Force Decisions. Rory Miller
all the rookies will survive. All of us come to the job with assumptions built into the image of doing the right thing. We think that if we save a life, it will be a good person or an innocent child, and they will be grateful, and the world will be a better, safer place. We aren’t ready for saving a bum from drowning, and having him complain because we let him get wet. We aren’t prepared for the day we actually stop a rape in progress, and the rapist sues because his neck or elbow hurt afterwards.
Once in a great while, you will hear, “Thank you.”
This is the real secret: The people who do this job well for a long time don’t do it for the rewards or the recognition. They don’t do it (after the first year or two) for the rush. They don’t even do it to make the world a better place.
They do it because they can and most people can’t. Every shattered body they see, every terrifying brawl in the dark, and every interminable wait for blood tests to see if they have been exposed to a disease that might change or end their lives, are experiences that no one else needs to have.
Rookies need to learn to do the job, and do it like a professional, not like a TV hero. That way lies madness.
Litigation is a hallmark of modern society. From their earliest training, officers are taught to fear lawsuits. They are taught that anything they do can be twisted in court, and cost them their house, their savings, and their retirement.
In reality, that is rarely the case. As long as the officer stays within his or her agency policy and law, any liability stays with that agency. Reality doesn’t make the fear any less real. In the excellent book, Deadly Force Encounters, Alexis Arwohl and Loren Christensen point out that in actual shootings, with bullets flying at them and their lives in imminent peril, officers were almost universally plagued with the thought, “I’m gonna get sued.” That’s not a thought you can afford when your life is on the line.
There has been a sea change since I started in this profession. Years ago, there was a presumption that the officers were the good guys and the criminal was the bad guy. It seems to a lot of officers that this has changed.
One of the ways it has affected the job is in how reports were written. When I started this job, I was specifically told that when we used force, the reports were to be as minimal as possible. I was told, “What you don’t put in, they can’t use against you.” “They,” of course, were civil litigation attorneys, internal affairs…anyone who might have a reason to scrutinize what you did. We also were often told to write reports only on incidents that were likely to result in scrutiny—“No blood, no foul.”
It was wrong and must have made it much easier to cover abuses when they did happen…but thinking had already begun to change. Attorneys are smart and they fully understand that there are lies of omission as well as commission. Now, the reports are expected to be excruciatingly thorough, to cover everything you did and everything you saw. It was a big change, but it resulted in an important lesson.
The key to Rule #3, to being successful in litigation, or prevent litigation altogether is to make good decisions, to carry them out properly, and then to write a damn good report. Failure at any one of these three steps can really hurt you.
Making good decisions has two different meanings. Most officers, most of the time, make good decisions because they are good people. That holds true for anyone. When a decision must be made in a split second that decision will be based on who you are. Somewhere in the balance of fear and internal ethics, the person will make a decision (or fail to make a decision). Good, ethical people make good, ethical decisions.
Good decision-making is also a product of training, experience, and good policy. As much as officers need to be taught how to drive in an emergency, how to shoot, how to preserve evidence, and a thousand other things, they also have to be taught how to think, how to prioritize what they see, and how to make decisions. This will all be refined and expanded with experience.
Good policy is critical as well. One private company that regularly deals with violent mentally ill people has decided that they can’t be sued for hugging. The company has made it policy that the only self-defense technique allowed is to hug the attacker until he or she calms down. The environment is not designed for security and the clients have access to a number of things that can be altered to become weapons. Hugging someone trying to stab you is one of the less effective options. A bad policy, and this is a very bad policy, can put the employee in the position of following the rules or dying.
Carrying out your decisions properly is a matter of training. Knowing what to do is not the same as knowing how to do it. As an example, an agency that allows punching in their force continuum must train the officers in how to punch, or they will be sending officers to the hospital with broken hands. That violates the first golden rule.
Then, whatever your decision and action, you must write it well. You must be able to explain to your peers, superiors, and, if necessary, a jury exactly what you did; why you did it; and why it was the best option. Federal Air Marshall Guthrie says, “Your report can’t make a bad shoot good, but it can make a good shoot bad.”
No matter how much you twist or massage the words of your report, you can’t turn a bad decision into a good decision. Maybe you can fool some people, but it is still a bad decision. Like polishing a turd, it still stinks.
A bad report can sink you. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason can change a heroic act to a crime. “He was going to hit the baby with the hammer so I shot him,” is justified. “He was an ass, so I shot him,” is homicide.
Using a higher level of force might require explaining why a lower level of force would not have worked: “I was too far away to tackle the suspect before he hit the baby with the hammer. I had no choice but to fire my weapon.”
Make a good decision. Execute it properly. Write a good report.
The Three Golden Rules
1. You and your partners go home safely at the end of each and every shift
2. The criminal goes to jail
3. Liability free
Let’s say you, as a citizen, see someone in your front yard, acting strangely, staring and shouting and singing songs about John Lennon and Satan. Instead of calling 911, you go out on your front porch and yell, “Hey! What are you doing? Get out of my yard!” The Emotionally Disturbed Person (EDP) takes off and runs.
As a citizen, you’ve solved the problem. He may be in somebody else’s yard, but he’s not in yours. You aren’t responsible for him or for his actions.
As an officer, you have a duty to act. This can be really specific or really vague, depending on the policies of an individual agency and current tactical training. Once an issue comes to the officer’s attention, the officer is not only responsible for what he does, but for what happens if he chooses to do nothing.
Crazy guy runs and leaves a citizen’s yard because the citizen yelled. Fine. Crazy guy then slaughters a few people at the neighbor’s house: No liability or responsibility to the citizen.
The officer has to think of consequences—crazy, running guy might launch himself in front of a bus. Or hurt someone else. Or be wanted for a previous crime. Or desperately need psychiatric meds.
This is just an example, but the officer will respond to clues inherent in the scenario. Most people don’t run at the approach of an officer, hence it’s reasonable to believe that if someone runs, there is a reason. The subject might have a mental stability issue, in which case the officer may need to get medical help. Or the runner may have a warrant out for his arrest (no one wants to be the officer/agency who let a wanted felon go because they didn’t take the time to check for warrants). It may be because he has weapons or drugs on him that he is