-wielding aggressor comes to their senses and voluntarily disarms.  Not likely.  If you have told them once, twice, three times then expect that the message is not getting through.  The ninth, tenth, eleventh time will not solve that problem so at some point you need to control yourself and control your blathering.  But like all things that happen under stress, this requires work on the front end to program the officer’s response to a threat under stress.     

The study  

A local agency has a wonderful training tool at their disposal.  It is a Virtra simulator that surrounds the officer 300 degrees and can play semi-scripted scenarios.  On the firearms training side, you can use the simulator for basic marksmanship drills.  The agency was kind enough to let me run a mock study in the simulator for my graduate program.  The basis of the study was that officers that were not talking during a shooting event would be faster on the trigger than officers repeating commands, and both of those would be faster than officers trying to formulate a thoughtful response.  So here is the set-up.  Officers were positioned with gun on target, finger on the trigger, and subjected to three conditions.  In the first condition, the officer fired while not verbalizing anything.  Simply fire the gun when the target turned.  The second condition had officers repeating a command such as “drop the knife” as we see in the video.  In third condition, the officer was answering a question that required thought, like naming animals that started with a certain letter.  The questions were asked and the target would turn during the answer phase.  We ran officers with a range of experience through the exercise, from newer officers to long-time SWAT officer and firearms instructors.  I’ll save you the suspense and post the results.

Figure 1. Participants who were not required to verbalize repeated commands were faster on reaction time than when they were, but participants in both these conditions were faster than when required to answer complex questions. Error bars represent SD.

There you have it.  If you keep your mouth shut during the fight you would be quicker in deciding to act.  If you save that cognitive load for other things, like shooting fundamentals or looking for cover, you would be much better off.   

What to train on     

I am not proposing that officers say nothing.  By all means, give a command for what you want the subject to do.  But do it sparingly.  Like I said, after one or two times they are not responding, it is safe to assume that they have no intention of obeying such commands.  I think it is an articulable belief that when the subject disobeys the command the first time that it demonstrates their intent to retain that weapon.  And why else retain it in the face of an officer with a gun drawn other than to use it?  Remember, actions imply intent. 

So what should officers train on for this situation, you ask?  I am a proponent of a simple, all-inclusive command that lets anyone within earshot know that you want the subject to cease what they are doing.  Like “STOP!”  It is universal.  It covers all contingencies.  “Stop” could mean stop fighting, stop running, stop coming at me with that pointy thing.  We don’t want officers repeating a command to no effect or trying to think through what to say for a specific situation.  “Stop” will do.  Say it once or twice so the subject and others can hear it and then take a breath.  If they refuse to stop their action, then it is time to move to another option, and you will need all the mental faculties you can muster for applying the next option.  In the present case study, I could even be on board with “Drop it!” as the command.  Once or twice, then get to the business of forcing compliance through other means.  

So what does it mean to be a social system?

Social systems are complex endeavors.  Not to get too into the weeds with this (at least not in this post), a complex system is open to be influenced by the environment and in turn influences the environment.  The output of complex systems is emergent behavior, which is not predictable when you consider the input.  People are complex, and so interactions between people are complex.  As an example, think of your agency.  Your department, made of people carrying out diverse functions, has its own dynamics.  The people in the organization are influenced by others in the department and the department is influenced by the larger environment.  And the agency also influences things outside of its own walls.  And how these things play out is something we can only guess at based on our experience in similar situations.  But nothing is entirely predictable.  We are not making widgets in a factory.  If we turned up production of widgets in the factory we can reasonable expect and predict how many more widgets we would make based on the increased input.  As you go to the next mental health crisis call, you may play in your mind what your resources are and how you can leverage those resources to effect a change in behavior, but there is no way for you to know how this one will turn out.  Any expectation you have about the resolution is wholly based on your experience of past events and amounts to an educated guess.  So where am I going with this?  One other aspect of complex systems is a sensitive dependence on initial conditions.  Whatever is happening to make your crime problem come to life is a unique blend of characteristics that, when tampered with, will change the dynamics of the situation.  Have you ever had streetlights fixed as part of a plan to reduce a theft problem?  This part of our response recognizes that the darkness is a complicit part of the equation and by pulling at this string we might change the environment and change the problem.  The darkness of the area is probably one of many initial conditions contributing to the crime and our problem may be attacked by picking at those conditions.  The thievery is dependent on the initial condition of darkness (among others) and sensitive to changes in this condition.

There are two crime theories that explain how crime occurs.

Of all the explanations for crime in society, there are very few that attempt the how of crime instead of the why in crime.  This is an important distinction, as many of the why theories are not something the police can do anything about.  The two theories that explain how crime occurs are rational choice and routine activities.  Rational choice theory simply states that a criminal makes a choice to commit crime when they calculate that the payout is worth the risk of getting caught.  These calculations change for the suspect who sees a cop car in the area.  Now the risk outweighs the reward.  Routine activities theory is about how each person involved in the moves about their life.  The motivated suspect goes out looking for opportunity and the susceptible victim moves about doing their thing.  As these parts move about society, they may come into contact in a place where the conditions are right for the crime to occur.  Add into the mix a lack of guardianship at the point where suspect and victim meet.  No one hits the stop-and-rob when the cops are in there getting coffee.  They are in a position to intercede and the calculating criminal should know the risk is too great.  So we have the suspects and victims and police moving about in town and how they interact determines if the crime occurs.  Add to this another level.  Suspects have people in their lives that can influence their behavior, like probation officer or parent.  Victims have people that can help them avoid negative situations, the advocate.  And places where crime may occur have managers that can provide guardianship over the place.  What we just described here is a complex web of individuals interacting in a way that may allow a criminal event to occur or prevent the crime from occurring.  We have a social system.  Each part can influence and be influenced by the others, and all parts are influenced by the environment. 

So how do you prevent crime problems with all this?

An outcropping of routine activities theory was a diagram called the problem triangle.  If you Google the theory you will find plenty of examples of what it’s about.  The strategy of it is if you can attack multiple sides of the triangle you have a better chance of reducing the problem.  Take a vehicle burglary hotspot in an apartment complex.  Yes, we can creep through the parking lots in the dark trying to find the needle in the haystack, being Johnny-on-the-spot when the suspect is doing his thing.  We all know that these moments are more about being lucky.  If we don’t catch him in the act, detectives can investigate the crimes associated with our problem apartments.  Both of these are targeting the suspect side of the triangle.  What can we do to change the victim side?  How do we get victims to stop being victims?  Efforts such as Lock-Take-Hide programs are meant to get people to reduce their chances of being victimized.  Reduce susceptibility.  How about the place?  Working with management for better lighting, cameras in the complex, signage about preventative measures all can change the environment and make the target area appear harder and maybe not worth the risk.  Each of these parts, as they stand today, are part of the initial conditions that make up this crime problem.  And these conditions are sensitive to changes, so by pulling the strings on all sides of the crime problem you change the environment and are in a better position to prevent the crime from occurring.     

Aim For Influence, Not Control – Accidental Creative

You may have a goal that you are trying to accomplish and that goal has associated needs and challenges. The outward mindset is about understanding that the other people involved in the situation also have goals, needs, and challenges. There are two short reads by The Arbinger Institute that explain this very well and are worth a look. They are “Leadership and Self-Deception” and “The Outward Mindset.” The link is an article about having an outward mindset from Lexipol.

Cultivating an Outward Mindset in Law Enforcement – Lexipol

Leaders in the organization should be thinking about the vision.  Too many times police organizations engage in a process of ‘strategic planning’ with no real understanding of strategy.  It ends up being a business plan with boxes to check with no progress toward a strategic end.  Strategy is a set of coordinated activities that move the organization in a favorable in the environment.  If you are busy concerning yourself with the day-to-day business of the organization then you might be missing the bigger picture and preventing your department from making significant progress.

 Are you a police chief or a firefighter? (police1.com)

So the ‘why’ behind this effort is a drive to better the profession if I can.  To do what I can to help officers and organizations succeed. Being a police officer is a noble calling and I want to foster the professionalism and dedication to excellent police service that makes this job so meaningful and so important.   

This site was created to pass on information related to policing, whether that be the technical knowledge or conceptual knowledge for trainers and supervisors, so as to better the profession of policing.  Policing is a noble calling, a just cause, and obviously a function that society cannot do without.  The officer on the street is the most visible and impactful representation of the police.  However, how we train and lead these officers is what truly makes a great policing organization.  Instructors, training officers, and supervisors bear the responsibility.      

The world has changed and the police management books are outdated. They are full of organizational theory born of the previous age.  The business practices and processes of the industrial age are still ingrained in how we our organizations.  We can no longer use these understandings.  We can no longer settle for archetypical ideas of what a leader should be.  If you want to be a great leader in your organization, look at the environment and figure out what needs to happen to allow your reports to reach their natural best.  Set the conditions for growth.  Be a gardener.  

What does it mean to be a gardener?  Let me give you my philosophy.  Any leader in an organization should act if they were tending a garden.  The gardener serves one main purpose, which is to set the conditions that allow the plants to grow to their natural best.  He does not, in fact cannot, force any plant to bear fruit or grow tall.  The plants will do what the plants will do.  All the gardener can do is foster an environment that promotes growth and provide the necessities for the plants to be successful.  You probably see where I am going with this, but I will draw the parallels nonetheless.  A leader at any level in any organization should be tending the garden.  You cannot force the officers to achieve to their natural best.  Like the plants, they will do what they do.  But regardless of what their potential is, if the environment is not curated to allow them to grow even the best officers will wallow in mediocrity.    

The policing organization of today is a complex thing.  It is an ecosystem like the garden.  Instructors, trainers, and supervisors need to understand the ecosystem to foster the growth of the officers.  This will in turn grow the organization and put it in a favorable position in the environment.

In a training event not too long ago, the students were asked to give a brief statement containing the normal introductory fodder, i.e. name, department, assignment, length of service.  Also, the instructor asked about what we do as a hobby.  I am not a fan of this question, because my hobby is reading, and I knew what was coming.  When it was my turn, I gave the requisite info and my hobby.  I am not a fan because the very next question that gets asked is always the same.  “What do you like to read?”  Well, crap.  Here’s where I lose the class by revealing how much of a nerd I am.  I could make something up, like romance novels or gardening, but I give the truthful answer. I like to read about systems theory.  Surprisingly, the instructor looked excited about the topic.  He was obviously a systems nerd also.  We quickly discussed and agreed on the following outlook: once you understand systems you see them everywhere.  To me, it’s like seeing the Matrix.  You can see the green characters that form the environment and know how it operates.  Anyway, let’s talk about complicated vs. complex.

System types

Systems come in two types- ordered and unordered.  Let’s tackle ordered systems first.  All systems have three parts.  They have an input, a throughput, and output.  Think of a car factory.  The input is steel, rubber, plastic, manpower, etc.  The company puts all these things into making a car.  The throughput is the actual construction of the vehicle, the processes that occur in the factory.  And, of course, the output is the completed car.  Input, throughput, output.  All systems have these.  Ordered systems are predictable.  If I put the resources in to make ten cars, I should get ten cars.  If I input for twenty, I should get twenty.  These are generally closed systems that are not influenced by the environment.  Ordered systems can either be simple or complicated.  An example of a simple system would be standing in line.  It is simple because we all understand how it works.  We teach this to kindergartners, so you know it’s easy to understand.  As a system, the input is people requiring a service.  The throughput is the people cued into a process of moving toward being served. The output is the served customer. Easy.  Complicated systems are also predictable, but the difference is that it takes some expertise to understand how it works.  The typical example I usually give is a car.  When I drive a car, I understand how operate it.  You step here to make it go, you turn this thing to avoid pedestrians, to stop you step here.  Put some gas in the tank and you are good to go.  I am not a mechanic, though, so I do not have the expertise to understand how it does what it does.  Someone needs to have that knowledge for when the system does not function as intended.  It’s a complicated system.  But I can predict the outcome when I put in the key and turn it.  It will start 99.9 percent of the time.

Complex systems are different.  They are unpredictable.  A given input does not always equal the expected output.  First, complex systems are open, meaning they are influenced (and influence) the greater environment.  Has your agency been influenced by something that happened in another part of the country?  I bet it has.  Think George Floyd.  What was the affect of agencies around the country and around the world even though we are not Minneapolis?  When you begin looking at complexity, the examples usually revolve around a flock of birds or a school of fish or ants.  The example I use to explain it is weather.  For all the scientific advancement at predicting the weather, the weather guy on the television still cannot guarantee the result.  This is because weather has many inputs that can change the outcome.  The science can only point to a best guess.  Complex systems result in emergent behavior.  Experience can suggest what the output could be but we will never really know until we see it.  The unpredictability makes this an unordered system.  Input does equal output. 

The police organization is complex, not complicated

So let’s apply this to the organization.  Unlike the widget factory, the outcomes of policing are not predictable.  For starters, people are complex and as discussed in another post, we are operating in a social system.  Wherever you have humans interacting you have complexity.  As a police supervisor, I can have the same conversation with two different officers and get totally different reactions.  Officer One takes the constructive criticism and makes improvements, but Officer Two gets all bent out of shape.  Tell me it isn’t true.  We all know that policing contains within it this unpredictability of outcomes.  No two calls are the same, isn’t that what we tell recruits in training?  Expect the unexpected and all that.  Another defining characteristic of a complex system is that all the parts influence each other.  Even though organizations might experience siloing, the whole is more than the sum or its parts.  What happens if the street officers complete crappy crime reports with little information to go on?  The detectives that are assigned those reports have a tougher time solving those crimes.  What happens if the department cannot get a crime problem under control?  Then negative perceptions of the department can impact funding through the elected government.  And so on and so on.  Each piece of the organization can have an impact on the others.  As such, these systems are often referred to as complex adaptive systems.  Adaptive because change is ongoing based on how the parts interact.        

So what’s it mean for leaders?

By understanding the system, you are in a better position to navigate to a successful conclusion.  If you operate like you are in one system, but you are actually in another, you will get disorder.  Here’s an example.  Dispatching for police and fire is a complicated system.  Things are supposed to operate in a scripted manner.  Calls come in, are answered and input within the boundaries of given parameters and dispatched in an orderly fashion.  Just like a factory, calls come in, are processed, and dispatched.  It is complicated because it takes a trained person to understand the processes involved.  I knew a dispatch supervisor that treated this function like a simple system.  How did I know?  She often described things as “best practice.”  Simple systems get a best practice, complicated systems get good practice.  As a result, she was implementing procedures that she learned at another agency that did not necessarily translate to ours.  Her best practices were not our ideal solutions.  Different organization, different needs.  This led to confusion and inefficiency in the patrol function.  I digress.  The point is, as a police leader, you should understand that policing is a complex endeavor and act accordingly.  Input does not equal a predictably output.  So this is about running a series of experiments to see what you can get to work.  The heart of the policing organization is about learning, being flexible, and adapting to the changes inside and outside the organization.  Just roll with it.  It’s not complicated.

If you want more info, check out David Snowden on the interwebs.  His Cynefin model lays out the four systems and their characteristics.  Four, you say?  Yes, I am not getting into chaotic systems here.