Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions

Everyone loves a statistic to prove an opinion, so I'm going to make one up.  I'd like you to correct me if I'm wrong:

It's been proven that across all sworn law enforcement, less than 15% of LEOs train consistently in the following areas:

-Defensive Tactics (including BJJ, boxing or any other martial art)

-Firearms

-Fitness

-General Job Skills

Ergo, all previous episodes are moot.  85% of LEOs have no interest in development.  So, let's aim an episode at y'all - love y'all too :)

Today I will discuss how to not get beat up, killed or in trouble if you're unwilling to physically and mentally train.  It's ok, and "we listen and we don't judge."  But if you're not going to get fit, learn to fight and shoot, let's discuss how to stay safe.

LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Good morning. It's Leo. I have recorded well over 100 episodes, most of which are on officer development and learning. From developing your mind, the Fourth Amendment comes to mind, to developing skills, having jujitsu instructors on, jujitsu, I was going to say black belts, but I think he's a brown Preston Russ, having, you know, doctors on that talk about health and basically changes that you as people and officers can make that will help you to succeed in your career and personal life and stuff like that. So let's talk about the other 80% of us. Most officers, I think if you look at your shift, most agents, I don't care what agency you're in, if you're not on a specialized unit like SWAT, most of your team is not consistently training jujitsu, fitness, running. If you look at your standard patrol shift and you break it down into percentages, I would bet 20 to 30% are consistently doing dry fire, jujitsu, and fitness, and being the important part, probably less than 20%, probably 10%. So there's some critical skill being neglected. So today's episode, I'll be talking about if you're in, I would say the 40 to 50% that is just not going to train, whatever that reason may be, whether it's sheer laziness, whether it's time constraints, you got stuff going on like all of us. You know, I did an episode on discipline, oh, you got to make time, Jocko, David Goggins, all this shit. Uh, some of us just aren't going to make that time. And most of us are not going to do it consistently. You may have a condition, you may have a thyroid condition where you take a medication and that makes you gain weight and keep it on. Whatever the reason, you're not going to work out, train jujitsu, and dry fire. You're not going to do any of those. And if you look at your shift and close those eyes for a second and reflect, that's probably at least half your shift. They're going through on a hope and a prayer that they win a gunfight, that they win a fist fight. They generally win because, you know, they were athletes in high school or something. So you can win the fight. But you're just not going to train and try to develop further. You're not going to go to a Fourth Amendment class. You're not going to go to search warrants and affidavits. You're just not going to put that effort in. So let's talk about the physical side of how to survive a career where you're going to get in some fights, where you're going, you may get in a shooting, and you're going to get in some foot chases. And how to survive that if you're not going to train. So that's okay. I think Dave Chappelle once said modern problems require modern solutions. So let's talk about the solution if you're in that 60 to 80% that is just not going to train. But I mean, honestly, as a cop, if you get into a lot of fights and scuffles, you get decent at it just through practice. You know, the practice during normal police operations. You've been in some fights. And, you know, when people fight the police, or str usually, what is it, 98% probably, they're just struggling to get away. They're not throwing punches at you. I think most cops, if you talk to them, haven't been just punched in the face. Their experience, usually when I say fights, is somebody scrambling to get away, maybe shoving them, maybe wrestling them on the ground, but not trying to beat them into submission, take their gun and kill them. So let's get into it. Man, one of the biggest things is just wait for backup. And, you know, I taught I've talked a lot about how to lose weight. There's also the officers that need to gain weight. I'm sure you've seen the pictures online. I've met them just extremely skinny. You know, if you're under 120 pounds, regardless of gender, or if you're a 140-pound dude, a lot of these guys can just sling you around. So you just need to wait for backup. When I was supervising, I had an officer that would consistently not wait for backup on calls that she should have been waiting for backup on, which there's officers on every shift that do that, right? There's a fight in progress at the mall and it says 10 people fighting. And there's we all know the officers that go into that alone. And it's like, I'm not waiting. There's a fight going on. I got to go stop it. And a lot of time the fight just breaks up or you pepper spray people, but what if it doesn't? And what if they continue fighting and you try to break it up and somebody tosses you or something? So I'm talking about the officer that can't handle that. She would go to these calls alone and show up. One was a shoplifting in progress at a Walmart. She showed up alone, and the guy, like, there was like a little display stand full of basketballs or something in between them. She approached him and he started like, you know, a little kid when you have an island in your house and they're like running around the island trying to stay away from somebody. It was kind of like that. The only thing is, once she caught him, he shoved her and she took flight and she hit her head on some like freezer that they had for sale on sale right there. Luckily, there was an off-duty cop there and he boomed the guy and got him held down until backup got there. But she did this twice in two weeks and got injured. And it got to the point that I went to her. But I'd already asked her to stop at that point. I think I said something like, Hey, you can't fight. Like, you're not good at fighting. So I need you to stop going to scenes where you're going to get in a fight, because I don't want you getting your ass kicked. One, because respect, I don't want you to get your ass kicked. But also, I mean, it sounds a little callous, but I have to manage a shift. And if you're always out on injury because you're creating jeopardy and then getting your ass whooped, then that's a problem. So the second time it happened and she had to miss work within a month, I forget what the other one was, but it was it was another one where, you know, you're supposed to have two officers there, but she went alone and got hurt again. And I was like, hey, I'm gonna write you up next time. I don't want that. But stop getting your ass kicked. So moral of the story, have backup if you need backup. I know it creates exciting stories where you're ill-equipped and your confidence outweighs your competence, but stop doing that. Screws over your shift, screws over yourself, screws over your supervisor. Let's talk fighting. I know I said this is for the people that aren't gonna train, but a lot of time if you can master the basic wrist lock and reverse wrist lock, which is pretty much equally easy, but if you can learn a joint manipulation, I mean, let's go to sports. There's pro athletes that have one skill in their toolbox, but they're so fucking good at that skill that they can use it at the professional level. So consider yourself a professional. Learn that one skill. If you got a jujitsu freaking purple belt on your shift, go to them and go, hey, can we spend like five minutes a couple days a week developing a wrist lock? Because if you start tussling with somebody and you have a quality wrist lock, you can slow down the situation. Like to stay with sports analogies, if you're defending in soccer, you just want to slow down a good player until your support gets there. That's like the name of the game. Defend Cristiano Ronaldo and lunge in at him and try to win that fight immediately. He's just gonna go by you, right? But if you can slow him down, then your team will get there and get behind you and block him when he tries to shoot it in. So it's the same thing. If you can get a good quality wrist lock and get them on the ground in a wrist lock, you don't, and you've got backup coming. Time is now on your side. They're in a little bit of pain, they're under your control, and you can just kind of relax and stay there. It's awkward, but you might have to wait three minutes. Hopefully, you're not way out in the country and waiting 40 minutes. I spoke with Chappie about the 70% of officers that are like one's north side county, one's south side county. Like I've never experienced that. But yeah, hopefully you can just restrain somebody and learn to control. But long story short, learn one move if you can stomach that. It'll it'll be a very little very low amount of training, and you'll develop a wrist lock. I could teach somebody a wrist lock right now in two minutes, and then they'll have questions and they'll mess up the mechanics of it, and I could tweak it to where they could use it on the street within three minutes of training, five days in a row. Literally. It's that easy. So just develop that one skill if you can. Learn to use your tools. One of the best tools you can use, learn to use is hinged handcuffs. Man, I carried them, and it doesn't matter how strong you are. If I get one hinged cuff on and I turn that thing, I rotate it, people just go to the ground and the fight usually leaves them. I would crank it on as tight as I could and then just rotate. And people, people go down. It's a built-in joint manipulation. It automatically manipulates the wrist and elbow. So get yourself some hinged cuffs if they're allowed. I think everywhere they are and learn to use them. And then obviously you have the other tools. Uh that's going to require knowing your policy for when you can pepper spray somebody, when you can hit them with the baton, which I've never done. But pepper spray wins fights. And, you know, I did the less lethal episode where I talked about you don't have to rush in right after you pepper spray. If you're either fat or skinny, if you're weak in some way physically and you can't fight, it's okay to pepper spray and wait. And I think Sun Tzu in the Art of War said you need to know yourself, know your enemy and know yourself. And if they look pretty fit and you know you're not, go on and rush in that fight if you want and just hope that they don't want to knock you out. Another tool in your toolbox is your words. Can you talk them into handcuffs? I spoke in a recent episode about traffic stop where I got consent from a guy, and then he had a gun and a big bag of crack and some money and I think a scale right underneath the drink console in his car. And I went back and I conned him into handcuffs. He was much bigger than me, respect to Alfredo. He was a large man, and I think he could have whooped me. I was in decent shape at the time. This was a long, this is like 15 years ago, but I think he could have whooped me based on his build. And I didn't want that. So I told him I was gonna handcuff him because I saw there were some cigars he'd been smoking in the car, and I was like, hey, is that weed? And he was like, nah, and I knew it wasn't weed, so I knew he wouldn't be paranoid about it. I was like, is that weed in those? He was like, no, that's just beadies, that's little cigars. I was like, all right, is it cool if I handcuff you while I break those down and see if it's green inside or brown? He was like, yeah. So use your words if they can whoop your ass. And if you don't train and you're out of shape, they can whoop your ass. So let's not put it up to chance as to if they want to. So I hope this helps somebody or you pass it on in jest to somebody on your shift that doesn't train. You know, if you're training five days a week, you're fine. As far as as far as gunfighting, again, you pick your battles. That goes for all these. If it's a car with four guys in it, you stop it and it feels wrong. It's okay to let that car go. I mean, if you got backup and they're good, solid backup, by all means handle that criminal. But if you're alone or your backup that you know is going to come is kind of dysfunctional and you're out of shape and they're out of shape, and neither of you dry fire, and these guys got murder in their eyes, it's okay to go, you know what, guys, y'all have a great day and let them go. So I know some citizens right now are listening, going, do cops really do this? Yeah, we're human. And the badge does not make you bulletproof. So if it feels wrong and there's five dudes with Playboy Serrano tattoos all over their face, and they're drenched in sweat, and they're all you got 10 eyes on you, and they're just watching you, and you're in a neighborhood where it's fucked up and thing can turn at any time, and you don't train, you you're gonna lose that fight. So I'm not trying to dash anybody's confidence, but I have seen a lot of officers who, as I said before, their confidence outweighs their competence. They're going into, and that's in every aspect. That's not just physically, but you do see it from people that are physically unprepared for a fight that shoot off at the mouth and they haven't had their jaw jacked. And uh it it goes for the mental side too. I've seen officers that are, we all have, that are totally confident in the Fourth Amendment. They say things like, I pulled everybody out of the car to search them for officer safety. And it's like, all right, you're very confident that you did the right thing and you're being tough. You're, you know, you're very developed in these two areas in shooting and fighting and fitness. I guess that's three. Put fighting and fitness together. They usually kind of go hand in hand, but you are not developed in understanding of the law. You are overconfident, and it is illegal to pull everybody out of the car for officer safety and search them. That's not a legal standard. So they have a hole in their development. Although I was trying to mainly focus on the physical side, it goes across the board. If you're not going to develop on your understanding of how to get consent, that same stop on that guy, Alfredo, I was a backup officer. And the officer that had done the traffic stop, he asked me to get consent. I know he wasn't super comfortable with it. Maybe it was because he didn't really understand the legality of when is it a coercive consent and when is it a legal voluntary, that is a legal, not illegal. When is it a legal and voluntary consent? And how do you build that? And I give respect to him if he recognized, hey, Leo, he gets it. Like he goes to classes on this. I got a good feeling about this, stop. And oh, my voice just cracked. And I want this to stick. So that comes again to using your backup. So if you can't fight, call for backup. If you and if you're not gonna fix it, call for backup. Try to avoid getting in a gun battle. Show up to calls with a partner. And if you don't know the laws and policies and you're not gonna read them, I mean, don't engage in a vehicle pursuit if you haven't read the vehicle pursuit policy. That's what I would say. Because if you don't know, I mean, there's some simple things. There were very simple things with ours that could get you hemmed up, such as I don't think this would get you hemmed up, but the secondary vehicle is the one that's supposed to be calling out the pursuit. Pursuits are happening fast. So if Leo starts a pursuit and Johnny is my backup officer, as soon as he's behind me, I'm supposed to shut up and focus on driving safely. And Johnny is supposed to take over the radio traffic. So if that's the policy and you don't know it, more likely than getting hemmed up, you're just gonna show up as the secondary to join in that pursuit and you're not gonna start calling it out because you don't know what you're supposed to do. Or you're gonna be primary and you're not gonna shut up and you guys are gonna be talking over each other. And when you're going 80 miles an hour in residential zones and busting corners and there's a murderer in front of you, you need to know what the hell you're doing. So if you're not gonna study, try to avoid the action. End of story. Modern problems require modern solutions.