It’s almost always that case that videos that find their way around the blawgosphere show cops doing wrong, whether it’s the ubiquitous tasing of the impolite or the beating of the cuffed perp. Always the example of what’s wrong.
The typical reaction from those inclined more toward order and less toward law is to explain that they have to tase, beat, control, or the cops might bear some potential risk that would expose them to harm. After all, what are they supposed to do when confronted with some angry lunatic. Well, via Turley, consider this video as an option:
This driver is distraught. Beyond distraught. Cursing away, angry, all directed at this cop. And yet the officer never loses his cool, never whips out his weapon. He remains polite and firm. He never feels compelled to show this driver who’s boss, or that he has the ability to teach him how not to anger a cop.
What’s remarkable is that no one ends up injured or dead. This video proves that it need not happen, even when the driver is out of control. Simple patience and calm are an option in the police officer’s arsenal, and everyone leaves alive.
Imagine.
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I’ve seen that video numerous times, and at one point saw an interview with the cop. He said that he wasn’t even tempted to go ballistic on the guy — he clearly, he said, wasn’t in any danger from him — so it didn’t take a lot of self-control for him to avoid escalating it. If I remember correctly, he said that his real problem was to avoid laughing, as that wouldn’t have made the situation any better.
I’m not sure whether I admire how he handled that even more for that or not. (Which is better? Self-control or not having to have self-control? Dealer’s choice, I think.) But it’s very cool, either way — whether he didn’t come close to thumping the guy out of self-control, or out of professionalism.
Reminds me another situation — that never made it to Youtube because it wasn’t videoed — where a cop of my acquaintance solved what could have been a pretty ugly domestic (husband with his knife to wife’s throat; wife shouting for the cop to shoot him, while husband is shouting for him to go away), by crying. The guy with the knife lowered it, and came out to surrender to reassure the crying guy. Obviously, that sort of soft handling can’t be done all the time, but I wonder how often it could be — as a friend of mine with quite a few years carrying a badge says, “Always start soft, if only because it gives you somewhere to go.”
Makes sense to me.
Danger is the rationalization. Ego is the fear, that the driver didn’t respect the cop’s authoritae. It’s less important what method is used than the fact that no force was used against the driver and, now, we can laugh at it knowing that no one was harmed in the making of this video.
Great post. Prior to beginning my graduate work I was employed at a residential treatment center for children ages children with behavioral disorders that had been removed from their home environment by social services. This officers reaction to the verbal abuse demonstrates a lot of the principles for crisis de-escalation that is used in many, many treatment environments. I have never understood why those principles have not been broadly integrated into training by law enforcement agencies. I think it is interesting that this particular encounter is deemed significant enough to merit interviews, play on a tv show, and get flipped around on the internet. I this officers conduct should be the baseline that we expect from civil servants. That said, having this officer out on the street is a waste of resources; he should be a dedicated training officer teaching other officers strategies for avoiding violent escalations.
Well when I was in law enforcement I provided some training in deescalation and I guess most agency’s do, the problem is are the officers going to follow it. I like the approach “Always start soft” when I worked in that field thats what I used to do, and it does work 98% of the time.
Training is only as worthwhile as what they end up doing in the field. Unfortunately, you can’t train attitude, but you can control culture.
A few things – While I’m sure there are more contemporary versions of this video (i.e., more recent re-enactments SOMEWHERE along our highways and byways in the last, say, 6 months), *THIS* video is very old. Multiple years old. If that’s how far back the order-at-any-cost crowd has to dig for ammo, that’s pretty telling. (and that’s not directed at you, SHG, I imagine you driving around with an “I <3 THE BILL OF RIGHTS" bumper sticker)
Now contrast this very old video with the videos that have been released in the past 18… 12… even six months. Handcuffed guy getting beaten in the back seat, young girl getting savagely beaten in her cell at the lockup, multiple photographers being lied to, detained, with property unlawfully seized (“I need your camera.”)
Well, listen to this, law enforcement. You say you never know if a traffic stop or a warrant service is going to go bad, if this is the x% of households or cars harboring an armed person willing to use those arms against a LEO.
I say when I see the blue lights or hear the knock and see the cruiser parked out front, I don’t know if you are the x% who will trample on my constitutional rights, who will beat me while I am in custody, who will lie on the police report, bring false charges, and then testilie right to a judge’s face. I don’t know if the DA in my area will collude with those officers to hide exculpatory evidence (because I *am* law abiding) in order to get another conviction to show how tough on crime they are.
So that said, it is in my best interest to assume that you are dirty, or at least solidly behind that thin blue line and that you close ranks with the bad ones and keep your mouth shut. Either way, you are a threat to me – the law abiding citizen.
It’s like summer reruns, if you haven’t seen it before, it’s new to you. I have no idea how old this video is, but it’s the first I’ve seen it and it serves its purpose.
Crisis de-escalation. So that’s what it is. It works in marital relationships too.
Wow. In the very beginning of the video, the driver reaches out the window to grab the ticket, I guess, and pulls the Officer’s arm into the car. Amazing that did not result in some kind of reaction from the Officer. The problem for the Officer is you never know which driver is going to be the crazy. The problem for the citizen is you never know if the Officer approaching your car after the stop is one of the ego driven storm troopers.
Personally, I stick with a polite hello, I inform them that I have a carry concealed permit (which will show up when they run my license anyway), and what and where I am carrying if I am carrying.
Most officers, once they find out I have a permit to carry concealed, have an interesting reaction – they become more friendly, and often want to discuss the weapon more than the ticket. I have had two stops where no ticket was issued which never happens when I am not carrying.
Go figure.
—Mike
I’m not surprised at all. Got a carry permit? You’re more like them than mutt. And once you’re more like a cop (not to mention the fascination with weapons), you’ve got things to chat about.
I imagine “Hello officer, I’ve got a gun” has got to be one of the more acute tests of diplomatic speech in the modern world.
If you pull it off it’s a helpful thing that the police will appreciate knowing, but if you flub the line it’s up there with passing a note to a bank teller.
SHG – No fascination with guns, but expert training and competitive combat shooting for years. I never carried until 2001, after which I refused to be soft target for a jihadist or a crazy. I shoot once every two to three weeks, and just to maintain proficiency.
So how many jihadists have you come across lately? Is there a reason you feel that you’re their target?
Actually, it’s not very difficult.
1. Open windows and Place both hands on steering wheel;
2. When officer asks for your license and registration, tell him you are happy to get them but first he needs to know you are licensed to carry and you have a weapon on you / in the car (not required in FL, but actually must be said in many states so a good practice);
3. Their response generally is where is the weapon, and when you tell them, they ask if they can retrieve it.
4. After that, normal conversation, but at least the officer knows that you have had an FBI check in the past few years.
—Mike
The worst statistic I’ve ever heard about September 11 2001 is that handgun sales increased 300% immediately afterwards, and surely that’s not a rational reaction to your enemies attacking you with planes full of fuel?
The preferred form is something like, “My carry permit is in my left hip pocket, and I’m carrying today, in my right pants pocket” (gun is the word a cop shouts to his partner where there’s some perceived security threat around a firearm; I prefer not to use the g-word in those circumstances) — if the subject needs to come up at all. (In my state, there’s no legal requirement — or good reason — to get involved in that discussion unnecessarily.)
On the nosie, IMHO, and all. An ounce of good, service-oriented culture is worth more than a wagonload of training for this sort of thing. With bad culture/bad attitude, training in starting soft is more likely to aid the bad badged guy in his fictional career when writing reports than do anything positive.
Zero, realistically — and the chances of a permit holder, even if around/alert/in practice/etc., being able to stop a jihadi are almost that.
That said, for more ordinary threats — a mugging, say — the handgun may be useful, on balance, as long as its possession doesn’t tempt somebody to go places he or she wouldn’t have gone anyway, act out on angry impulses, or confuse himself or herself with Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood, or Dennis Franz, all of whom can count on having the scriptwriter on their side.
Looping back, my own experience — direct and indirect — is how much of a “special person” treatment a permit holder gets is strongly related to the rarity of carry permits. Back when they were rare here, it not-quite-guaranteed at least some quasi-professional quasi-courtesy. These days, with just about 2% of the total population (and lots more of the eligible population) having them, about the only difference I see on the plus side is that the cop is going to act on the knowledge that the permit holder isn’t a felon, that counterbalanced by the frequent (and, alas, not always groundless) suspicion that somebody with a carry permit thinks of himself as some sort of Junior Gman.
You’ll always be my favorite Junior Gman.
Ouch. And thanks. I think.