It is pretty much a truism of law enforcement that familiarity breeds complacency. At least it is when we're talking to police recruits during the academy. Many of us have spent a lot of time in academy classes trying to convince our new recruits to stay focused on the task at hand, not to get lazy or lax, and to pay attention to details.
Then they graduate. And then they become "experienced".
Oh, that doesn't happen overnight. At least, it doesn't really happen overnight. It's just that they start thinking of themselves as experienced. They get salty as we used to say.
However - and pretty interestingly, I think - they still manage to pay attention, and to stay focused. Because of that, they aren't generally the officers that are involved in training accidents. They also seem to be less likely to treat arrestees casually, and to make careless mistakes regarding searching and cuffing, and the like.
As they get a little more time under their belts, the danger of becoming complacent increases. Whether they get tired, or overconfident, or distracted, the result is sometimes tragically similar. Training accidents happen, or they misjudge a suspect and an officer gets hurt on the street.
Of course, it's nowhere near that simple. We can't generalize to the point of saying that this happens to all officers, because it doesn't. But it happens enough that we should keep thinking and talking about it.
Many officers go through their careers, remaining focused, paying attention to details, and staying careful. But even careful officers sometimes get tired, or distracted, or overwhelmed. If you look at accounts of training accidents, you will be struck by how often a combination of little things adds up to disaster. Someone follows all the safety rules, and then - for just a moment - gets careless, or distracted; and that's all it takes.
As you see the numerous dash-cam videos of arrests that now circulate through our profession, notice how often officers take suspects for granted. Watch how they stand too close, search unhandcuffed suspects, use casual car search positioning, or make any number of other tactical errors. Then realize that the reason you're seeing that particular video is because something bad happened, and someone started using it for training. Most of the videos we see are of situations gone wrong. Now multiply the ones that went wrong by the scores of incidents that didn't go wrong, but where you know many of the same mistakes were made. Realize that - for every situation that blows up - there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of incidents that could have gone wrong, but for the fact that a particular suspect decided not to make his or her move that day.
I am reminded of a particular video of a traffic stop from quite some time ago. In fact, because it was such an early video, back in the days when dashcams were pretty rare, and because it was so widely circulated, I'll bet many of you have a memory of it also. (We see so many of them today that they sometimes all merge into one collective memory - but some of the first ones we saw still stick with many of us.)
Tell me if you remember this scene: A traffic stop on a southern expressway. There were two suspects, and two officers. The driver of the suspect vehicle was standing casually with his hands on the hood of the patrol car, directly in front of the dashcam lens. An officer is standing next to him, on the suspect's left. Another officer is on the passenger side of the suspect's vehicle, with the door open, pointing his firearm into the open doorway, at the second suspect who has just announced that he has a gun. The officer is yelling at him, and trying to get him out of the car, ordering him to drop his gun, and telling him, "I'll shoot your ass!"
Remember it? Remember how, the first time you saw it, you watched the first suspect - the one with his hands on the car - as he stared at the back-up officer's revolver, which was a foot of so from his hand where it was resting loosely on the hood of the patrol car? Remember how the officer's holster was unsnapped, and the officer's full attention was focused on the action taking place up by the suspect's vehicle?
Remember how you just KNEW that the suspect was going to grab the gun from the officer's holster? Remember how you absolutely could not believe that he didn't go for it?
I remember this particular video as the "I'll shoot your ass" video. As it turned out, the one officer did shoot the passenger suspect, and the suspect driver did not go for the gun - but that's the least terrifying aspect of the video. The image that is positively seared into my memory is that of the second suspect staring at the back-up officer's gun, trying to decide if he should grab it, while the officer seems to be distracted, and oblivious to the danger.
Officers are human, and they're doing a risky job every day. Sometimes they work long hours, and sometimes they're forced to multi-task beyond reason. Given the nature of policing, and current budget issues, those things are not likely to change.
All it takes is a moment of inattention for disaster to strike. We can never allow ourselves to relax. As risk managers - which all of us in police work are - we know that we can only avoid so much risk. We can manage our risk exposures, and we can reduce the likelihood of bad things happening. But we also know that if enough of us do the job for long enough, bad things are likely to occur. The law of averages often catches up to us, despite our best efforts.
But we still have to try, every day, to stay as focused as possible, and to manage our personal risks the best we can. We need to pay attention to details. We need to work against complacency, for ourselves and for our partners.
Stay safe, and wear your vest!
