by Doug Traubel

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Police are taught that there are three categories of people: “Yes people,” “No people,” and “Maybe people.” These distinctions suggest the obvious ─ that officers cannot “talk” everyone into handcuffs.

“Yes people” are compliant. “No people” are fighters, runners or both. “Maybe people” can go either way.

It is in the last category where there are the most variables effecting the direction of a police contact.

Certainly the conduct and abilities of the officer are among the variables of any contact. Officers are not made from cookie cutters. Each has a different background, temperament, skill set and limitations ─ they all perform differently. Yes, they all go through the same basic training, but they are different from one another.

Some officers have athletic prowess and played contact sports growing up. Some come to the ranks with a frame of reference for confrontation limited to wedgies suffered during childhood. Some were in the military. Some were hired with a blind eye toward their deficiencies due to nepotism and more commonly, due to a political climate that increasingly assigns more value to diversity than ability. All however, take the same oath and must respond to the 911 calls with different tools in the toolbox; outcomes will vary.

Granted, an officer’s lack of verbal skills could intentionally or unintentionally contribute to turning a “maybe person” into a “no person.” If the officer chooses words, tone or body language on purpose to agitate the offender he is foolish. I don’t deny that there are a small percentage of these officers flying under the radar on every department.

With that said, an officer’s unprofessional conduct or lack of ability does not negate the obligation of the offender to submit to his/her authority. The street is not the forum for an offender to challenge an arrest.

The majority of officers know that unnecessary escalation places their safety and career in jeopardy. I do not doubt that intentional escalation sometimes happens on the part of officers, but it is the least frequent of the countless variables in police/offender contacts leading to use of force. Consider the hundreds and thousands of police contacts in the Treasure Valley day after day, year after year and how few result in the use of force, let alone the use of deadly force.

Think about it. Police fear for their performance reviews and jobs. They walk a tightrope of laws and policies. Add to that the eggshells they walk on when you consider the cottage industry of race politics. Activists shake down government for money and intimidate police administrators back on their heels by spinning police use of force. An intimidated administration creates timid cops. This is a sue-happy country. Today police are under a microscope like no other time in American history. Doubt over whether or not police administration will support the officer; fear of job loss; and fear of civil and criminal charges all can retard an officer’s reaction time. While the offender is deciding between fight and flight, the officer may be under reacting due to analysis-paralysis.

Some of the most common variables determining whether or not an offender will fight police are: drugs in his system, criminal history, perception of police in general, previous police contacts, whether he is on parole, how he sizes up the officer’s build and physical conditioning, age, and gender. The list goes on and on. The bottom line is that the offender has an obligation to submit to arrest and the officer has a duty to apprehend; there in lies the conflict.

Police work is, by its nature, confrontational. When police tell you that you are under arrest it is not negotiable, no matter how trivial the offense might seem. Being arrested on a warrant for dog at large could turn deadly. The media must be able to distinguish a minor offense from the behavior of the offender toward police when being taken into custody. Instead we hear headlines like, “Man Shot for Dog at Large Violation.”

There is no easy way to take a “no person” into custody. Even a peaceful protestor who offers only passive resistance in the form of dead weight requires some level of force to take into custody. The next level of resistance is a term coined, egressive resistance where a suspect is not trying to overpower an officer, but is using force against the officer in an effort to break free. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the active aggressor who attacks the officer to overpower and harm him. Tragically, officers are killed each year with their own gun when active aggressors disarm them. I often wonder how many of these officer deaths are the direct result of a paralyzing amount of worry implanted into the officer’s psyche by their administration, giving the advantage to the attacker during a life and death struggle. 

The controversy following an offender shot by police begs the questions: what kind of police officer do you want to respond to your emergency? What kind of police culture do you want administering your police officers? Do you want a police department emasculated by the culture war, in full retreat bending to appease and legitimize special interest groups? Do you want a police department that folds to pressure from external forces like the ACLU, the media and self-serving, racially exclusive groups?

Do you want a cowardice police administration wearing rose-colored glasses and reining in the real cops while hiring what amounts to armed report writers as the crime rate soars? Do you want reactive cops that take their time getting to your emergency because they fear the media and their administration more than the criminal? Do you want officers who are intimidated by race politics to the point that they will not stop anyone “of color” thus giving our area’s burgeoning Mexican gangs the King’s X?

Or, do you want a culture of courageous officers; warriors tempered by duty and discipline who seek out criminals with a proactive attitude? Do you want gentlemen-warriors selected on meaningful criteria who hold the line on your quality of life and who seek out gang members and the like?

All of our local police agencies have manpower shortages. It is no mystery why given the impossible expectations of a citizenry raised by Hollywood, the tightrope of policies and laws police walk, the ugliness and danger police face, the liability for their actions, the knee-jerk media, and the big one: the influence of race politics on the entire criminal justice system.

The police are guilty until proven innocent in the court of public opinion. If police kill the knife-wielding bad guy instead of tackling him or shooting him in the hand they are “trigger-happy.” If the offender is black, they are “the Klan in blue.” Hypothetically, if they do aim for the hand but miss, hit a bystander and the bad guy takes a hostage, the public will want to know why the police didn’t aim for the head and finish it when they had the chance.

Deadly force: That force which is likely to cause great bodily injury or death.

Deadly force is the appropriate level of force to use on an armed, non-complaint offender. Variables like time, distance, risk to the public, and the availability of cover may allow for an intermediate weapon like the Taser, or a “less lethal” weapon like beanbag rounds (IF readily available) ─ with deadly force as a backup.

Most police departments’ use of force policy dictate that a level of force equal to or greater than what is being used against an officer be employed. It is ludicrous to expect a police officer to place himself at a disadvantage by using a lower level of force out of some bizarre sense of fair play held by the citizenry.

 

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Bullets fired at center mass do not magically drop attackers like in the movies; and do not always kill. An offender can stab an officer with a knife even after being shot.

 

Police are only human and deserve the benefit of the doubt when they meet resistance doing a job most citizens would never entertain the thought of doing.