Although I attempt to stay off of Facebook as much as possible, occasionally one of my FB friends will post something and I will be compelled to respond given that it piques my interest especially as it relates to the world of Reality Based Training.

Today, David Williams, a fellow trainer and former LEO, commented on the Mike Brown shooting with a Youtube post. It was a thoughtful comment regarding the actions of the officer at the center of the cyclone. David posted the following …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67MkjnZVmXU

I pretty much concur with David’s narrative IF this was indeed what happened – from beginning to end. However all of the evidence is not in and won’t be for quite some time so I try to not get caught up in speculation and hyperbole. In my view, though, it is unquestionable that you should be able to (and should actually) shoot some giant thug beating you and trying to take your gun. What concerns me is the “then what”. In scenario training, I see this all the time. In situation after situation I observe a justifiable initial action and then an unjustifiable continued action. Again, I am not saying this is what happened in the Brown shooting, but if it did it is yet another example of something I see all the time. Hence, I teach my trainers to observe such situations and then experientially walk the student beginning to end through what happened utilizing a Socratic debrief method which asks the questions at each stage “what did you do? why did you do it? can we DO that? If so, why? If not, why not?” We then re-run the scenario again (and again and again and again if necessary) until the actions are what I call “six o’clock news ready”.

I then saw the following report which adds some narrative that counters some of the early witness statements that Mike Brown was no longer a threat after he had initially been shot. These reports suggest that after beating on the officer in his car, Brown in fact continued to be the aggressor.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/08/168698-eyewitness-recalls-important-detail-background-video-mins-ferguson-shooting/

This paints an entirely different picture from the initial media narrative that the “gentle giant” was unarmed and gunned down by the police. As stated earlier, without all the facts, rushing to judgement is simply a bad idea. And yet again a rabid media has done just that. The officer in question was all but convicted hours after the shooting in the court of public opinion. Responsible journalism is all but a thing of the past these days and I hope some day the media is somehow held accountable for its complicity in so many instances. There was a day when reporters did just that … report. Editorialization was left to the editorial page. But that is not what this post is about …

From a training perspective this situation raises some interesting questions and allows us, as trainers, to question our training methods to ensure we are being as effective as possible in optimizing future performance. Remember, you will never rise to any occasion but rather sink to the level of your experience. And that experience needs to ensure that even in training all of your experiential learning is geared towards the magic balance between both Justification and Necessity especially when it comes to lethal force.

There have been a number of high profile shootings where initial actions are fully justified and justifiable, whereas some of the actions beyond the initial actions are not … and will be viewed by the community as excessive. Much of this stems from what one of my Master Instructors Rick Furr describes as “fighting with emotion instead of intellect.” I recently read a poignant phrase for which I will research the source … “the wind of anger blows out the candle of intellect.” Again, trying to stay away from pre-judging this situation without all the facts, I will say that following any initial gunfire in a fight for your life situation, if there is no longer IMMINENT danger, then continued gunfire will get you in trouble. If there IS still imminent danger, then it will not. Early witness accounts suggest that the Brown shooting was justified, but following the initial shooting after Brown was distancing himself from the officer additional shots were fired. This is where all of the heat is going to be generated in the ultimate narrative of this incident.

Now, as reported in the IJR story above, there is a counter position to that narrative. The story continues to take shape moment to moment and day by day.

Unfortunately there is no video footage that we know of to indicate what happened beyond the initial struggle at the car, and so that will be filled in by witness accounts which are traditionally unreliable as far as ascertaining actual facts are concerned. I’m sure many of those witnesses will tell the “truth”, but truth ain’t fact. It’s subjective. Some of those witnesses may not tell the truth as a means of fanning the fire or “getting” the police. This will serve to further inflame the situation and polarize the community. Either way, this situation is bad and it’s bad for lots and lots of reasons and creates a further divide between society and its “guardians”.

One thing is for sure … if agencies are not utilizing EFFECTIVE reality based training to prepare INDIVIDUALS (read that as training that is tailored to teaching and testing people at their own level rather than the conventional assembly line, time constrained approach that most agencies use) then situations such as this are going to be much more common as tensions heat up around the country. There are 4 things that an officer can ultimately do in ANY situation – no more, no less .. they can Talk, they can Fight, they can Shoot or they can Leave – with the lubrication on those four gears being Ponder. And it is a fluid and ever changing dynamic as to what they OUGHT to do from moment to moment. If you are Fighting when you should be Shooting, there will be consequences. If you are Shooting when you ought to be doing any of the other three, there will also be consequences. Whether or not you see this situation as tragic or a judicial act of righteousness really doesn’t matter. What does matter is the asymmetrical response on all sides to this polarizing incident, and once again the law enforcement community is being scorched by the resulting flames. No bueno. For anybody.