"Tactical Retreat"....

[RustyShackelford]

I saw on today's Saint Louis Times Dispatch website a few police chiefs & law enforcement officials are considering new training standards after the recent civil disorders & unrest.
The tactics/training cadre call it: "tactical retreat".
In short, in some events or volatile situations, sworn officers will now leave or regroup rather than engage aggressive or hostile subjects.

This to me seems very complicated & could put sworn LE into a stressful position. I can see valid points for some events but other situations could escalate rather than be resolved.
Also, it might seem like a police topic, but it could quickly become a CCW/armed citizen issue too, .

Please keep the reply posts & remarks related to the topic too. Not the politics or highly volatile emotions of the recent events in the metro St Louis MO area.

 

[Kleanbore]

I'm not sure that differs much from what they have been practicing, in Ferguson and in St. Louis.

In November, the police stood back and watched as rioters burned and looted.

Now that are releasing security camera images and looking for the perps.

Whether it was the right thing is debatable. The governor claims that it saved lives. It can certainly be argued, however, that the tactic encouraged more rioting, which could all have resulted in deaths.

 

[Nom de Forum]

Tactical Retreat is an action I have planned for over decades. I want to remain living not win a gunfight if winning involves escalation that increases chances of getting shot just to win. I am a civilian and do not need to prevent the flight of or apprehend criminals. I can foresee many scenarios that an assailant after being shot at and missed will decline pursuing me if he knows more bullets will be fired at him.

From a policing policy standpoint I can see where perhaps some situations should be treated like forest fires that rather than being immediately put out are isolated from more fuel and allowed to burnout.

 

[RustyShackelford]

vehicle pursuits.....

I see the value of some critical incidents where flight or not acting is prudent but you cant be risk adverse either.
To me, the LE tactic is like vehicle pursuits. Some US law enforcement wont chase subjects or do traffic stops. They just collect the data & try to arrest the subject later, on better terms.

 

[g.willikers]

Why don't the police carry a cooler of beer around with them?
It would probably do more for defusing situations than a shotgun.
Seriously.

 

[Fred Fuller]

The tactics/training cadre call it: "tactical retreat".

What - they're bringing back the Australian Peel?

(Sorry, couldn't resist that one)

 

[Jeff22]

tactical retreat? sometimes

We as the police should not stop enforcing the law because the thugs or their apologists might complain -- but we should be smart when we enforce the law, and be safe when we enforce the law, to the extent that safety can be achieved in an inherently unsafe circumstance.

Specific to the incident involving Officer Darren Wilson:

Proper tactics can help avoid a lot of bad things.

Don't be in a hurry if you don't have to be in a hurry.
Tell dispatch where you are and what you're doing.
Wait for backup if you can.

These are all principles of "Officer Survival" that have been taught for 35 years.

I am still not clear about when Officer Wilson realized that he was possibly dealing with strong armed robbery suspect.

Trying to exit the vehicle and confront somebody when they're bigger than you and right on top of you is a bad idea. Especially when there are two suspects.

History would be different had officer Wilson broke contact, created distance, called for backup, and re-approached when he had more help.

There was one cop and two suspects. If they were going to fight or run, either way he needed more help and there was no particular reason in this instance to be in a hurry.

Officer Wilson could've been disarmed and shot because he prematurely engaged a suspect that was a lot bigger than he was, and then we'd be mourning a dead cop.

Had he waited for more help and done things differently, there might have been a foot pursuit and at the end of that , if Mike Brown had resisted arrest he would've been possibly batoned or maced or tased and then taken into custody and nobody in the rest of the world would even know about the incident because it was totally routine and common with no significant negative outcomes.

There are some few occasions where the police have to go in feet first and guns a blazin' to rescue somebody or to apprehend a violent and dangerous criminal, but in most places events requiring that kind of response are unusual.

Part of the art of police work is knowing when you have to charge in and when you don't have to. And usually, making that determination is not that damn hard . . .

There is no reason to put yourself at risk if there is not a compelling reason to do so. As a Law Enforcement Officer, there is no reason to be significantly more aggressive in your enforcement than your department or your prosecutor or your citizenry will support.

The police may be, for a time and depending upon location, in an era where the law enforcers have to be somewhat more risk averse than they were previously.

Maybe it isn't right, but it is the reality in many situations, and we need to figure out how to operate the best we can, depending on our location and our situation.

 

[lemaymiami]

As usual the headlines do little to enlighten -particularly about enforcement tactics. The previous poster has covered darned nearly all the bases and done so with skill...

I'll add to that just how much fun it isn't to be the junior sergeant on the street -and in charge of the riot... Seriously, police departments have been pretty realistic over the years about what works and what doesn't in crowd/riot control. The problem for all is that no matter how much you train -practical hands on (oh s....) stuff simply isn't a very regular occurrence at all - so many get caught flat-footed when everything goes to hell on you with little warning at all.

No matter what you call it, a retreat at times is a very good option -if you're planning on re-grouping and acting with purpose once you're out of the line of fire. In my own area down here in south Florida we learned the hard way that simply withdrawing and sealing off an area when serious disturbances are on-going is very bad for the folks who live there (understatement) and even worse for any citizens that enter the area not realizing what's occurring (very serious understatement). As a result of very bad outcomes our biggest department (Metro Dade P.D.) long ago adopted the field force concept where you have the ability to run 20 to as many as fifty officers into a bad area as a unit to deal with specific looting, burning, rioting hot spots (Dade county is a big area, like L.A.- endless suburbs.... all of this occurred in the late seventies and early eighties). In actual practice this worked much, much better than simply withdrawing and allowing a riot to burn itself out.

The best police force I ever saw in action was Jerry Wilson's department in the late sixties, specifically by 1970... This was the Washington D.C. force that dealt with daily, weekly, and simply on-going disturbances in the capitol during an era when they got more on the job practice than any other force that I know of. They treated demonstrators with courtesy and every night did battle with the few embedded in every demonstration that wanted to fight in the street. It was a real education for me (I was a young soldier working part time each night as a security guard in the city so I got a front row seat to watch how they dealt with crowd control regularly).

Back to basics... tactics are far more important than equipment every time in life or death situations. Knowing when not to use a weapon might be more important than most would realize...

Finally, so much of police work is voluntary that any community that chooses to dump on its officers does so at it's own peril. If the officers on a given department don't believe that they will be supported by their community or the leaders of that community then they have more reason not to act than to act in any situation. Unless places like New York change their approach I foresee very bad outcomes for the folks that live there....

 

[joem1945]

My tactical retreat would be back steping while firing until mag is empty, then turn and run.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Back to the serious side of things...

Again, keep in mind this is NOT an LE board.

And ADEE is still the "school solution" here...

 

[lemaymiami]

One of the basics of officer survival training (as we taught it) was immediately moving to cover (something that will stop a bullet....) if you come under threat... Standing your ground might be a good idea - but if it's not you'll be joining John Wayne and lots of other guys in the next world. You only get one chance at self defense -sometimes a quick gun response is the first priority -many times its not. That why we emphasized tactics over and over. In an ambush scenario going to cover might be fatal so you really must have your head up and be thinking the moment you perceive even the slightest possibility of a threat. After action reviews by all concerned were just one of the ways we constantly tried to improve our performance daily when my department finally began to move into a more modern training regime years ago. I'm betting that the best outfits today are constantly doing just that. For those on the line remember that you have to keep it up or you'll again fall behind with bad consequences.

Anyone in an armed confrontation (armed citizen or just an ordinary cop) will make mistakes. How quickly you recover from them and the lessons you learn (if you survive) will make all of us better over time. One of the big differences between an armed citizen and a police officer is that the cop will see many times more situations of all kinds than an ordinary citizen -so all of us can and should learn from their experiences...

I'm betting that, as already noted, that young officer in Ferguson will operate a bit differently if he ever returns to police work. I must say, that like many young guys on the street in uniform I made far too many mistakes in that area myself. I was simply very, very lucky to have good outcomes from most of my mistakes (many I didn't even realize until years later when I had learned more about staying alive and minimizing risk in confrontations - the best confrontations were the ones you avoided, period).

 

[xxjumbojimboxx]

I like this idea. In the recent media mob there's been quite a few deaths that could have certainly been avoided if the police just took a step back instead of forward.

 

[Flintknapper]

We as the police should not stop enforcing the law because the thugs or their apologists might complain -- but we should be smart when we enforce the law, and be safe when we enforce the law, to the extent that safety can be achieved in an inherently unsafe circumstance.

Specific to the incident involving Officer Darren Wilson:

Proper tactics can help avoid a lot of bad things.

Don't be in a hurry if you don't have to be in a hurry.
Tell dispatch where you are and what you're doing.
Wait for backup if you can.

These are all principles of "Officer Survival" that have been taught for 35 years.

I am still not clear about when Officer Wilson realized that he was possibly dealing with strong armed robbery suspect.

Trying to exit the vehicle and confront somebody when they're bigger than you and right on top of you is a bad idea. Especially when there are two suspects.

History would be different had officer Wilson broke contact, created distance, called for backup, and re-approached when he had more help.

There was one cop and two suspects. If they were going to fight or run, either way he needed more help and there was no particular reason in this instance to be in a hurry.

Officer Wilson could've been disarmed and shot because he prematurely engaged a suspect that was a lot bigger than he was, and then we'd be mourning a dead cop.

Had he waited for more help and done things differently, there might have been a foot pursuit and at the end of that , if Mike Brown had resisted arrest he would've been possibly batoned or maced or tased and then taken into custody and nobody in the rest of the world would even know about the incident because it was totally routine and common with no significant negative outcomes.

There are some few occasions where the police have to go in feet first and guns a blazin' to rescue somebody or to apprehend a violent and dangerous criminal, but in most places events requiring that kind of response are unusual.

Part of the art of police work is knowing when you have to charge in and when you don't have to. And usually, making that determination is not that damn hard . . .

There is no reason to put yourself at risk if there is not a compelling reason to do so. As a Law Enforcement Officer, there is no reason to be significantly more aggressive in your enforcement than your department or your prosecutor or your citizenry will support.

The police may be, for a time and depending upon location, in an era where the law enforcers have to be somewhat more risk averse than they were previously.

Maybe it isn't right, but it is the reality in many situations, and we need to figure out how to operate the best we can, depending on our location and our situation.

^^^^^^^^^^

Very well said (and reasoned) Sir!

I wish every person in every police department were this astute.

Good Job!
__________________

 

[herrwalther]

During severe civil unrest, police cannot be everywhere and take down every crime being committed. They can't even do that during calmer times and normal crime. Police must prioritize the protected areas during situations like Ferguson and the LA Rodney King riots. Gas stations, political buildings, municipal services etc are more likely to be attacked during civil unrest than businesses or homes.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Sounds like a big picture take on the "out numbered, out gunned, out of there . . ." course of action that was at least discussed in my academy. Not sure how I feel about the whole concept, but I've never been at ground zero in a major riot situation.

 

[RustyShackelford]

cowardness vs risk mitigation....

My point is the precident it sets nationwide for how sworn LE officers respond to calls or how use of force/lethal force incidents may be viewed(investigated).

I think these retreat SOPs could be a crutch or abused by cops who are timid or risk adverse.

About 3 weeks ago, my city's PD fired a police officer for avoiding 911 calls or waiting up to 45min to get on scene.
When I first moved to my area in 2000, the county sheriff repremanded a sworn deputy for cowardness in how he handled a 911 call for service.

Law enforcement or armed citizens should be mature or prudent but they cant be risk adverse or timid.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Law enforcement or armed citizens should be mature or prudent but they cant be risk adverse or timid.

I have to take exception to that statement.

LEOs are required not to be overly risk averse or timid - they must confront situations from which non-sworn, armed citizens are justified (if not legally required) in retreating.

ADEE is still the school solution and the best approach in many situations for the armed citizen. Where the armed citizen is concerned, the best way to win a fight is to avoid it whenever possible. If that means adopting 'the Nike defense' or 'the Michelin defense,' so be it.

The caveat still is that laws regarding justified self defense vary from state to state, and it is incumbent on the practitioner of armed self defense to be fully conversant with the law in his or her jurisdiction, as well as being prepared to clearly articulate the reasons for adopting the course of action he or she took in a given situation. The courtroom IS NOT the place to get your legal education regarding self defense law.

 

[Schwing]

I don't think you can really pass any kind of judgement on LEOs unless you have experienced a riot first hand. There is nothing quite like it.

I was living in Neuss Germany back in the 90's and was caught in the middle of a riot between several hundred Kurdish protestors and the police. I had been avoiding the protest area as much as possible but it was about 100 feet from my flat and I got caught right in the middle of it on my way home. When the bottles and rocks and fists started to fly, I nearly pissed myself and don't remember running faster in my life. Man did that thing escalate out of nowhere!

Granted, I was in my 20's at the time and had never experienced anything like it but it gave me a lifelong sympathy for the LEOs who charge into those situations to restore the peace. Cowardliness or timidness does not describe the officers who deal with this crap.

 

[Apachedriver]

Law enforcement or armed citizens should be mature or prudent but they cant be risk adverse or timid.

I have to take exception to that statement.

LEOs are required not to be overly risk averse or timid - they must confront situations from which non-sworn, armed citizens are justified (if not legally required) in retreating.

ADEE is still the school solution and the best approach in many situations for the armed citizen. Where the armed citizen is concerned, the best way to win a fight is to avoid it whenever possible. If that means adopting 'the Nike defense' or 'the Michelin defense,' so be it.

...

Fred, I'm missing something. Where's the conflict between ADEE and the statement you quoted above?

Isn't an armed citizen exercising maturity and prudence by employing ADEE?

To choose to become armed and exercise ADEE = proactive reduction of risk exposure. That's risk mitigation, not risk aversion.

To avoid a fight is equally as important as developing a fight plan before escape becomes an unviable option. Timidness contradicts those actions.

 

[Fred Fuller]

LEOs are required not to be overly risk averse or timid - they must confront situations from which non-sworn, armed citizens are justified (if not legally required) in retreating.

'Driver,

The above covered it, I thought. LEOs have to move forward in situations where doing such would be judged escalation etc. if done by an armed citizen. Sworn LEOs work under a much different set of rules of engagement than armed citizens.

 

[RustyShackelford]

rules and conditions....

This is part of my point.
The "rules" seem to be chaning. All across the USA.
Cops may not stop or investigate suspcious characters because they might need to go hands on or have a use of force event.
This to me, seems like it could create new legal problems or present a major hurdle to 2A supporters & ccw holders.

If you can watch the recent event in Ohio or maybe wy, where a patrol officer is shot repeatedly with a .22 single action. The cop answers a domestic call, trys to do a field interview on the male subject who as he exits a house keeps his hand on a revolver in a winter coat.
The officer asks the male to show both hands then the guy draws & fires the single action revolver. The patrol officer died on scene. His body camera was released to the media.

This patrol officer made a few big mistakes in my view but if he fled or avoided the call it might of been worse.

 

[Ankeny]

...I can see where perhaps some situations should be treated like forest fires...

I'll take that analogy a bit further. In the wildland arena we base our levels of engagement on an acronym that we took from the military. The acronym is DRAW-D. Defend, Reinforce, Advance, Withdraw, Delay. Choosing the right level of engagement is serious business because the stakes are so high. In 1994 I was on a small fire in Colorado not far from the South Canyon Fire. I watched the smoke column rise as 14 firefighters died in the firey inferno on Storm King Mountain. On June 30, 2013 I was working at the incident command post of the East Fork Fire in southern Colorado when we received news of the deaths of 19 firefighters on the Yarnell Hill Fire. Those fires were events with high consequences. Riots, etc. are also events with high consequences. For that matter, a felony stop is a high consequence event. What we need to remember is the decision makers in both of those fires were highly experienced professionals, making the best decisions they could make, with the information they had, in a changing and dynamic environment. Perhaps the same is true of the decision makers during the Ferguson riots.

How any emergency services organization handles a significant event, be it a riot, looting after a flood, demonstrations, etc., not only hinges on the consequences of the event, it also depends on the frequency of the event. In the case of the fatal fires that I mentioned, the incident management teams, firefighters themselves, etc., were frequently called upon to manage expanding incidents and large scales fires. The fires were high consequences/high frequency events, but things still went drastically wrong. I wonder if the incident commanders at Ferguson were managing a riot that was a high frequency event for them, or was it a low frequency event with high consequences? I don't know.

Those of you who take interest in such things might be interested in some of Gordon Graham's work. If you hve 15 minutes to kill. Take a look at a presentation Gordon made to the fire service. What he has to say absolutely applies to the LEO community. In fact, Graham has 33 years of LEO experience. Here is a link: Gordon Graham

 

[Apachedriver]

LEOs are required not to be overly risk averse or timid - they must confront situations from which non-sworn, armed citizens are justified (if not legally required) in retreating.

'Driver,

The above covered it, I thought. LEOs have to move forward in situations where doing such would be judged escalation etc. if done by an armed citizen. Sworn LEOs work under a much different set of rules of engagement than armed citizens.

Fred, the statement you took exception to addressed both LEOs and armed citizens. I'm tracking with you on the LEO side of it. When I read it, It appeared you were taking exception with the armed citizen side of the statement and couldn't figure out why. That's all it was there.

 

[Fred Fuller]

When I read it, It appeared you were taking exception with the armed citizen side of the statement and couldn't figure out why. That's all it was there.

Sorry not to have been more clear...

 

[Deaf Smith]

"Tactical Retreat"
In short, in some events or volatile situations, sworn officers will now leave or regroup rather than engage aggressive or hostile subjects.

Sometimes I think it's a wise idea. Sometimes a poor idea. But always it's a political idea by their masters.

So citizens, you are on your own (as John Farnam would say.)

Prepare accordingly.

Deaf