Fear

Perceptual Distortions May Occur: this phenomenon manifests itself most often with time distortion. You may have heard your colleagues describe a situation, a fight or gun battle. They'll tell you that it seemed the gunfight or the altercation went on for several minutes, when in reality, it may have lasted only several seconds. This is commonly referred to as the slow motion effect.

Understanding fear, and, more importantly, what our response to fear should be, is simply another item in our bag of officer survival tools. If you are not prepared to handle fear, it can lead to panic and indecision. Every second counts in a critical situation. More often than not, we find ourselves in a reactive mode, always having to wait for the bad guy to act first. If we can train ourselves to react appropriately to all of the possibilities we may face, we can at least put ourselves on a level playing field with the bad guy, thus ensuring that we will be going home that day. And when all is said and done, that is ultimately our goal... going home to our families.

Stay safe, brothers and sisters!