FINISH THE FIGHT

Manchester PD Ofc. Ouellette’s point of view seconds before shooting a suspect armed with a knife

A couple weeks ago I wrote about some things I noticed during a recent active shooter training I conducted. One of the things I noted was a tendency for Officers to talk on the radio when they should be doing something else, like stopping the threat. Today, I saw this article on Police1.com and watched the body camera video from the incident. As I was watching the video I couldn’t help but think, “this is a real world example of what we saw in active shooter training”.

If you haven’t watched the video, go watch the video and then come back. There are (unfortunately) quite a few good training points to be had from watching this video. I’m going to limit this article to a discussion about radio traffic.

Handling domestics by yourself sucks. Especially when one (or both) party starts getting combative. And without knowing exactly what Ofc. Ouellette saw, heard and knew before she entered the apartment it’s hard to draw completely accurate conclusions on what went right and what went wrong. I’m going to assume, for the sake of this article, that she had enough information to justify the need to go into that apartment alone. As you see in the video, things could have gone horribly wrong had the suspect decided to stab her with that knife.

At this point we know she saw the knife because she puts that info out on the radio.

So let’s talk about radio traffic. Once she exits the apartment and let’s everyone know about the knife, I think all of her radio traffic after that until she fires her last shot is unnecessary. By the time the suspect exits the apartment, she has already told her backup to, “step it up” and that he’s armed with a knife. I don’t know about Manchester PD, but the guys at my PD would be hammer down to get there as fast as they were able. I doubt MPD is any different. How does the additional radio traffic benefit her or the situation?

We have a limited amount of mental bandwidth to use in a situation like this. Why waste some of that bandwidth on useless radio chatter? We need to make sure we train our officers to focus on the WIN principle. What’s Important Now. Right now, being prepared for him to come out and charge is important. Finding a better place to be when he comes out than standing out in the open would be important. With that in mind, let’s look at her first three shots.

First shot

After her first shot, she actually drops her left hand off her pistol to talk on the radio. While she’s firing shots 2 and 3.

2nd shot

3rd shot

After shooting the 3rd shot, she gets her left hand back on the gun and fires 5 more shots. After shot 8 the suspect goes down. He was hit once in the thigh/hip area. This is where radio traffic becomes important again. Letting everyone know the suspect is down and a medic is needed falls into the W I N category.

So when might radio traffic become important before the fight is finished? In this case, there was relatively little movement from the original call location. Had there been more movement (foot chase, etc.) then getting on the radio to update your position may be important. Or maybe the dynamic of the fight changed (he produced a gun and took cover). But it should be something significant.

Radios have become somewhat of a “tactical woobie” for some Officers. Police trainers, starting with Academy Instructors and continuing with Field Training Officers, need to break Officers of this habit. Not every Officer is going to be as lucky as Ofc. Ouellette.

Some of us are old enough to remember words of wisdom from Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez (if you don’t, search for Tuco Ramirez quotes). To paraphrase Tuco – “When you have to fight, finish the fight. Don’t talk.”