Force Decisions. Rory Miller
SECTION 3: EXPERIENCE
3.1 Types of Officers
Eager Rookie
The Lop
Average Joes
Meat Eaters
Posers
Burnouts
On Burning Out
3.2 Concrete Thinkers: The Dilemma
3.3 Dark Moments: Will You Act?
3.4 What Constitutes a Lethal Threat?
3.5 Feelings, Pain, Damage, and Death
3.6 The Nightmare Threat
3.7 No More Mr. Nice Guy
3.8 Cultural Differences
3.9 Altered States of Mind
3.10 The Threshold
3.11 It’s an Integrated World
3.12 Abuse of Power and Excessive Force
Questionable Force
Excessive Force
Unnecessary Force
3.13 Feelings of Betrayal
3.14 Totalitarianism
3.15 Interview with Loren Christensen
SECTION 4: ABOUT YOU
4.1 What You Didn’t Know Before
4.2 Police Relationships with the Community
4.3 Dealing with an Officer
4.4 An Outside Perspective
THE HARD TRUTHS
GLOSSARY
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FURTHER READING
Notes
Advance Praise for Force Decisions
I owe a debt of gratitude to a lot of people.
Loren Christensen, John Lupo, Jean Nichols, Sean Croft, Jim Sheeran, Lawdog MG, Eliel Hernandez, Frank Rodriguez (and the rest of the Pariah Dogs), Edward Raso, Jeff Gaynor, and George Mattson all graciously offered stories for this book. Be safe, all of you.
Most of them also helped with the manuscript, especially pointing out where I went off in my own private language. So did Rick Vogt, Melissa Williams, and Lawrence Kane. Good friends. Okay editors.
Donnla Nic Gearailt graciously offered to serve as a Subject Matter Expert on mental illness. Thank you.
That was about the book. The next is about me:
The officers who initially taught me Use of Force, especially Paul McRedmond (originator of the Three Golden Rules explained in section 1.2) and Ron Bishop, in my opinion, did an outstanding job. They had a truly encyclopedic knowledge of force policy and law, as well as deep experience with application.
Hundreds, if not thousands of officers and criminals over the years have also taught their particular lessons. We were not always friends, but I still thank them.
The indomitable Kami, wise and beautiful, who has held me when I bled or wanted to cry, has kept me sane through everything.
This one’s for Mac.
This book is a gift, a peace offering. It is an attempt to communicate across a vast gulf in culture and experience, the gulf that exists between the Law Enforcement community and those whom they protect.
Each day, media outlets all over the country describe events where officers use force. Often, the reporters and the citizens question the need for force at all or whether the type and amount of force used was really necessary. Citizens worry that their protectors—with badges, guns, clubs and Tasers®—are caught up in the rush of power, or perhaps giving vent to anger or bigotry.
The officers are frustrated too. Specialists in dealing with a world that is sometimes very dark and very violent, they feel scrutinized. They feel as if their actions are constantly under a microscope, judged by a populace without any experience or training in a very specialized field.
In this book, I want to show you how officers think about force, not only how we are trained to think of it, but also how experience shapes our beliefs and attitudes.
If you are one of the people who believe that officers are thugs and question each and every use of force, I don’t want to change you. Let me say that again: I don’t want to change you. Sometimes my job requires me to use force on behalf of society, on your behalf. That force should be subject to your scrutiny.
What I do want, if you have objections, is to have those objections based on facts and not emotion. Most people will have a negative reaction to any violence, and some problems (from child-raising to the boardroom to politics and medicine and…) simply don’t have an answer that makes everyone comfortable.
You know what you saw or read. You know how that made you feel. The final data that you need to back up your reasonable objections are knowledge of the rules—to understand thoroughly the legal and policy limits as well as the tactical considerations that the professionals understand.
There are truths and perceptions that frame this gulf. First, the perceptions: We have all been taught that peace is an ideal, and that hurting people is wrong. We have also been taught, in an egalitarian society, that what is wrong for one is wrong for all. And what is wrong to do to someone is wrong to do to anyone.
The truth, however, is harsh. It is this: The only defense against evil, violent people is good people who are more skilled at violence.
HARD TRUTH #1
The only defense against evil, violent people is good people who are more skilled at violence.
Throughout history, civilized people faced with people willing to use violence to attain their goals have tried a number of strategies.
Appeasement has failed. The hope that Hitler would be satisfied with Poland and Czechoslovakia only gave him more time to prepare. Bribery has failed, and paying off terrorists to prevent terrorism has been no more effective than Danegeld—money paid to Vikings to stop plundering. Reason and logic could not prevent the Khmer Rouge from killing every educated person in Cambodia. Simply being a good person couldn’t dissuade the Inquisition.
Ah, but there is always Gandhi…
Not really. Without a relatively free press, a lot of publicity, and an opponent who needed support (both from voters and from trading partners), Gandhi would have quietly disappeared. Where were the Gandhis of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Stalin’s Russia, or Ceasescu’s Romania? Prague Spring—an attempt by the Czechs to create “socialism with a human face”—was ruthlessly crushed by the soviets.
The ideal of peaceful resistance only works when backed by the big guns of public opinion and economics, and only then if those two things matter to the person or institution that one is trying to change.
This is a hard truth: In a truly totalitarian environment the authorities cannot only kill, but they have control over who finds out about it (communications and the media) and have control over the means to respond (control