Cop or New Breed of Victim?

[Mike TRT]

This is an excellent article which was written based on a session presented by Jeff Chudwin, the Pres of our Illinois Tactical Officers Association, and he's a Chief in a Chicago suburb.......Merry Christmas everyone

Are We Breeding a Police Culture of "Additional Victims?"

By Chuck Remsberg

Law enforcement agencies "should build a police culture that accepts, validates and rewards a fighting spirit." Instead too many are creating "additional victims," hesitant officers who shy from using deadly force when it's legal and urgently needed. The result: "Some officers today are more afraid of being sued than being murdered!"


That sobering message was delivered passionately in Milwaukee earlier this month by one of a rare breed, a tell-it-like-it-is administrator, Chief Jeff Chudwin of Olympia Fields (Ill.) PD. Chudwin spoke on "Surviving Officer-Involved Shootings and the Aftermath" to kick off an intense tactical operations seminar produced by the Assn. of SWAT Personnel-Wisconsin, hosted by the Milwaukee County SO and attended by nearly 200 SWAT-team operatives.


A former street cop, former prosecutor, long-time president of the Illinois Tactical Officers Assn. and a PoliceOne contributor, Chudwin across a rapid-fire, provocative two hours presented graphic illustrations of what can only be called the wimping of American policing, and issued a stirring call for change. In some cases on-scene video drove home the impact.

• A plainclothes officer is being slashed in the face and neck during a ground fight with a knife-wielding suspect. Under life-threatening attack, he hands his gun to another officer because "he's afraid he'll discharge the weapon accidentally" during the struggle. "He gets praised by the media for 'showing restraint,' but what he did makes my skin crawl," Chudwin declares. "Why didn't he shove the muzzle in the suspect's eye and pull the trigger?"
• Another officer responds to a man-with-a-gun call at a food mart, sees the suspect with a gun in hand but stays in her patrol car. The suspect grabs a citizen whom he forces to the ground at gunpoint. The officer fails to intervene. The suspect murders the captive by shooting him in the head. Still no action by the officer beyond "officially observing." Responding backup finally kills the offender. A disturbing footnote to this event, Chudwin says, "is that some of her peers feel the first officer did nothing wrong."
• An offender who has murdered his girlfriend is outdoors in a residential neighborhood firing a gun randomly. He's surrounded by SWAT but the officers take no action other than trying to maintain a loose perimeter, even when he points his revolver directly at them. The standoff drags on through many threats to police and public until he eventually is shot when he closes in on an officer and points the gun at him. When Chudwin asks the officers why they didn't fire earlier, they explain: "Our commander told us not to shoot him." "An outrage!" Chudwin declares. "If you're putting an offender at the top of the list for safety, then you have your priorities screwed up. Why are we catering to the person who created the problem?" SWAT officers are offered rapid deployment training by a tactical organization but back away from the concept because they consider it "too dangerous." "We don't run into the muzzle of a machine gun," Chudwin chides, "but we do run into danger every day, and we should be prepared to do it."
• An active shooter is inside a fast-food restaurant killing people. A SWAT team is ready to make entry or to fire through glass to take him out. A commander en route but 10 miles out orders the officers to stand down until he gets there....A commanding officer instructs his street personnel, "You can't shoot at anyone until you are shot at first".... A chief states that anyone who can't control an aggressive offender with a knife from 5 to 7 feet away without using deadly force should not be a police officer-all examples of "lunacy," Chudwin says.

"That kind of thinking can put you in a black hole you can't get out of. This is the culture we have to get away from. There is no obligation for you to be injured, wounded or murdered" rather than shooting to stop a lethal threat.


"Predators are out there, not afraid of us, willing to attack us," said Chudwin, who has had two friends who were murdered on the job. "But officers often back away from aggressively finishing the fight."


Part of the problem, he suggested, is unrealistic training that teaches officers to rely on tactics and equipment that in many real-life confrontations don't work.


Field experience has well established that pepper spray, for example, "won't work against people who are committed and willing to fight to the death." Yet he showed dramatic video of a determined naked man moving threateningly down a city street with a knife after having cut off his own penis. Responding officer’s attempted-futilely-to control him with endless verbal commands and bursts of OC. Their solution ultimately was to risk their own safety by dog-piling him.


Why waste time and heighten your personal risk "by trying something that cannot work, like pain compliance against a crack head who can't feel pain?" Chudwin asked. "Why create false expectations of success?"


He deplored the tendency, again often reinforced in training, to over-verbalize. "Show me a Supreme Court case or statute that says you must give verbal warning before using deadly force," Chudwin challenged. "There isn't one.


"It's not necessary to talk to somebody when they're trying to murder you. You can do it, but there's no legal obligation to and tactically it's not desirable. There are some offenders you simply can't negotiate with. Yet officers want to take things to the last instant because they have imprinted in their mind 'I don't want to shoot.'"


Reacting properly in threat situations depends on having the right mind-set, Chudwin stressed. "When you go out on the street, the first thing you say when you get in your patrol car should not be, 'Oh, God, I might get sued today.' You really have nothing personally to fear from liability when you follow law, policy and procedure. But fear of liability has led to the murders of police officers.


"If you're more concerned about getting sued than getting murdered, you can't do the job like it needs to be done. You're a threat to yourself and to others."


Regarding deadly force, "you have to know what you can do and when you can do it, and be prepared to do it immediately, without hesitation. If you fail any part of this equation, you will fail on the street."


The willingness to emphatically stop a life threat needs to be part of your mind-set off duty as well as on, Chudwin reminded. "Only 25 percent of officers in some areas carry off duty, and then they carry no extra ammunition," he said in disbelief.


"Have some firearm on you always. You will be some place someday with your family and some antisocial s.o.b. will come up to you and want to cut your throat and take your children away-and you're not going to let him.

[Apdl]

wow what is the world coming to?

[tec]

I am not a LEO, but agree wholeheartedly with this guy, meaning Chief Jeff Chudwin.

If your a bad guy, breaking the law, you just gave up being treated like a little child.

That is the problem today. The BG's KNOW they can do major bad stuff, and just get a slap on the hand for it.

[dualcert]

EXCELLENT!
During my FTO for my current agency, I was VERY heartened to be told both by shift Sgt. and my FTO (also my Cpl. & now good friend) that our main goal (collectively) and my main objective will be to go home at the end of shift, albeit we may go home unemployed, but WE WILL GO HOME.
Litigation is the killer of cops (actually the fear of it) I for one will use deadly force IF it falls in to the parameters that are necessary for my or another's survival. I have personal experience with less than lethal methods not being effective, those were on unarmed but combative individuals. One off his psyc meds and drunk (an ex-con with 17 prior felony convictions) who the Taser didn't get a good "stick", one probe he just brushed off the other stuck center mass. I had to chase him down and drive stun him into submission. The other a female who was determined to fight like a wildcat and Freeze +P was totally ineffective. Sprayed her like a roach and she would not quit even after an adequate time for the pepper to "work".
If either of those two had an edged weapon or had posed a lethal threat, I would hate it for 'em. As to the future, well let's just say I will choose my destiny. I'm a D/S in a rural county in a zone that is 400 sq/mi. +/- and the nearest backup if my zone partner is unavailable is a good 25 mins. away at "high warp".
Be safe, and Merry Christmas!

[XDAndMe]

Be tough when you have reason to believe you have to be... but don't give every civilian a hard time. Not everyone hates you for doing your job. Case in point, there is a video online of a woman who was tased for refusing to get out of her car. That's her right. She can get in legal trouble and lose her license, whatever... but it's not a cause for use of force. I don't need the man in leather boots giving me a hassle over a burned out tail light that I didn't even know about If an officer approaches someone who knows they did something illegal, they might give him a hard time. But if someone is pulled over or approached and they don't know why... then they'll be just as unsure of what to expect as the approaching officer is. It's pretty intimidating to have some stranger walk up to your car and ask you to open the window, badge or no badge. Just don't assume that everyone hates you and is going to cause trouble. There's a fine line between serving the public and acting out of your feeling of superiority. Let's not forget the human factor of common courtesy.

Yes, I realize not all civilians give you common courtesy. It's a problem on both ends.

[slugger6]

This is sobering stuff. It should be a "wakeup call" to all of us.

[WARHEAD'Z]

Now here's my reply.....

I served in the Marine Corps and for a period was overseas serving and protecting the world.....God help us if the military were to carry on with the "shy" factor.

Fast forward to NOW.....I live in Knoxville, Tennessee. There are areas of this town that NO city police officer or county deputy will drive into after dark. That should not be the case. The Sheriff is a career politician and is TOO busy padding his pocket instead of taking control of crime seriously in the streets of Knox County. Our property taxes have just been increased in order to allow the deputies a pension fund, yet their physical condition (or lack of) denotes that many of them are probally going to have heart conditions long before retirement time. How about an excercise program for your men Sheriff Hutchinson?

The Knoxville City system is just as bad.....(the fore-mentioned crime ridden areas are inside the city limits) The city has recently decided to add dozens of cameras to the larger intersections around town and have reportedly gererated millions in revenue from red light running traffic offenders. Sounds good on paper, but where does the generated funds procede to? No one in the public realm seems to know. I don't anticipate them using ALL of the dollars for donuts.....Surely now they could build a task force with the emphasis of stopping crime......I don't want to hold my breath though.

Needless to say, I don't hold much esteem for the "Defenders of the Public" in my area of the world either.

[MGD 45]

Why don't you run for Sheriff and try to change things? There shouldn't be any area that the police are afraid to go into! It sounds like it's time they start kicking ass & taking names!!

[bteague2]

warhead'z, what parts of town are you talking about?

[hacker15]

+1 on this article. Up here, no matter the situation, there will always be "witnesses" that come out of the woodwork with a story different than the police version of events. At that point, you get the "community activists" spouting about "police brutality" and the "excessive use of force" that their poor constituents are being subjected to. These, by the way, are the self same "community activists" that rant and rave about the inefficiency of the police in protecting their neighborhoods against the rampant crime and drug availability.

Had a case recently where two officers responded to an "armed man" in the street. They were attempting to arrest him when he grabbed a duty pistol from the holster of one officer and proceeded to beat both of them with the weapon. One suffered multiple cuts on his face and neck, the other several head wounds. Finally, the female LEO pulled her pistol and shot him in the abdomen. This guy is now a hero to the "community activists" and the two LEOs are under investigation for "excessive use of force" and are on administrative leave (just heard this morning that the grand jury has cleared the female officer of any charges as her actions were justified). "Witnesses" came forward after the event to state that the perp was not armed and the LEOs were acting in a very aggressive manner and that they started the fight. Go figure.......