So, by now perhaps some of you have seen this:
Okay. I’m gonna be honest. Obviously I’m not a police officer; but if I were, I might have gotten a liiiiiiiiittle bit nervous when the motorist, Levar Jones, “dove head-first back into [his] car,” as the Officer Sean Groubert explains in an effort to justify the use of deadly force. My anxiety level probably would have hiccupped, I admit.
How…e…ver…
I know that guy, Levar Jones. No, not personally. I’ve never met him in particular. But I swear, he is damn near half the guys I went to college with. He’s a lot of my friends. He’s my brothers. He’s my nephew. When he zipped himself around and leaned into his car, I’m assuming Officer Groubert translated that body language as something like, “Let me get my gun and off this f*cking pig before he locks me up.” But to me, Jones’ body language conveyed something very different. To me, that nervous, fidgety spin and reach (after patting his pockets) was code for “Oh sh*t, I’ve been pulled over! Wait, where’s my license? Let me hurry up and get it before this cop thinks I’m being non-compliant!” That’s what many of my friends and relatives would have been thinking. That’s what they’ve often said to me when recounting interactions with police: a frantic, desperate, life-or-death race to over-comply as quickly as possible, before the cop suspects non-compliance.
I used to feel the same way. I distinctly remember in my teens and 20s being pulled over and hustling to strategize on how not to get shot by the police officer. No joke — that was my actual goal during a traffic stop. Literally. I’d look in the rear-view mirror and begin a focused planning process. Get it together, Tiff. You’ve got about eight seconds to minimize the odds that this guy will shoot you. It was a harrowing experience, with all the drama of a Hollywood suspense thriller. Everything would suddenly go into extreeeeeme sloooooow moooooootiooooon. All sounds would be muted except for my own heartbeat and belabored breathing (replete with cavernous echo). A gratiutous bead of sweat would fall from my temple (in slow motion of course) and hit my arm with a reverberating thud. Then a cacophonous chord of off-key strings would wail to a high-pitched crescendo, just like in the horror flicks…. The whole shebang. And all the while, this ominous avatar of unhappy endings approaches my car with torturous deliberation: a heavily-weaponized herald of woe. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
And that was when I encountered police by myself. If my brothers or male friends were in the car, oh. Multiply the terror by a thousand. By ten thousand.
I don’t feel that way any more, for several reasons. First and foremost, I’ve now met and gotten to know a lot of police officers. I’ve trained with them and been trained by them. And after a few building-clearing exercises with simunitions, I can say I’ve had the ocassion to enter an unknown space where anything could happen. And I was scared. Out of my mind. I thought the adrenaline was going to burst right through my skin. And that was just training! Despite my dread, I knew deep down it was all pretend and I wasn’t going to die. So I can’t even imagine the real-life version.
Anyway, that experience gave me just a nano-smidgen of what police must feel like when they encounter a total stranger in an unpredictable situation, especially with all the craziness in the world today. I have since learned some simple things I can do to help put officers a bit more at ease — not because I fear they want to shoot me, but just because I’d hate to visit that feeling of terror on some poor bloke who’s just trying to do his job. After all, it’s not his fault I was speeding.
But here’s the rub. My nephew, my friends, my brothers — most of them haven’t had that experience. So when they get pulled over, in their mind this situation is balanced on the edge of a knife. In the interest of not getting shot (or arrested or beat up), they are soooooo anxious to comply that a quick movement is misconstrued. And the southward derailment that they were so desperate to avoid suddenly befalls them, as it did for Levar Jones (whose apology for being shot nearly reduced me to tears).
There are evil, hateful people in the world. But I think far more often folks are just afraid. Everybody’s scared. It’s a powder keg. And whether it’s a race thing or a culture thing or a generational thing or some other thing is really less important than the ultimate fact that all too often we simply speak different languages. There’s just got to be a better balance struck between caution and paranoia, and that goes for civilians and law enforcement. It breaks my heart that so many people who I love are afraid of the police. It also breaks my heart to hear Levar Jones pleading for an answer to one question: “Why did you shoot me?”
I’ve got more to say on this. But at 850 some-odd words, I better stop for now…
I have a hard time seeing this as anything other than a utter failure in training. If this officer had either conducted the interview portion of this interaction differently (asking “Do you have your driver’s license?”, then asking “Where is it?”, then asking would you get it for me please?”) or had confidence in his shooting ability and tactics he could have moved to cover (or if no cover was available, created distance) drawn his weapon and been ready to get on his sights and get good hits quickly he could then have managed the encounter without shooting and wounding an unarmed man.
Greg Ellifritz (http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/) has spoken of training officers as they come on shift using AirSoft pistols to give them iterations of drawing and making “shoot no shoot” decisions. I’ve no idea how often he does this, or how he structures the exercises, but having frequent training in drawing a weapon and then verbally engaging with them and making the call to shoot as the situation evolves. I don’t like the thought that the firearm is the best tool to solve problems with (while recognizing that it is the only tool for solving some problems), but many cops need a LOT more training in the use of firearms beyond square range training and annual qualifications.
Without knowing anything about this officer I can’t second guess his motivation. Assuming that his intent wasn’t malicious, I have to think that if he’d had confidence in his ability to get good fast hits he would have held his fire until he saw what Mr. Jones was doing and this shooting would have been avoided.
Thanks for chiming in, Hal! I’ve never trained with Ellifritz but I hear nothing but great things about him. Of course I have no police training and wouldn’t pretend to know anything about police protocol, but as a layperson it does seem to me that the “interview” portion of this encounter was far from stellar.
I could probably write an essay on this but will keep it succinct. LEO are people every bit as imperfect as the public they serve. This was a disaster of an officer involved shooting and were I an IA Detective or attorney I’d be reviewing every in car camera or booking video involving the trooper in question.
Maybe I’ll get to read that essay one day, SportPilot!
We spend an enormous amount of time in our concealed carry classes trying to teach our students how NOT to get shot by police officers. This video sickens me because it graphically demonstrates that our concern about officers shooting civilians is not misplaced. I advise all students to keep their hands visible, to avoid rapid and sudden movements, to be polite, and let the officer choreograph encounter. But why has it gotten to the point where I have to give this advice to very nice and law abiding citizens? Why are police officers pointing loaded weapons at non-suspect citizens like they were in Ferguson? Why do citizens like both you and me DREAD encounters with police officers? Maybe the digital age simply allows all of us to see abuses which were going on all along. But at the risk of alienating some of my police friends (as an officer of the court I have a lot of close police friends) I truly believe there is an increasing dynamic of “us versus them” in police agencies. Maybe this a result of the lack of civility we are seeing in our society. I know one thing for sure though – the officer in this video is extremely lucky I am not going to be on the jury trying his case.
Add to that the sad fact that “good cops” are not newsworthy (even though they vastly outnumber “bad cops”), and the tensions rise even further with every click of the remote.
I once read that one of the worst things urban law enforcement ever did was abandoning foot patrols and putting all officers in cars. It creates a huge disconnect between officer and the public. I work for a fairly rural Sheriff’s Office and we encourage our deputies to get out at the remaining country markets on a regular basis to stay in touch with the public they serve.
I suspect that would’ve worked wonders for my perspective growing up…
Hi Tiff,
The question is why you, your brothers and acquaintances felt that way. Was it that the community in which you live(d) programmed you to feel that way? One flaw in some Officer Safety training is that every scenario is a lethal force scenario, thus programming officers to be quick on the trigger (it was the only way to survive in their training). I would speculate the trooper’s action was a product of his training.
Ah! Mike, your question is a perfect one. And perhaps deserving of its own post. But for now, suffice it to say that I think your instincts are right that it had a lot to do with conditioning. But it wasn’t a complete fantasy. It was perhaps a bit of real, negative, personal experience mixed with a lot of media-perpetrated distortions and misperceptions. Then sprinkle on the fact that few of us really knew any police, let alone had any insight as to their motivations or the nature of their jobs. Remember, I once thought all guns were bad too. It wasn’t until I actually saw one up close that things began to change.
I remember this one perfectly for two reasons: (1) My son in the Air Force lives in this area, and (2) it’s a perfect example of what I call Patrolling While Scared. I am officially one of the Old Guys now and the time I spent in some specialty units, especially Narcotics, gave me plenty of hands on (no pun intended) experience with lots of people not happy to see me and my coworkers. These experiences led to me being more tactically savvy and drove home the importance of being in condition for physical encounters. Having confidence that I can handle a situation lets me place using a firearm last on the options list, after the other options have been exhausted. When I see these guys unload on someone for twitching during police contact I think here’s another case of Scared Cop Syndrome.
Makes sense to me….
I like your term scared cop syndrome. It fits many of the videos I’ve watched. The cop is scared shitless; you can hear the panic in their voice. Some is due to poor training and procedures. Some are simply unsuitable for the job.