Reality-Behavior Based Police Gun Fighting

Lesson I: What Actually Happens

Trevor S. ThrasherHigh Threat SystemsHighthreatsystems.com

28 SEP 2012

Main Themes

Reality of police shootings Most Use of Force is Reactive Stress Response To The Pointed Gun Defensive Response First Closing On A Threat Counter-Attack Shooting Under Duress Offensive/Pro-Active Response

Reality of Police Shootings

Most police shootings involve close range, high stress situations that are often completely different than what an officer experiences on the range Spontaneous Close Range Little Time Reactive Life Threatening Duress Complex Environments Difficult Decision Making

UNEXPECTED/HIGH LEVEL:• DANGER• DURESS• DECISIONS

Reactive Use of Force

Most police use of deadly force is reactive in nature even if the contact is officer initiated

This is due to the actual rarity of the event in similar situations- traffic stops, warrant service, hold up alarms, etc…

This even includes most situations involving SWAT. Officers will

Officers often give a verbal warnings when it is not legally required and tactically unsound. This most often gives the suspect the first shot and makes the officer’s shooting reactive and under great duress

Reactive Use of Force

Police officers, and more recently most soldiers, are conditioned through repetition and expectation to be hesitant. It is the nature of their work.

Good nature personality requirement for employment Expectation of good relations with populations Legal requirement to use minimal or reasonable force Precision environments with a mix of innocents, semi-

innocents, and bad actors Hesitancy for political, occupational, and legal

survival Multiple repetitions in similar circumstances without

resorting to deadly force

Suspect’s Almost Always Point A Gun Or Shoot First

A gun held in the hand can be directed toward an officer and fired from any position within a quarter of a second

This is so fast that even an officer with an aimed in gun will rarely be able to get off the first round

Even in the rare case that an officer can get off the first shot, one round is not guaranteed to stop a threat; in fact it rarely does

If the situation is in any way complex reaction time is greatly increased

If the officer waits until a weapon is seen, the time it takes to see the weapon will allow the suspect to shoot first or at least point the weapon at the officer before the officer can fire

At close range, the body posture of an attacking suspect, and the presence of what the mind identifies as an immediately deadly weapon creates a nearly instantaneous emotional, survival stress response.

It is no different than a charging bear, or a snake shooting up out of the bushes

Survival Stress Response

Short on time and information Driven by the need to survive

Square to a threat Crouching Target lock on the threat Loss of near vision Loss of fine motor skills

Three Types Of Decision Making

Instinctive- genetically hard wired; near instantaneous low brain response; simple gross motor actions and skills

Intuitive- learned stimulus-response; very quick; low to mid-brain response; can involve complex motor skills

Deliberate- taking time to weigh several options; relatively slow; high brain activity; can involve attempts at fine motor skills

Key Concept: Anticipation- knowing ahead of time what action you are

going to take; having time to plan a certain response- The time and knowledge to make a nearly certain decision.

Defensive vs. Offensive- is simply being reactive or pro-active to a greater degree.

Three Types Of Decision Making Instinctive actions are almost unavoidable against a sudden

threat unless there is sufficient anticipation and over-training of a response

If no intuitive trained response is available due to lack of relevant training/conditioning or emotional control, the officer will be stuck with an instinctive response for an extended period of time

Conditioned responses tightly matched to instinctive responses will occur more quickly

Deliberate actions need anticipation and lower levels of duress and aren’t available until the officer has cycled through instinctive and intuitive responses

In real life reactive circumstances, sighted fire is usually a deliberate mental action

Conditioning/Training reduces the amount of time that it takes to get through each type of decision making

Reacting to The Pointed Gun

When a gun is pointed at an officer before the officer can fire, the officer will be in an initial defensive-reactive situation

The pointed gun will immediately be registered as a threat The body alarm system (amygdala) will react through the low

brain and subconscious pathway first because it is quicker Due to physical reaction time, the officer cannot fire first(fight)

by the time the threat is realized Absent an initial “fight” option to prevent the attack, the first

reaction will most often be defensive The initial reaction will be instinctive/intuitive similar to the

startle effect; officers will most often flinch and move away from the danger

Officers will move through the instinctive response into an intuitive and deliberate response based on their training/conditioning and level of duress and time available

Defensive Actions First

Gabe Suarez- “A gunfight is 50% shooting and 50% not getting shot; not getting shot is the most important half”

It is rational, reasonable, and instinctive to try to survive

Instinctively people do not want to move towards a threat or stand in place facing an oncoming bullet or other threat

This initial instinct is nearly impossible to overcome absent some very specific situations

Initial Defensive Response

1. Generally moving away from danger2. The flinch (first and foremost)3. Stopping if closing on a threat4. Dodging the muzzle, especially at face

reading range5. Moving behind cover if it is near6. Moving laterally to avoid fire7. Moving away from danger8. Pushing away danger- at extremely close

range (often swatting at the weapon with one hand)

Closing On A ThreatMovement towards a threat can occur when:

The threat has ceased, is not immediately oriented on the closing person, or is in flight

The perceived threat is lower (expected, longer range, less intensity, confidence to deal with it)

Momentum carries the person forward The person is close enough to physically attack and

is “primed” or conditioned to attack The person is experiencing rage, suicidal intent, or

has no other alternative Has time to make a deliberate decision to advance

or fight regardless of the threat

Closing On A Threat

Closing will often be a shuffle step as the body tightens with the combination of fear under duress

This can also create “the stress dance” where a person constantly feels the need to move their feet during a shooting, possibly fighting the urge to flee

Closing on an oriented, ready threat will most often get an officer working within restricted rules of engagement and expectations of good social behavior, wounded or killed, unless there is an overwhelming advantage in capability of at least 3 to 1. This does not apply if the threat is hesitant or choses not to fire.

What Happens Next What happens next will be based on the officer’s mindset, emotional

control, level of anticipation, and stimulus-response conditioning in similar situations

If the officer has been well conditioned, the intuitive brain will quickly take action and turn the initial defensive response into a tactically sound action that can include shooting and with more time, precision shooting

If the officer has no well-trained, confident, conditioned response for the situation at hand, the officer will freeze, or be stuck with instinctive actions for an extended period of time

Control of stress and stimulus-response conditioning will outweigh raw marksmanship skill in most spontaneous situations

Deliberate (choosing between several alternatives) action will only take place with sufficient time past the instinctive and intuitive phase

A good decision can be made if officers can control their level of duress and have trained available options and situational awareness

If the officer lacks the will to aggressively shoot another human being, the officer will wait until it is too late, will choose not to fire, or will only fire after another officer or person fires.

Shooting Back as a Counter AttackShooting back defensively will be far different from what most officers are trained to do on the range: The instinctive need to see the threat will keep the officer

from bringing the gun up fully into their line of vision, because this would block the view of the threat- which is completely counter to instincts

They may perceive that they do not have time to use their sights

The effects of stress will reduce the effectiveness of fine motor skills, like pulling a trigger carefully, and may reduce the ability to use near vision (see the sights)

Once officers decide to fire, they will often fire nearly as quickly as possible due to being behind the reaction curve

This, along with situational factors, will sometimes cause an officer to fire one handed if they have not already drawn their weapon

Time competitiveness and body balance will be a major factor in shooting one handed from the draw

Shooting Under Duress Officers are rarely taught to shoot like this and will now be performing an

unfamiliar action which will increase stress In spontaneous close range encounters, officers will most often point

shoot, pulling the trigger quickly and without fine motor precision immediately after or while taking defensive action

This will degrade accuracy well below static, range-based expectations. Often this will be so far below expectations, that tactics based on range marksmanship will be insufficient to deal with the problem

Most “Stand and Deliver” range training (the majority of training that now takes place) is useful only in pro-active situations where the officer has an advantage, or in situations that allow extra time. It is wasted in the majority of situations.

This has all been confirmed by medical studies, scientific experiments, gunfight statistics, reproducible stress and reality based training, and large collections of real world video

Some people will not believe this even though they cannot offer similar contrary evidence; they will base their beliefs on the range, stories, anecdotes, or a small sample. (DOGMA). I have been asking for years to see some evidence. No empirical evidence has ever been provided.

Shooting Offensively/Pro-Actively If an officer is mentally and emotionally primed

to immediately use necessary force, has good control of stress, anticipation, and is properly conditioned to respond through stimulus-response training, an officer may react offensively Anticipation/Deliberation (Time and Knowledge) Lower Duress/Stress Control Proper Conditioning

It is difficult for officers to make the switch to offensive fire unless they are conditioned to fire offensively in specific situations.

Shooting Deliberately

Most often occurs when1. The suspect has temporarily taken flight 2. The suspect is not pointing a gun or firing

directly at the individual officer3. The officer has an extended amount of time

and anticipation (knife attack at longer range)

4. The officer catches the suspect by surprise and is “primed” to shoot immediately

5. The officer has already made the decision to fire and is simply hunting for the suspect

How To Train

Most pistol training should include: Point Shooting as the most likely and heavily trained method Precision Sighted Fire when possible under certain trained

conditions Initial Flinch or other movement prior to shooting most of the time Conditioned use of lateral movement, dodging, and use of cover

most of the time Appropriate use of commands with dedicated training on when not

to give commands Multiple officer shooting together at one threat Hard Targets and targets that illicit stress Targets that are sometimes facing away from the shooting officer Decision Making Complex and Cluttered Environments “Stand and Deliver” should be a very small amount of the training

past initial stages