Editor's note: Through the end of the year, we will be posting a series of articles that focus on common-sense officer safety. Use them for briefing and squad meetings, and send them to everyone you know who wears a badge. AND make sure you sign up for the FREE Below 100 Webinar on Monday, December 16 at 1400 EST.
For most law enforcement families, holidays require adaptation. My wife, children and I squeezed in our Thanksgiving dinner about mid-afternoon the day before the holiday, between a court appearance and mandatory overtime. Sitting at the table listening to my children’s stories and jokes made me keenly aware of how much I have to be thankful for.
Over the last couple years, I have met and talked at length with several extraordinary surviving family members whose officers were killed in the line-of-duty. As I enjoyed time with family, my thoughts drifted to those survivors and the circumstances that took their loved ones’ lives. Although some of those deaths were due to circumstances outside the control of anyone in law enforcement, many would have been prevented if only the five basic tenets of Below 100 had been followed. I prayed and gave thanks for those I was surrounded with and reaffirmed my own commitment to remembering and sharing the five tenets of the Below 100 Initiative in order to prevent as many families as possible from joining the ranks of those survivors.
Later that same evening, a second event occurred that further reinforced this commitment, when I stopped home briefly during my shift. As I went to leave again, my six-year-old son (the youngest of our three kids) ran outside into the cold to catch me before I backed out of the driveway. He was in such a hurry that he had not even stopped to put his shoes on. He ran up to my squad car on the cold concrete, and as I opened the driver’s door, he climbed up onto my lap, carrying a picture he had drawn for me. It read, “Dad, I love you. We are thankful for you because you are a police officer.” After one last hug and a kiss, he ran back inside the house as I returned to work.
I spent the next few hours with other officers attempting to locate a subject wanted on multiple felony warrants. As we “shook the bushes” for him, I had a bad feeling in my gut—call it a sixth sense—that everything would not go smoothly. Every time I went to get out of my patrol car to check another location or conduct another knock-and-talk on his acquaintances, my eyes were drawn to the picture my son had given me, lying on the passenger seat. I briefly considered the irony of other officers finding that picture if I were to be killed or seriously injured that night. My gut feeling caused my awareness to be heightened and my level of caution to be greater than normal.
With the Christmas season upon us, and the end of the year rapidly approaching, it’s more important than ever that we improve our awareness and accountability with regard to those behaviors that leave us particularly vulnerable:
• Driving 100-plus mph to catch up to a minor traffic violator headed the opposite direction in the name of making the roadways safer.
• Choosing to go without armor because you “aren’t planning on getting in a gunfight today.”
• Failing to wear your seatbelt because it “slows you down when you’re going after the bad guy” and you somehow believe that you’re immune from the laws of physics.
• Ignoring well-known tactics and procedures that have been repeatedly proven to save officer lives simply because your choices have never hurt you before.
There are so many inherent risks in law enforcement, why create more? It’s time to get real and get serious about officer safety.
It’s also time to have that courageous conversation with the officer that needs to hear it. Don’t sugarcoat the possible consequences. In Below 100 training, we often suggest a simple yet effective tactic to use when you encounter an officer who refuses to follow the five tenets. Hand the officer a pen and piece of paper. Then ask him or her to write down the answer to this question: “What do you want me to tell your family when you die?”
Ultimately, we did not find the wanted subject that night but we developed some intel on his whereabouts and travel patterns. It’s possible that he might have been hidden nearby watching us search for him. If so, I hope that our tactics were enough of an indication of our preparedness that he chose to stay hidden rather than try his luck challenging us.
