Discussion: What to Do after a Self Defense Encounter

Posted by Shawn Dodson: Are there any practical exercises where the student has the opportunity to apply this training in a stressful environment. For example, a role play force-on-force confrontation, in which immediately afterward the student "calls" 9-1-1 and reports the incident, and then interacts with responding "police officers" (in which students apply Ayoob's advice in a realistic and practical manner)?

Click to expand...

Not in that class. I cannot see how one could ever begin to design a practical course in which that could be done.

There is a tremendous amount of knowledge imparted in the twenty hours, and that knowledge is intended to be applied in a very wide variety of circumstances involving a very large number of variables.

By the way, calling 911, reporting the incident, and interacting with responding police officers is but a very small portion of the class.

Or do students merely sit passively in the classroom and be lectured at for 20 hours?

Click to expand...

Passively? No. There is discussion and time for Q&A.

It's one thing to intellectually "know" what to do. It's quite another to actually "do" what you know.

Click to expand...

Yep. I hope I never have to "do" it.

When I took the classroom portion in July, there were several attorneys present, a couple of current and former law enforcement officers, and a number of educators. The attorneys said that they had learned a lot more about the subject from the class than they had in law school; the LEO participants said that they had learned a lot more in the class than in their training; and the educators with whom I spoke, including several PhDs, told me that they were impressed with the course design.

"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing." -- Aristotle

Click to expand...

That's a good philosophy when it can be applied, and that's why one should choose an attorney who is experienced in the field at hand, a surgeon with a track record, and so forth.

One cannot choose an experienced fighter pilot, however, because real encounters happen very rarely and because there are so many variables, so one puts pilots through simulation and air to air exercises.

There are so many factors involved in the course material covered in the classroom portion of MAG-40, however, and so many variables that may be encountered in the real world, that there is no practical way to learn them all by "doing", and no practical way to design an effective simulation. What might work in one situation might not in another that is substantially similar but for minor nuances.

I think that anyone who has taken the course would recommend the intensive classroom content over a two day simulation involving maybe 5% of the material (at most).

Posted by Shawn Dodson: "See, try, do" doesn't require solid intellectual grounding - just good feedback and coaching.

Click to expand...

That's true when it comes to herding livestock, weapon retention, using concealment or cover, or shooting at steel plates, but it is most certainly not true when it comes to compliance with the laws involving public financial reporting, with those involving the negotiation of contracts, or compliance with the laws concerning the use of force. There would be no more effective way for one to get into serious trouble than for someone to "see, try, and do" things in those areas without the necessary academic background. That is not just my personal opinion--I've seen it proven too many times to doubt it.

Having attended MAG-20 and having read just about everything I have been able to lay my hands on, I firmly believe that being told what to say in a particular situation and trying it out could cause far more trouble than it would avoid, if one were not first educated in the legal background and had not been explained the numerous high court rulings that make up much of the fabric of the legal system. Add to the need for an understanding of how witness's minds work, of jury psychology, of how prosecutors influence juries, the physiological impacts of post-incident stress, wounds, and so forth, and one needs still more academic grounding.

One of the things that Mas states over and over is "I cannot tell you what to say"; the example of what to say to the police we have been discussing is the sole exception.

Perhaps Mas could design an illustrative simulation, but I think the value would be limited and it would divert resources from the class and dilute the benefit.

If one really has an appetite for learning the complexity of all that is involved here, one can take just one very small element of what is covered in the classroom training--what to say to the arriving officers after a self defense encounter--and study that one in great depth. We have chosen Mas' recommendation as the "school solution" here at THR, but we also understand that every person who has used deadly force and who cannot plausibly deny having done so will almost certainly claim self defense, and we therefore understand that appearing to use a practiced "canned" statement will not help us a bit--and that it can hurt..

For more on that, and this is really not recommended for those who insist on a simple cookie cutter solution, one can read After You Shoot by Alan Korwin. Korwin submitted the question of what to say to the police after a shooting, which formed the basis of the very beginning of this thread, to a number of attorneys; the discussion is most enlightening.

Just one little teaser on that: has anyone here ever thought about why and how the statement "I feared for my life", so often recommended, could effectively be used against a lawful defender in court?

Posted by Shawn Dodson: The academic background for interacting with authorities, in a manner that's to your best interests, can fit on a wallet sized card.

Click to expand...

I would not say that the academic background can fit on a card--there are books and lectures and articles on the academic background.

However, what to say and what not to say can be summarized briefly, and that has been done here, and I think that fiddletown has done a remarkable job of summarizing the reasons why in our Sticky.

What Massad adds to that in the class has to do with describing examples of how physical evidence can easily be missed by the police if they are not looking for it (a small percentage of their investigations actually do involve self defense incidents), and how it can be lost from the crime scene.

The basics are easy - give a short, generalized statement, ("he tried to kill me and I shot him in self-defense"), and then tell everyone that you'll co-operate with the investigation after you've talked to your attorney.

Click to expand...

That is not the school solution here--it leaves out some key elements and it adds something that, while it may seem to describe the obvious, may not be a wise thing to say. You should probably read Korwin's book on the subject.

But then follow-on scenarios progressively ratchet up the stress and complexity with, for example, an argumentative 9-1-1 dispatcher, hostile-acting first responders and supervisors, bystanders who shout to officers that you had no right to shoot, etc. Other scenarios would include officers who try to badger, threaten or "befriend" you in various ways to manipulate vulnerabilities in your personality; and situations in which your necessary use of force is ambiguous and questionable. "See, try, do" in this practical application takes you out of your comfort zone and puts you into your learning zone more quickly and effectively than hours of academic study.

Click to expand...

I cannot see how that kind of exercise would do anything other than confuse, were it not preceded by a good grounding in the basics.

One could certainly try it afterward, but when one considers how much time that would take per student, one quickly sees that it would vastly increase the cost, all for adding some possible skill in one small but important part of the knowledge base.

It's a matter of just how much one wants to add to the cost and time involved, balanced against the potential benefit. I happen to think the classroom portion of the course is fine as is.

Upon reflection...

It's pretty clear that we chose a poor title for the Sticky here. It should have been "What to say to arriving officers after a self defense encounter".

Calling 911 is also important. We haven't talked much about that, but Alan Korwin states that 911 recordings result in a lot of convictions that should not have happened. In his book, Korwin and several attorneys even debate whether a defender should call 911 after a shooting! (The consensus is yes, by the way).

Mas covers the subject in class, but my notes are at home and I am at a campground. If anyone who has taken the course, or anyone else with the appropriate knowledge base, would like to start an outline of some dos and don'ts and the underlying thinking, it would be appreciated. We can build upon it and pound it into something that would be valuable here. Thanks in advance.

Also, if one has just shot someone, there will likely be other things more pressing than calling 911. We probably need to summarize some of that, also. Any takers?

We need to avoid getting into any of the proprietary portions of the course, which is one reason that I will not start from memory.

Great start!