Part 1 of a 2-part series

By George T. Williams

Pursuing the bad guy, whether on foot or in a vehicle, is part of the job. How many times has a call seemed “normal,” yet quickly turned chaotic by a sudden assault, the suspect fleeing (armed or possibly armed), with officers pursuing? In every mobile incident, there is the ever present potential of deadly ambush. As multiple responding officers flood the scene piecemeal, tactical errors can begin compounding. As the response gets less and less controlled, the more chaotic it appears. When the suspect forces the officers to desperately respond with force, injuring or killing him, officers may have already been injured or murdered.

Beyond the immediate physical threat to you, there are significant post-incident administrative, criminal, and civil liability threats. There will certainly be multiple videos of the incident, each capturing a version of the events. The videos of the incident will not have your perspective of the suspect’s actions. These videos will be intensively reviewed in detail by your agency, as well as by the local, state, and/or federal prosecutors. As we are increasingly seeing, prohibitions of 20/20 hindsight may be ignored. These videos can outrage people with no knowledge of policing, who then passionately drive subsequent events.

The chaotic nature of mobile incident response often provides easy criticisms when individual officers respond without acting in concert with others – leading to real consequences post-incident. The question, pre-event, is how to conduct a safer, more defensible and professional resolution to these difficult, dangerous problems. In this time of hostile scrutiny and great career peril, balanced against a greater need to more safely respond to highly threatening suspect behavior, it boils down to “tactical integrity.”

Tactical integrity can be defined as consciously synchronizing the application of safety principles and methods of the individual officer within the whole response to accomplish the task presented in the moment. It requires attention to detail under pressure, which, in turn, requires control of one’s emotions. Upon arriving, the individual seeks relevant work within the context of the response. Each individual officer takes responsibility for his or her moment-to-moment actions in plugging gaps and supporting other officers’ efforts. Tactical integrity results from acting intentionally and purposely, the way you were trained, while avoiding an individualized effort to simply stop the bad guy.

Tactical integrity is being officer-focused rather singularly suspect-focused. Tactical errors result from officers intensely focusing on trapping, cornering, or capturing the suspect with little or no concept of how their individual actions are negatively affecting the overall response. There is a lack of notice of what is going on around them and how they are endangering everyone’s safety. In suspect-focused decision-making, an officer acts as an individual, despite other officers on-scene, concentrating on getting immediate access to the suspect, to be the one to make the physical arrest, to single-handedly handle the call. For example, how many times have we seen a dangerous suspect finally proned out, then eight or ten – or more – officers surge forward in a mob, all competing to put hands and knees on the now compliant suspect, rather than two officers professionally emerging to take him into custody? Another example is at the end of a vehicle pursuit with officers racing up to either side as well as the front and rear of the stopped vehicle, handguns pointing in crossfire, multiple officers yarding the suspect out of a window rather than methodically taking him into custody via a known-risk traffic stop.

Policing is now, mandatorily, a team sport. It always has been, but the current societal environment demands consistent functional team effort by police. Acting as a team requires conscious awareness of how one fits into the overall response.

Being exclusively suspect-focused increases the danger to officers. It results in crossfire positioning (where armed officers are facing each other with the suspect between them), officers shouting conflicting orders (rather than realizing another officer is already giving orders and only one police voice should be heard), officers charging or converging on a suspect’s position with firearms in-hand (instead of commanding the situation from distance, calling the suspect to come to them, then taking him into custody from cover), and shooting too rapidly for the distance and size of the target (rather than firing consciously and deliberately , effectively hitting the suspect).

The “Building Search Rule” is integral to tactical integrity: “Spend 50% of your efforts hunting the suspect, and 50% preventing the suspect from hunting you.” Whenever in a situation where there is a possibility of responding with force, consider your every movement vis-à-vis the suspect. Tactical integrity results from constantly evaluating your choice of position and actions within the overall police response in the context of the suspect’s capabilities, mobility potential, and apparent intentions.

Who is this suspect? Based on his prior or present actions, is he apparently willing to inflict injury? An aggressive armed suspect with military training or history of violence who’s mobile requires a different tactical response than a 5-foot, 10 inch, 350-pound drunk with a knife who’s pissed off at his wife, standing in his driveway.

What is the suspect’s mobility or is there a possibility of flight? Consider whether this situation has the possibility of going mobile, either by vehicle or by foot:

— Will his moving increase my vulnerability or ability to effectively respond?

— If the suspect is in a vehicle and decides to flee, how will I deal with that, especially if I am in front of the vehicle or in the swing of the driver’s door?

— If he’s in a vehicle and flees, are the suspect’s crimes so violent that it’s worth the threat of potential tragedy to the public and police to pursue?

— If armed and on foot, do I chase him to physically contact him or begin setting a perimeter for a K9 search?

— Can I legally shoot to stop him per Tennessee v. Garner (1985) and agency policy?

What are the suspect’s capabilities? This includes weaponry, vehicle, location, cover, proximity, etc. A suspect running down a sidewalk with a handgun versus a fleeing driver armed with a scoped rifle disappearing on foot into a heavily wooded, brush-filled area require different responses.

What are the apparent intentions of the suspect? Cops aren’t mind-readers but are permitted to infer apparent intentions from statements and actions by others. For example, an assault with a deadly weapon (knife) suspect who led officers on a high speed, very dangerous vehicle pursuit, finally is stopped. From his crime and extremely reckless driving behavior, it doesn’t take much imagination to believe that this individual may attempt to drive over any officer who steps in front of the vehicle while pointing a handgun at him. Simple but vital assessments are forgotten by suspect-focused officers whose sole intent is stopping the suspect rather than focusing on his or her own actions in safely capturing this dangerous criminal.

READ PART 2: Crucial questions to ask yourself every time you have a firearm in hand.