The Psychology of Officer Involved Shootings class

[Kenneth Mescall]

Did anybody know that some police officers from the south suburbs have taken it upon themselves to rent some warehouse space and convert it into a police training faculty? Neither did I , yet in Blue Island such a place exists.  This past weekend they hosted a three hour class on The Psychology of Officer Involved Shootings.

We began with a review of the use of force, talking about state law and some relevant court cases.  We  were reminded that every bullet in our guns has a lawyer attached to it and that often our individual agencies use of force is much more restrictive then state law.  It was joked that this was the difference of being sued in federal court versus the local courts. We then watched a number of videos where the officer waited to long before using any kind of force and it often cost the officer their lives.

From there, we talked of combat stress and the fog of war.  We talked of the OODA loop and how the fastest person trough it,  wins.  We then dispelled the Myth of the Combat Fairy- that during a crisis, you will magically have the skills needed to handle the situation even if you've never trained it.  The lesson was that the battle is often won long before the fight begins.  That you may not rise to the occasion, but you surely will sink to your level of training. That the only way to anticipate this  is trough education, training, practice and experience.

Everybody in the class then did a room clearing ezcerise using air guns.  At the top of the stairs, we then had a scenario with a live role player where he just killed his wife and now had a gun at his own head.  This suicide by cop scenario drove home the point that suicidal often mean homicidal and vice versa.  We then got to watch ourselves on video and seen how long it took us to end the threat.

This was another great training opportunity trough the WTA.

[Beata Staszewski]

This was a great class!