Is aggression the appropriate way to respond in all instances?

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Post 11, tactical response, aggression....

To answer post #11; I had a real event like described in the post.
On a quiet Sunday evening around 700pm, a young male subject(early 20s, 6'02" to 6'04") ran into the hotel lobby where I worked then charged into the men's restroom. :eek:
The young male was intoxicated & unstable. He refused to exit the bathroom & locked the door. I contacted the local sheriff's office & kept speaking to the subject asking him to leave. I was armed(Ruger GPNY .38spl) & had a Mk III OC spray on me(Sabre Red Crossfire). My concern was that the unstable subject would burst out with a weapon or lunge at me or the hotel clerk in a rage.
I was also thinking the subject could have flushed any illegal drugs down the sink/toilet or that he could be barricading himself to get high/take drugs.
One/01 uniformed patrol deputy showed up approx 35min later & was able to extract the subject from the restroom. The deputy refused to arrest the male :mad: but did get a fire-rescue unit to transport the subject to a ER for detox/psych eval. The entire time the male was thrashing around screaming; "arrest me, arrest me". :rolleyes:

I disagree with the concept of aggression. Sometimes, it is necessary as a tactical concept. In US special operations its called; "violence of action". There are times when you can't be risk adverse or measured in your response or you'll be at a disadvantage & lose.
I think part of the overall issue is that many in the general public(and some armed professionals) misconstrue aggression & intimidation. Both have value in limited applications. If aggression causes compliance or makes a subject surrender w/o incident then so be it. The same goes for intimidation(as a tactic). If a barricaded subject sees a SRT or SWAT unit roll up in a armored vehicle with urban camo fatigues & M4s/SMGs and that makes them give up, then so be it.
Chris Kyle, the US Navy SEAL & author of American Sniper used a motto with his team in SW Asia; "sometimes violence is the answer". ;)

I read a recent media article that said the Dallas PD chief, Chief Brown fired the patrol officer who shot the EDP & the other officer on scene is under review by the IA unit with charges pending. Those officers used poor tactics & judgement in my view. They also filed false statements in their police reports which got them in trouble. That event wasn't an issue of aggression or intimidation. It was misconduct & malfeasance on the part of Dallas law enforcement.
Im sure the victim's family will get a huge $$$ settlement from the city over it.

Clyde
 
I think there are a lot of 'near misses' in the way the subject of lethal force response is discussed. For example, "violence is a last resort" is close-, but not quite accurate. There are circumstances in which immediate and explosive violence is exactly what is required. It's a subtle difference of language to say that, "violent response is only appropriate when other options are not available", but the language links to a different mindset.

There is a simple filter to apply:

"Are informers of imminent jeopardy present?" So long as the answer is 'no', then violence is not appropriate. If the answer is 'yes', then explosive violence is the appropriate response, whether or not diplomacy has been explored.

This is the reason for many of those LE protocols. They are basically being trained in "If, then/if not, don't" .
 
Duane Dieter, use of force standards....

Duane Dieter set up a in-depth training course used first by US Navy SEALs & specwar units then by other special ops & LE agencies(DEA, ICE, ATF, etc).
Dieter's program teaches what response or tactic works best & when. He shows that lethal force isn't always needed or the best response. That to me is a progressive step for US military units & a good example of how new training can keep operators/officers safe and get results.

Some PDs go by a use of force continuum that allows officers to act IAW the policy. This mitigates risk by the agency but maintains officer safety.
 
Two more quotes from the Rory Miller book Force Decisions.

Rory Miller said:
Hard Truth #6

There will never be a simple formula to give clear answers to how much force is enough. Force incidents are chaos and you can't write a cookie-cutter answer to chaos.

.... [later in the book]

One of the hardest things to explain to civilians is that there are no perfect answers in a use of force. Violence is a problem, and we have all been trained that problems have solutions. A bridge constructed in a certain way of certain materials will hold a certain amount of weight. One plus one equals two. There is a shortest route between two cities.

In medicine, perhaps, this gets fuzziest, because while there may well be an optimal treatment, not evertyhing works the same way, every time. Different people respond to the same treatment in different ways.

I would argue that violence is more complex than medicine. In medicine, you have one body, one mind to address. In violence, there are always at least two. Medicine has a well-defined baseline for what is healthy, Within Normal Limits (WNL). By the time things escalate to violence, the person, at least mentally, is beyond normal limits.

We know that these levels of anger, fear, or drugs affect the mind and body, but we don't know how much, or how universally. In the short time (a fraction of a second or hours) that the officer has to gather information, he can rarely tell if emotion, drugs, mental illness or just simply meanness is driving the behavior ... and each of those would affect the mind and body differently.

The doctor works in a clinical setting with a patient who is actively cooperating in finding a diagnosis and a treatment. They work together, the patient and the doctor, in an environment designed to limit distractions and with access to incredible technology.

The officer has to make a decision about force with only the information he can gather in the time that the threat allows. It's often in poorly lit, distracting, and dangerous environments using just his own senses, experience, intelligence, and intuition with a subject who may be actively preventing the officer from getting relevant facts.

Just like a doctor, however, the price for a mistake can be a life. Unlike a doctor, the life may well be the officer's.

With all these variables, there will never be a perfect answer. There is just stuff that worked -- or didn't. And the definition of working may not be what you expect.
Click to expand...

Very few of us like to live in a world where there are no perfect answers to important questions where human life is on the line. But that's the world we do in fact live in.

pax
 
My opinion is that any incident which results in a death is a failure especially of mentally ill people who are not criminals, but are just folks who have a medical situation and need the proper help.
Click to expand...

Yeah, except a lot of mentally ill people are criminals. A large number of violent inmates in prisons and jails are also mentally ill. They didn't get there because they were simply creating a disturbance either.

The truth is that many mental illnesses are not curable and treatment is only marginally effective, at best. They also tend to use drugs more so than mentally stable people, which makes them aggressive and highly unpredictable. I see no reason for anyone, civilian or police, to endanger their own lives in dealing with violent mentally ill people.

In my opinion, society panders way too much to the mentally ill and drug addicted. They should be treated just like anyone else.
 
For "aggression" I would substitute assertiveness. Make it clear that some behaviors will NOT be tolerated.
Yes, our society panders to much to the "mentally ill", the "insane" or the "crazy". What's the old kids' saying-"He can't help it, he's mental!" I like to quote the words of Ronald George who presided over the trail of the Hillside Stranglers Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi. When asked wht he didn't consider people like to be insane, he replied:
"Why should we label as insane someone who refuses to live by Society's rules?"
And I like to quote from a Disney tie-in book to their version of "20,000 Leagues under the Sea." When Professor Arronax pleads with Ned Land to allow to try to reasaon with Captain Nemo, Ned Land replies:
"Nemo's like a mad dog. You can't resson or argue with him, you can only muzzle him or shoot him!"
 
Nope, that's it. The initial OP was flawed and now we wander into uninformed discussions of mental illness.

Pax made the major points.

Closed.
 
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