Militarization of Police.

[Kirkhill]

Speaking of which. When I first came to Kingston in 2004 you used to see officers walking the beat all the time. Then the got rid of them for some reason and the only time you saw them was them cruising along in their SUVs. But now they seem to have brought them back - saw two officers walking down Princess Street yesterday.

Could you say, in the interest of fashion and in the immortal words of Sonny and Cher - "The Beat Goes On!"

Leading Change.

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Interesting article that isn't about the militarization of police forces in the United States, but how the creator of "killology", David Grossman and how he has influenced policing in the United States:

  “Are You Prepared to Kill Somebody?” A Day With One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers

The dark vision of “killology” expert Dave Grossman.

Mar/Apr 2017 Issue

Bryan Schatz

Marching around the stage in a theater in Lakeport, California, Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman tells his audience that they shouldn’t go out looking for people to kill, because those who need killing—the “gangbangers,” terrorists, and mass murderers—will come to them. All they need to do is be ready. “Are you prepared to kill somebody?” he asks me and the small group of “armed citizens” who’ve paid $90 or more to see him. “If you cannot answer that question, you should not be carrying a gun.”

Two hours into his high-octane, six-hour seminar, the self-described top police trainer in the nation is just getting warmed up. Grossman, a 60-year-old former Army Ranger, wears low-slung blue jeans, an ornate Western belt buckle, and a black button-up emblazoned with the words “Grossman Academy,” the “O” stitched like a bull’s-eye. He sports a military haircut. Onstage are two giant easel pads, their legs taped to the floor so that they don’t go crashing down whenever he hits them to punctuate his points. “We fight violence. What do we fight it with? Superior violence. Righteous violence.” Like a preacher, he doesn’t bother with notes.
In the era of Black Lives Matter, Grossman insists that cops must be more, not less, prepared to use force.

Over the past two decades, Grossman has achieved semi-celebrity status as an authority on aggression, close combat, and the psychology of violence. He literally wrote the book on killing, On Killing. His books have been translated into several languages and he says they are required reading at the FBI Academy and many law enforcement academies. He’s lectured at West Point and claims to have conducted trainings for every federal law enforcement agency, every branch of the armed forces, and cops in all 50 states. For more than 19 years, he’s been on the road, leading seminars and trainings nearly 300 days a year. He has a black belt in Hojutsu, the Japanese art of shooting. (Grossman did not grant my request to attend one of his police trainings, nor did he agree to be interviewed.)

Grossman’s philosophy grew out of the two decades he says he spent training soldiers to kill more efficiently. The military has long taught its troops to kill through a process of conditioned response—aim, shoot, aim, shoot—that’s meant to override the part of the brain that asks, “Should I be doing this?”

By refining this approach, Grossman and others claim, the US military boosted its kill ratio—the percentage of frontline soldiers who actually shoot to kill—from between 15 and 25 percent during World War II to as much as 100 percent during the Vietnam War. (These figures and the scholarship behind them have been fiercely debated.) Grossman takes this a step further. Rather than simply conditioning soldiers and police officers to shoot without hesitation, he teaches them to embrace their responsibility to kill. “Killing’s not the goal,” he cautioned in a 2004 interview with Frontline. “But we all understand that killing is the likely outcome.”

Grossman calls his discipline “killology“—”the scholarly study of the destructive act.” Though he spent years as a soldier, he has never killed anyone in combat. And while he is a luminary to many in law enforcement, the “warrior” mentality he espouses is under fire. As Black Lives Matter has exposed the prevalence of police abuses and the confrontational attitude that often sparks them, Grossman continues to insist that cops are the ones under siege and that they must be more, not less, prepared to use force. “The number of dead cops has exploded like nothing we have ever seen,” he tells the armed citizens in Lakeport. (That is not true: The average annual number of police officers intentionally killed while on duty in the past decade is 40 percent lower than it was in the 1980s.) If emergency medicine and body armor hadn’t improved since the 1970s, Grossman claims, “the number of dead cops would be eight times what it is” today. It’s not clear how he arrived at these figures.

Grossman says, “The number of dead cops has exploded like nothing we have ever seen.” That is not true.

Last summer, after a black man named Philando Castile was shot and killed during a traffic stop outside Minneapolis, it was revealed that two years earlier the officer, Jeronimo Yanez, had attended “The Bulletproof Warrior,” a two-day training taught by Grossman and his colleague Jim Glennon. Shortly after this came out, the sheriff of Santa Clara County, California, which includes San Jose, canceled an upcoming Grossman training, saying her officers were meant to be “peacemakers first and warriors second.”

Grossman’s trainings are “fear porn,” says Craig Atkinson, a filmmaker who attended one for his documentary on police militarization, Do Not Resist. He wonders how the Castile incident might have played out if Officer Yanez hadn’t heard “Dave Grossman tell him that every single traffic stop could be, might be, the last stop you ever make in your life.” Grossman is “more of a motivational speaker than a trainer,” says Seth Stoughton, a former cop and law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies the regulation of police. In Grossman’s worldview, Stoughton says, “the officer is the hero, the warrior, the noble figure who steps into dark situations where others fear to tread and brings order to a chaotic world, and who does so by imposing their will on the civilians they deal with.” This approach to policing is outdated and ineffective, says Stoughton, and, “some of it is dangerously wrong.” Samuel Walker, a criminal-justice professor and expert on police accountability, says the “Bulletproof Warrior” approach is “okay for Green Berets but unacceptable for domestic policing. The best police chiefs in the country don’t want anything to do with this.”

Glennon has said that the reporting on his and Grossman’s police seminars is inaccurate. “The word ‘warrior’ has been hijacked by people in order to prove their false thesis, that law enforcement officers are training like military warriors, which is to shoot first, ask questions later; that everybody’s out to kill you, so you better kill them first. And there is absolutely zero truth to that in our course, none,” he told a Minnesota newspaper after the Castile shooting.

The booklet Grossman hands out at his civilian training contains some of the same content that cops receive. There are charts and tables on “perceptual distortions in combat” and “combat efficiency.” A section titled “Thou Shalt Not Kill?” lists Bible verses that distinguish between justified killing and murder. Grossman does tell us that “oftentimes in police training, the right answer is not to shoot.” But he quickly pivots back to his message that right behind the police, gun owners are the “front-line troops” in his war. (The fact that there hasn’t been a homicide in rural Lakeport since 2002 doesn’t slow him down.)

“Hacking and stabbing little kids! When you hear about a day care massacre, tell them Grossman said it was coming!”

Onstage, Grossman comes off as both unglued and also quite sincere. He emphasizes the need for firearms training, and his voice cracks when he talks about the “slaughtered children” in school shootings. “This is not right. These are just kids,” he says. “Never lose your sense of outrage over this.”

But he also views the world as almost unrecognizably dangerous: a place where gang members seek to set records for killing cops, where a kid “in every school” is thinking about racking up “a body count.” His latest book, Assassination Generation, insists that violent video games are turning the nation’s youth into mass murderers. The recent wave of “massacres” is just the beginning. (“Please stop calling them mass shootings!”) He smacks the easels: “These [thump] crimes [thump] are [thump] everywhere!” He foresees attacks on school buses and day care centers. “Kindergartners run about point-five miles an hour and get a burst of about 20 yards and then they’re done.” It won’t just happen with guns, but with hammers, axes, hatchets, knives, and swords. His voice jumps an octave: “Hacking and stabbing little kids! You don’t think they’ll attack day cares? It’s already happening in China. When you hear about a day care massacre,” he shouts, “tell them Grossman said it was coming!”

That’s not the end of it. “More people are signing up with ISIS than we can count,” Grossman says. He predicts a terrorist organization will soon detonate a nuclear bomb off the West Coast. “We have never been more likely to be nuked, and we have never been less prepared!” Terrorists will send “suicide bio-bombers” across the border to spread deadly diseases. “The day will come,” Grossman insists. “Folks, it is very, very bad out there!”
Grossman is already prepared for the worst—even in the quietest of moments. He tells us a story: One night he was walking with his three-year-old granddaughter and his German Shepard around a lake near where they live. He was armed, “of course,” with a gun and a knife. The sky darkened, and his granddaughter looked up. “There are scary things in the dark,” she said. Grossman chuckled. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s us.”

Link

 

[dapaterson]

Grossman has dons more damage to policing than any other "intellectual", bar none, turning policing from a community engagement mindset into a kill or be killed mindset.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Grossman has dons more damage to policing than any other "intellectual", bar none, turning policing from a community engagement mindset into a kill or be killed mindset.

Maybe he just read a little too much Richard Marcinko as a lad and thought that was the real shit.

 

[Remius]

Really enjoying this thread.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I am enjoying it, too. It has been really thought provoking and I really appreciate the candid input from the serving LEOs.

 

[Underway]

I saw Grossman once.  I was the lone sailor with all the army.  It was like going to an Amway convention or seeing an Evangelist.  Being prepared to pull the trigger and worshiping at the altar of battle are two very different things.  Some of the other more intellectual army folks I was with were a bit concerned by it as well.
That being said his book "On Combat" was quite good, though much of it was just reiterating Gwynne Dyers book "War".


That's why ROE is so important, and at the time (circa 2009) there was so much emphasis on the "Strategic Corporal" (no idea if that's a thing anymore).

 

[brihard]

Grossman has dons more damage to policing than any other "intellectual", bar none, turning policing from a community engagement mindset into a kill or be killed mindset.

Having seen one of Grossman’s presentations, and read both On Combat and On Killing, I don’t take away much at all of what’s presented in that opinion piece. He doesn’t go out and advocate using force where not appropriate; he doesn’t advocate that people consider force in lieu of other more appropriate options. His training and theory focuses mostly on the psychological factors that stand between a properly socialized human being, and being able to perform effectively in a fight for their life. Absolutely he cultivates a ‘warrior’ mindset (within the ‘sheepdog’ context that he’s helped popularize), but it’s generally about being able to win and survive if a fight of that degree of seriousness takes place. From what I’ve seen and read and where I sit, his perspectives have a very valid place in cultivating a survivor mentality in people who likely will face serious dangers in their profession. His observations on the psychology of use of force are valid and useful in the context of training to win a fight when one should find you. That’s definitely still a reality police face.

Yes, Grossman must be understood, like most such speakers, to be somewhat of a ‘brand’, and there’s a bit of sensationalization in his pitch- but it doesn’t make the bulk of what he says on the training and preparation psychology front out to lunch.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I saw Grossman once.  I was the lone sailor with all the army.  It was like going to an Amway convention or seeing an Evangelist.  Being prepared to pull the trigger and worshiping at the altar of battle are two very different things.  Some of the other more intellectual army folks I was with were a bit concerned by it as well.
That being said his book "On Combat" was quite good, though much of it was just reiterating Gwynne Dyers book "War".


That's why ROE is so important, and at the time (circa 2009) there was so much emphasis on the "Strategic Corporal" (no idea if that's a thing anymore).

I turned down an offer to attend one of his presentations, to the surprise of the very senior officer who made me the offer who seemed just a bit too smitten in that ‘teenage girl with a ticket to the concert’ kind of way.

Anyone who sets themselves up as a missionary of ‘killology’ is clearly either not of sound mind, or a ruthless peddler of gun porn fantasies to those occupying the ranks of a disadvantaged underclass.

And I read his book, which just might be another reason why I discovered that my dance card was full.

 

[PuckChaser]

I saw Grossman once.  I was the lone sailor with all the army.  It was like going to an Amway convention or seeing an Evangelist.  Being prepared to pull the trigger and worshiping at the altar of battle are two very different things.  Some of the other more intellectual army folks I was with were a bit concerned by it as well.
That being said his book "On Combat" was quite good, though much of it was just reiterating Gwynne Dyers book "War".


That's why ROE is so important, and at the time (circa 2009) there was so much emphasis on the "Strategic Corporal" (no idea if that's a thing anymore).

You think maybe your job colours your perspective? Those Army folks might actually have to take a human life at ranges close enough to hear that individual's final breath instead of firing armaments at a faceless steel box. I've read both of his books and not once got the feeling I was being preached at to encourage contravention of ROE.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I think there's a world of difference between trying to psychologically motivate, or manipulate depending on your views, young soldiers to fix bayonets, close with the enemy and stick him in the guts, and pumping a cop up to go do his job. If a member of LE feels that everyone not him is the enemy to be dealt with, there's a problem. Even I as a run of the mill, a bit larger than average, white dude would not enjoy being viewed automatically as someone who needs to be controlled and dominated. Let's talk, if I escalate then feel free to escalate right the fuck back, Grossman seems to want cops to view me as a threat just for not being him. That's ungood.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I've read his books and heard him speak.

One big take away that I continue to use is the mindset that you're never out of the fight. None of that oh I'm shot with a blank I'm dead, I'm going to lay down BS. It's always someone being wounded and continuing to fight (plus first aid).

Lots of other stuff, not so much.

My father was a corrections officer. He retired a while ago but he still acts like the general public are inmates and has this huge us vs them complex. I've seen the same mindset in some of his friends.

We can't have our police promulgate this us vs them, police vs the public mindset.

When the public laments about militarization of the police I think they get fixated on cops using military looking rifles, military looking uniforms, armored vehicles. That may be some of the equation but I think there's more; specifically that close with and destroy the enemy mindset I talked about.

Maybe the way the military handled investigations during Afghanistan could be an example.
The few times I've had ROE with people hurt on the other end I was immediately investigated. Called in for questioning, witnesses got questioned, whole 9 yards.

Stories like this are part the problem.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/transit-police-officer-still-employed-9-years-after-brutal-beating-caught-on-camera/ar-BB15tkTe

internal probe on Aug. 22, 2011, and despite a six month time limit for Police Act investigations to be completed, the process continues to drag on.

Acting like infantry bad / completing investigations closer to 9 days rather than 9 years good.

 

[quadrapiper]

Absolutely he cultivates a ‘warrior’ mindset (within the ‘sheepdog’ context that he’s helped popularize), but it’s generally about being able to win and survive if a fight of that degree of seriousness takes place.

How worrisome does everyone find the "sheepdog" thing? Taken on its face, it's concerning both in a military and a policing context, given the sheepdog both protects and herds the sheep, but certainly doesn't take direction from them.

Incidentally, I'm struck by FJAG's (I think) comment re: Custer's opponents, and similarities with the National Guard's totemic Minuteman: both turning out to see to enemies as required.

Will take a moment to put the boot to "warfighter:" nothing deep to add, but despise it and just about every other US mil coinage, plus their dire capitalization of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, etc. Oh, and adding a plural "s" to training; don't know who's to blame for that one, but it really grates. Not sure why.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Interesting article that isn't about the militarization of police forces in the United States, but how the creator of "killology", David Grossman and how he has influenced policing in the United States:

Link

Interesting sure, but pretty much what I expect to see in an opinion piece coming from a motherjones.com writer.  I would imagine Mr. Schatz entered the talk with a preconceived finish and as expected confirmed his own bias.

Other articles by Mr. Schatz
https://www.motherjones.com/author/bryan-schatz/

I have read "On Killing".  It’s not radical, in fact I found it dry and I think I figured out the sumation in much less time than was required to read the book. Not saying Mr. Grossman is perfect but I doubt a well-educated man like himself is the snake oil peddling devil Mr. Schatz seems to think he is.

 

[Underway]

You think maybe your job colours your perspective? Those Army folks might actually have to take a human life at ranges close enough to hear that individual's final breath instead of firing armaments at a faceless steel box. I've read both of his books and not once got the feeling I was being preached at to encourage contravention of ROE.

Fair question.  At the time I was deploying with C Coy 2nd Battalion PPCLI, so my job at the time was full-on army. I read the mans books and tried to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable time when I needed to pull the trigger. Or beat someone to death.  Or stab them. Or bite their throat out. There was no way in hell I wasn't coming home to my kids if I had anything to say about it. I tried to understand the various psychological aspects of tunnel vision and the biological responses to violence etc... 

What coloured my perspective perhaps was the fact that I wasn't "brought up" so to speak in the army/regimental culture.  I found their glorification of violence distasteful.  And Grossman (in person) played to that glorification.  He knew his audience was all military.  It spoke entirely of Evangelism and selling a brand, and less about professionalism.  Or perhaps its because I'm naturally a questioner/devils advocate and don't trust salespeople.

 

[PuckChaser]

What coloured my perspective perhaps was the fact that I wasn't "brought up" so to speak in the army/regimental culture.  I found their glorification of violence distasteful.  And Grossman (in person) played to that glorification.  He knew his audience was all military.  It spoke entirely of Evangelism and selling a brand, and less about professionalism.  Or perhaps its because I'm naturally a questioner/devils advocate and don't trust salespeople.

I haven't heard him speak before so maybe he does have a little showman in him. It also might be more of a national military culture difference as well. I've found our infantry folks are a little more focused in their ability to control/channel their aggressiveness to solely military tasks/missions where the US culture tends to create the same aggressiveness but in a less socially calm way. We've all seen/heard the anecdotes of Marines getting into brawls all the time where for us its either kept real quiet or those brawls are the exception not the rule.

 

[Underway]

I haven't heard him speak before so maybe he does have a little showman in him. It also might be more of a national military culture difference as well. I've found our infantry folks are a little more focused in their ability to control/channel their aggressiveness to solely military tasks/missions where the US culture tends to create the same aggressiveness but in a less socially calm way. We've all seen/heard the anecdotes of Marines getting into brawls all the time where for us its either kept real quiet or those brawls are the exception not the rule.

I would say as well that "Killology" is considered a pseudo-science by many on par with anti-vaccine activism.  For the most part its a bunch of confirmation bias, unprovable hypothesis and generally incompatable with the scientific method.  Not sayings some of the things he advocates are not useful, of course, they are.  But much papered over or ignored.  His video game stance for example has been disproven dozens of times, but he still clings to it.

 

[Haggis]

I've seen Grossman speak and read his books.  They were, to a degree, enlightening ("On Combat" more than "On Killing").  Of the seven tactical principles taught to LE in Canada, the one I struggle with the most is the so-called  "Survival Mentality". One can survive a gunfight and end up permanently disabled because the aggressor was unable or chose not to finish you off.  I prefer "Winning Mentality" or "The Will to Win".

A better book for LE is "Deadly Force Encounters" by Alexis Artwohl, PhD and Loren Christensen.  This one goes into detail about the psychological effects an officer may undergo during a deadly force encounter (no, not an original idea from Grossman).  Equally, it also addresses the organizational/institutional response to those encounters.  That section was enlightening and shocking at the same time. Read in conjunction with my own agency's SOPs on critical incident response, it helps one better understand why the SOP is what it is and how it could be applied to me in a given situation.

 

[mariomike]

I get the mobility.  But visible?  Sure for the 30 seconds they drive by.

Pretty hard to miss a marked car. Whether parked conspicuously at Walk / Don't Walk, or doing a slow patrol.

It can be more difficult for busy departments with high call volumes to clear calls. Officers on foot patrol may not necessarily be available for 9-1-1 calls requiring a quick response time. Also, a car can carry equipment that a foot patrol cannot.

Not to say foot patrols are of not use. They are. But, they have limitations. 


I think you have a better chance of "bugging out" in a car. This happened to NYPD the other day,
https://twitter.com/NYC911/status/1272338966818193409

Imagine if they had been on foot!

If foot patrol types spent that much time watching TV then that’s a reflection of their work ethos not of the effectiveness of visible presence patrols where they can actually interact with the community.

Hey! Down  ready time is sacred! Just kidding. Sort of.

We hosted many foot patrols. I imagine the firemen did too. Never seemed in any particular rush to get back on the street from what I recall. Far from it.

Maybe a good compromise would be to mandate the officers get out of their cars for a half hour each day for foot patrol. That way, they can run back to the car if they get a call.

 

[Remius]

So when the untrained eye looks at a picture like the one from this article.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/16/us/protest-wrap-tuesday/index.html

It’s hard for someone not to think that the police are not being militarized in the US.