Does the "Code of the west" cloud your thinking?

[JimConway]

The following is an excerpt from the latest Force Science Newsletter about the effects of the "Code of the West" on our thinking. Please note that this is written about Police Officers but could just as well apply to anyone.

"The Code of the West
From the earliest days of film making, Hollywood has instilled in us that there is an unwritten code that all good guys must live by. The code may not always make much sense in the real world, but it has created an implied expectation for real law enforcement.
1. Good guys never have the advantage. In earlier films, if the bad guy ran out of ammo, the good guy felt somehow compelled to throw away his own gun and finish the conflict mano a mano. Even in more modern films the code lives on with good guys routinely giving up their guns to save hostages, or fate somehow places them in hopeless, outgunned situations from which they ultimately triumph. With this in mind, how can an officer reasonably strike an unarmed suspect with a baton? Or mace him, or shoot him with a less-lethal weapon or even a lethal handgun? This clearly violates the code of the west, but not sound police training standards. Recruit officers are taught to always maintain an advantage in order to gain and/or maintain control. This may include striking an unarmed (and non-compliant) subject with a baton or impacting him with a less-lethal TASER® or bean bag. It may also include shooting someone who ultimately turns out to be unarmed.

2. Good guys are always outnumbered by the crooks, or at best, numerically even. The image of the lone hero facing numerous villains is pervasive in the movies. The real life spectacle of numerous officers standing over a suspect, attempting to control him (e.g., Rodney King) just feels wrong based on this standard. Yet we train our officers to maintain numerical advantage whenever possible. And there is definitely no rule against more than one officer engaging a single suspect—quite the contrary.

3. Good guys are never the aggressor. Good guys don’t fight unless forced to do so. They don’t like fighting or using weapons, but are usually really good at both (interesting paradox). It usually takes some dramatic, tragic event to motivate the good guy to use force. In real life officers must often be the aggressors to maintain control, particularly in situations of passive resistance, i.e., refusal to comply with reasonable and necessary directions.

4. Good guys never shoot first or throw the first punch. Movie heroes need full, clear and personal justification before they jump into action. They must first be violently and unjustly assaulted so they have full moral authority to kick butt, and have the audience fully behind them. In real life, an officer can’t wait until he or she has been incapacitated by a bullet or knocked unconscious by a punch. He/she must anticipate a suspect’s actions and control the situation. The officer may be required to grab, take down, mace, tase, strike, or even shoot a suspect before the suspect has shown any physical aggression. Again, this will always look bad to untrained witnesses and on tape.

5. Good guys never hit a man when he’s down. The “Code” tells us once a man is down he is not a threat. By that time he is thoroughly beaten and the movie can end. But even if he’s faking, he is no match for the merciful yet lucky hero, who can never be defeated through skullduggery. In reality, once the bad guy is down the hard part is just beginning. He must be taken into custody, handcuffed, searched and booked. The movies usually omit that part, yet it is often the most dangerous stage of the encounter. An officer is at his or her greatest disadvantage and vulnerability when taking a suspect into custody. Direct and intimate contact must be made.

6. Once the bad guy surrenders it’s all over. Similar to the previous rule, however the bad guy doesn’t have to be “down” to surrender. After all, the movie bad guys normally capitulate—or die—when defeated anyway, so the scene can simply end there. But once again, the most dangerous part of the encounter comes after the surrender, when the officer must take the suspect into custody. A feigned surrender is a perfect way to draw an officer into a disadvantageous position, particularly if the officer is acting alone without back up, or the suspect possesses a hidden weapon, superior physical skills or conditioning. It is at this point that the suspect has virtually equal access to the officer’s weapons. FBI statistics show that in the last ten years, of all officers killed in the line of duty, nearly 16% had their weapons taken away by the suspect. At this point in the arrest, an officer will reasonably be extremely wary and intolerant of any active resistance by the suspect, i.e., fighting, kicking, attempting to take the officer’s weapons, etc. More importantly, he will and must be intolerant of even passive resistance. In other words, even if the suspect is not fighting and is standing there passively, but refuses to turn around and place his hands on his head, spread his legs in order to be cuffed and searched, or in more serious cases, refuses to lay prone on the ground, the officer must take action. He does not have the option to wait-out the suspect, or simply approach nonchalantly and hope for the best. In most cases it is reasonable for the officer to make the suspect comply with his orders through the application of force, e.g., baton strike, TASER®, chemical agent, etc. The problem is, it violates the Code of the West, and looks really bad to civilian witnesses and on video.

To be continued

 

[JimConway]

Code of the West - part 2

7. Good guys never shoot a person in the back. This may be the best-known and most oft-quoted code of the west. Shooting someone in the back is conclusive evidence—proof—that the shooting was unjustifiable and unreasonable. Only a cowardly, yellow dog would shoot a guy in the back. Right?
Wrong!
The reality is a gunshot wound to the back only proves where the bullet struck. It provides no more evidence of culpability than does a gunshot wound to the front, side, big toe, or anywhere else.
There are a myriad of scenarios in which an officer is perfectly justified in shooting a suspect in the back, either to defend himself, others, or prevent the escape of a dangerous felon. Examples would include a suspect that shoots at the officer and then runs, or a suspect with his back to the officer who is threatening deadly force against a third person. It is also not uncommon for a person to instinctively turn away if he or she is being fired upon by another, thus causing a back, rather than a front or side wound.

8. Good guys will always outlast bad guys in a fight. In other words, even though the hero has struggled through a long, harrowing battle with the villain, he will never be defeated, or be the first one to surrender or retreat. He is stronger and better than the bad guy. At best they are evenly matched physically, but the hero is never outmatched when it counts.
The reality is quite the opposite. When an officer is struggling with a suspect and is attempting to control and overcome the suspect’s resistance, it is very analogous to a football game where the defense attempts to control the offense. As anyone who’s played football knows, the defense will tire before the offense because it takes much more energy to anticipate and control the actions of another.
The bottom line is that an officer only has a short time—maybe a couple of minutes—to gain control of a suspect before the officer’s energy is spent, placing him or her at a dangerous disadvantage. We call this the fatigue threshold.12 The fatigue threshold will be reached despite the added strength adrenalin provides (which a suspect has as well). In fact, it may actually contribute to officer “hitting the wall,” or experiencing a sudden depletion of strength. Modern officers are at an added physical disadvantage due to the personal equipment they carry, specifically wool uniforms, twenty-pound belts, and motion-constricting, heat-retaining ballistic vests.
The closer an officer gets to his or her personal fatigue threshold, the more dangerous the situation becomes, not only to the officer, but often to the public in general. Once the fatigue threshold is reached or passed without placing a resisting suspect in handcuffs or otherwise restraining him, the officer may easily be overcome, then injured or killed should the suspect(s) be so inclined.
We will often see officers in this situation using increasing levels of force to gain control the closer they get to their fatigue threshold. This point may be reached generally anywhere from one to five minutes into a fight, depending upon such factors as the officer’s physical conditioning and abilities, the suspect’s conditioning and abilities, the suspects level or intensity of resistance, weapons involved, as well as the surrounding environment, i.e., temperature, humidity level, etc. This issue cannot be emphasized enough; it is an area that has largely been overlooked until now.

9. Good guys always win. Though they face horrendous odds, get beaten and bruised, and are even subjected to temporary disgrace, in the end the good guys always come out on top in the movies. As much as we all wish this were reality, it simply is not. Police officers get beaten and killed daily. Hollywood doesn’t portray the real pain—the unsexy part—of injury and death. It doesn’t show the real long term damage of a bullet, the chronic, lifetime pain of a severe back, neck, or knee injury, or the lives of injured officers in their prime forced into early retirement at a fraction of their salary. And it doesn’t show the pain to young families who have lost a father or mother.
It may be for this reason more than any other that real life use of force can’t be like the movies. There is simply too much at stake, and there are no second chances if an officer is too lax or careless in his or her response to a resisting suspect.

 

[Jaxon]

I don't know what POs ever think about the "Code of the West", cause even back in my day, the code was - "go home at the end of the shift." Period.

Maybe things have changed since those thriling days of yesteryear.....

 

[KMaurer]

I think that the vast majority of people who have never been involved in the real thing (i.e., in a few seconds somebody is almost certainly going to be dead here) have their thinking colored by this image. Even people who've seen the alternative still tend to feel a bit dirty having to "fight dirty". Unfortunately for sensibilities, fairness and acting noble will very oftern get you killed.

Ken

 

[ZenShooter]

The vast majority of people not only haven't been involved in the real thing, but won't ever be, and that's a good thing. The sheer ugliness and brutality of street conflicts is dramatically different than what you see on television or in a video game, and will catch most by surprise. That, as much as anything else, is the street criminal's advantage.

You can approach a conflict with honor, and deal with the consequences of it with honor, but the conflict itself is messy, painful, exhausting and just plain ugly. Even in the so-called "old west" they knew that.

 

[Chris]

Heck, the vast majority of the people in this country are still in disbelief that there are people in this world that would fly a plane into a building killing themselves and thousands of others.

The sheer fact of the matter is that it is so easy to deny that we have dangerous animals in our society that have no more moral prohibition against taking a life than they do about swatting a mosquito.

I have encouraged everyone to read Chapter One of Massad Ayoob's book "The Truth About Self Protection". I don't care if you never plan on ever touching a gun or doing anything to provide defense. You NEED to know the nature and nurture of the animal that modern society is creating and unleashing on our streets. Surely, you can give yourself 8 pages of real life education from a Police Captain who has seen it all.

To quote another famous movie line "You can't handle the truth". And the fact is that the vast majority of Americans are simply unable to grasp just how completely screwed up some of these kids are. We are talking 12 year olds who would think nothing of shooting a parent who so much as threatened to spank them. We are talking about 16 year olds who only see success in the life of criminals they wish to emulate. We are talking about an 18 year old who spends a few months in prison learning that Number One is ALL that matters.

And yet, society is taught none of this. Unless you live in that environment, you can have no idea of just how consuming the struggle can be.

These people do not fear the law. All the law can do is take things away. They feel they have nothing to lose.

I forget who it was that I read, but someone called violent criminals "Werewolves".

It is a fitting analogy. Most people watch the movies and see really violent crimes just like they watch movies and see violent Werewolves. The difference is that Violent Criminals are REAL. The sad part is that the majority of people simply do not believe they are - until one preys upon them.

 

[Jose]

Chris, my family is full of people like you describe. In complete denial about the violence in this world.

I am willing to bet that I am one of a few and probably the only one of my extended family that carries a weapon of some sort all the time.

And I guarantee you that NOBODY in my wife's extended family would even consider of such an "aggressive" act as carrying, let alone using, a firearm.

 

[KMaurer]

The point isn't whether or not one carries a gun, but whether or not one can completely ignore the code of American bushido with which they were inulcated as a child. Roy Rogers never drew first. Gene Autry never hit a man when he was down. When the other guy ran out of ammo, John Wayne always put his own gun away and settled it mano a mano. Hopalong Cassidy always shot the gun out of the desparado's hand, leaving nothing more than a scratch. Neither Tex Ritter nor Wild Bill Elliot ever shot a man in the back. (Getting a little before your time there?) It's easy to sit back, play the arm-chair commando and say that you'd do whatever it takes without hesitation. Actually doing it is a whole different thing. All the hard empirical evidence suggests that a large majority of trained people will flinch, regardless of what they might think.

Ken

 

[JimConway]

The Pre-Emptive strike

The following is an article by Gabe Suarez that many of you will not agree with but it is something that you should be aware of:

THE PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE by Gabe Suarez

When we run our force-on-force drills we vary the situation to make the students experience both the reactive and the proactive, or in this case, the pre-emtive advantage. Gun people who have never done anything but shoot at a piece of paper have no concept of how quickly an adversary can "start the ball", nor how difficult it is to react to him in time. It can be done, but not without some luck and a good bit of skill.

When we debrief the group it is unanimous that being pre-emptive is far preferable to being reactive. He who starts the fight has a definite advantage over he who tries to catch up. I look back at my own street fights and clearly so, when I was pre-emptive, the fight was won easily. When I was forced to be reactive, although by the grace of God I prevailed, it was much more difficult.

The only concern is that by legal statutes, we must be "defensive" in concept. We can't simply shoot a man who we think is going to hurt us, nor can we knockout a man who looks sideways at us "just in case he was planning to attack". But by the same token, we don't need to stand around waiting for incoimng rounds or receive broken bones before opening the fight. In this short discussion I want to examine the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike and how it fits in the CCW skill set.

The pre-emptive strike is largely a mental skill-set. It is based on several factors such as:
1). Situational Awareness and Alertness
2). The ability to recognize a potential adversary
3). The recognition of the birth of an attack
4). The elimination of doubt about your legal/moral situation
5). The willingness to kill under the right conditions

1). Situational Awareness and Alertness - If you are talking on your cell phone to your wife and a thug walks up behind you and back-shoots you with a Raven .25 Auto, there is not much to do. All of what we teach and train is predicated on alertness. Quite simply, pay attention. It is a learned behavior and can be cultivated. The more you pay attention, the more it will become a part of your nature. What are you looking for? Everything. Enjoy the beauty of God's creation, and at the same time, take note of anything that is out of place. Do not rationalize that your first impressions are wrong accept what you see and act accordingly.

2). The ability to recognize a potential adversary - This called "Profiling". The social scientists and politicians don't like it. To bad for them. If you do not profile in this day and age, you are a fool. Now by profiling, I am not doing what the com-lib politicians think it is. I am not being anti-black, or anti-mexican, or anti-anything. What I am doing is taking what I see at face value and acting upon what I see based on the situations we face today.

If I gave a group of students digital cameras and asked them to go out into the city and photograph "thugs", I expect we would have a bunch of photos of the same types of folks. They would probably be of various races, various ages, and even include females, but they would have certain traits in common. Profiling a thug is like defining pornography. Its hard to do, but you know it when you see it.

3). The recognition of the birth of an attack - Some attacks are pre and true ambushes. Not much you can do there except have an ingrained physical response in place. Many attacks are not so sudden and tend to begin with a glance or another type of probe. Think of how you would act as a measure for normal behavior. If a profile individual is not following the same type of actions as you might, watch out.

Southnarc has done a great deal of research into pre-incident patterns. In short, look for the bad guy looking around after he makes eye-contact with you (looking for witnesses), look for fidgeting with face and clothing, look for the hands slowly moving to the waistband area and fidgeting there (specially if oversized clothing is worn), look for an approach that is direct toward you. None of these things constitutes an attack alone, but put all of them together, and you should be ready to fight.

4). The elimination of doubt about your legal/moral situation - If we knew that another nation was getting ready to launch nukes at us, we would attack them first. We would be offsides. This is both correct morally as well as legally. If we knew unequivocally that the thug walking toward us was planning to draw a pistol and shoot us as soon as he got close enough, we would be fools to allow him to do so.

It is all in the explanation. Instead of saying, "I thought he was going to shoot me" (a weak excuse that places you on thin legal ice), a better and truer explanation might be, "He was sizing me up for several minutes before he went to his car and grabbed a pistol. He tried to hide it in his jacket as he walked toward me, yelling profanities at me". One explanation has a great deal more detail than the other and detail is what you need to fill the questions about why you acted. And remember that you didn't start the fight, although you were tactically first. The bad guy began the fight, you simply "intercepted" him.

5). The willingness to kill under the right conditions - We have discussed the difference between killing and murder in previous volumes and how the Commandment is "Do not murder". One who carries a weapon to protect themselves and their loved ones had better come to terms with this and develop the righteous will to kill. If you draw on a man and do not have the fortitude to press the trigger, you will end up like the poor unfortunate CCW guy in Tacoma who for lack of it will never walk again.

There is more to this than what I have writen here

 

[Adam_MA]

I think this article points out the very reason force-on-force, and scenario based trainings have value!

 

[TonyD]

This article is a good example why scenario based training and FoF is the best culmination of a good training class.

The subject of preemptive violence is a very precarious position depending on the laws in your area. However, this is a good article to get folks thinking in an abstract manner. Most of this article addresses the Environmental Awareness leg of the Survival Triangle. It is under this leg that we find our levels of alertness - the subtle signs and actions of others around us that cause us to go from Yellow (2) to Orange (3) or even straight to Red (4).

3). The recognition of the birth of an attack...

Obviously the sooner this is recognized the more options you have - getting you and your family out of harms way, seeking cover, formulating a quick plan of attack, and finally engaging if no other options.

If we knew unequivocally that the thug walking toward us was planning to draw a pistol and shoot us...

This is a very powerful statement. Although I agree with Mr. Suarez in principle, it is just not as simple as being "...All in the explanation". If five witnesses swear you just shot a guy for no reason - because they were not as aware as you were - you're going to be in a bad spot.

The general rule of thumb is you have to reasonably believe you are in immediate peril of serious injury or death, and that the threat has the intent, means and opportunity to cause that injury. That is what you are going to have prove to a jury.

5). The willingness to kill under the right conditions...

This falls under the Triangle's leg of Mental Conditioning. The fact that under certain circumstances you may be forced to, and be willing and able to, take another person's life.

Again, I've always said that the best way to win a battle is to avoid it. However, at the very instant you are convinced the general rule of thumb has been met attack with verocity and don't stop until you've eliminated the threat. Most attackers expect no resistance or very little in the way of defense from their prey. By defending yourself with attacking you change the mindset of your enemy from offensive to defensive - something he probably doesn't have a plan for. This is the third leg - Survival Tactics.