...and for part two from Force Science...
Now in this final installment of our 2-part series we discuss additional
conclusions regarding edged-weapon defense, namely:
3. For many officers and situations, a 21-foot reactionary gap is not
sufficient.
4. Weapons that officers often think they can depend on to defeat knife
attacks can't be relied upon to protect them in many cases.
5. Training in edged-weapon defense should by no means be abandoned.
Here's what FSRC's executive director and selected members of the Center's
National and Technical Advisory Boards have to say on these topics:
3. MORE DISTANCE. "In reality, the 21-Foot Rule--by itself--may not provide
officers with an adequate margin of protection," says Dr. Bill Lewinski,
FSRC's executive director. "It's easily possible for suspects in some
circumstances to launch a successful fatal attack from a distance greater
than 21 feet."
Among other police instructors, John Delgado, retired training officer for
the Miami-Dade (FL) PD, has extended the 21-Foot Rule to 30 feet.
"Twenty-one feet doesn't really give many officers time to get their gun
out and fire accurately," he says. "Higher-security holsters complicate the
situation, for one thing. Some manufacturers recommend 3,000 pulls to
develop proficiency with a holster. Most cops don't do that, so it takes
them longer to get their gun out than what's ideal. Also shooting
proficiency tends to deteriorate under stress. Their initial rounds may not
even hit."
Beyond that, there's the well-established fact that a suspect often can
keep going from momentum, adrenalin, chemicals and sheer determination,
even after being shot. "Experience informs us that people who are shot with
a handgun do not fall down instantly nor does the energy of a handgun round
stop their forward movement," states Chris Lawrence, team leader of DT
training at the Ontario (Canada) Police College and an FSRC Technical
Advisory Board member. Says Lewinski: "Certain arterial or spinal hits may
drop an attacker instantly. But otherwise a wounded but committed suspect
may have the capacity to continue on to the officer's location and complete
his deadly intentions."
That's one reason why tactical distractions, which we'll discuss in a
moment, should play an important role in defeating an edged-weapon attack,
even when you are able to shoot to defend yourself.
"When working with bare-minimum margins, any delay in an officer
responding to a deadly threat can equate to injury or death," reinforces
attorney and use-of-force trainer Bill Everett, an FSRC National Advisory
Board member. "So the officer must key his or her reaction to the first
overt act indicating that a lethal attack is coming.
"More distance and time give the officer not only more tactical options but
also more opportunity to confirm the attacker's lethal intention before
selecting a deadly force response."
4. MISPLACED CONFIDENCE. Relying on OC or a Taser for defeating a charging
suspect is probably a serious mistake.
With fast, on-rushing movement, "there's a real chance of not hitting the
subject effectively and of not having sufficient time" for the electrical
charge--or for a blast of OC--to take effect.”
Lewinski agrees, adding: "A rapid charge at an officer is a common
characteristic of someone high on chemicals or severely emotionally
disturbed. More research is needed, but it appears that when a Taser isn't
effective it is most often with these types of suspects."
Smug remarks about offenders foolishly "bringing a knife to a gunfight"
betray dangerous thinking about the ultimate force option, too. Some
officers are cockily confident they'll defeat any sharp-edged threat
because they carry a superior weapon: their service sidearm. This belief
may be subtly reinforced by fixating on distances of 21 or 30 feet, as if
this is the typical reaction space you'll have in an edged-weapon encounter.
The truth is that where edged-weapon attacks are concerned, "close-up
confrontations are actually the norm," points out Sgt. Craig Stapp, a
firearms trainer with the Tempe (AZ) P.D. and a member of FSRC's Technical
Advisory Board. "A suspect who knows how to effectively deploy a knife can
be extremely dangerous in these circumstances. Even those who are not
highly trained can be deadly, given the close proximity of the contact, the
injury knives are capable of, and the time it takes officers to process and
react to an assault.
"At close distances, standing still and drawing are usually not the best
tactics to employ and may not even be possible." At a distance of 10 feet,
a subject is less than half a second away from making the first cut on an
officer, Lewinski's research shows. Therefore, rather than relying on a
holstered gun, officers must be trained in hands-on techniques to deflect
or delay the use of the knife, to control it and/or to remove it from the
attacker's grasp, or to buy time to get their gun out. These methods have
to be simple enough to be learned by the average officer.
Two techniques that bear reinforcement are illustrated in the well-known
training video "Surviving Edged Weapons", for which Gary Klugiewicz was a
technical consultant. One is a deflection technique called Sweep and
Disengage. The other is a tactic for controlling the attacker's weapon
hand, called by the acronym G.U.N. (Grab...Undo...Neutralize).
Stapp strongly believes that training in edged-weapon defense should
prepare an officer to deal psychologically with getting cut or stabbed, a
realistic probability with lag time, close encounters and desperate control
attempts. "Officers need to be trained to continue to fight," Stapp says.
"They will not have time to stop and assess how severe the wound is. You
don't want them in the mind-set, 'I've been cut, I'm going to die.' They
must remain focused on stopping the attack, taking out the guy who is the
threat to them."
Checking yourself over for injury after the offender is subdued is
important, too, Klugiewicz says. "Some survivors of edged-weapon attacks
report that they were not aware of being cut or stabbed when the injury
occurred. They thought they had just been punched and didn't realize what
really happened until later."
5. TRAINING. "Assuming it is presented accurately and in context with the
many variables that shape knife encounters, the 21-Foot Rule can be a
valuable training aid," Lewinski says. "As a role-playing exercise, it
provides a dramatic and memorable demonstration of how fast an offender can
close distance, and it can motivate officers to improve their performance
skills."
Experiment with it and you may conclude, like Delgado, that 21 feet is not
enough of a safety margin for your troops.
You might also use 21-Foot Rule exercises to test tactical methods for
imposing lag time on offenders in order to buy more reaction time for
officers. These could range from using or creating obstacles (standing
behind a tree or shoving a chair between you and the offender) to moving
yourself strategically. You're probably familiar with the Tactical L, for
example, in which an officer moves laterally to a charging offender's line
of attack. With the right timing, this surprises and slows the attacker as
he processes the movement and scrambles to redirect his assault, and gives
the officer opportunity to draw and get on target.
Lewinski favors a variation called the Tactical J. Here, instead of moving
90 degrees off line, the officer moves obliquely forward at a 45-degree
angle to the oncoming offender. "This tends to be more confusing to the
suspect and requires more of a radical change on his part to come after
you," Lewinski says. "But the timing has to be such that the suspect is
fully committed to his charge and can't readily adjust to what you've done.
That takes lots of practice with a wide variety of training partners."
If nothing else, training with the 21-Foot Rule will help officers better
estimate just how far 21 feet is. Without a good deal of practice, most
can't accurately gauge that distance, Lewinski says, and thus tend to
sabotage appropriate defensive reactions.
Don't forget, though, that most edged-weapon attacks are "up close and
personal." That means training must include effective empty-hand-control
techniques, close quarters shooting drills and weapon retention. "We need
to develop the ability to draw our sidearm, get on target and GET HITS
extremely fast," while moving as a diversionary measure if possible, says
Stapp. "Close-range shooting--under 10 feet--will most effectively be
accomplished when an officer has developed the ability to get on target 'by
feel,' without using his sights."
Lewinski also recommends drills to imprint rapid reholstering techniques.
Reholstering may become necessary if there's a sudden change in threat
level--say the offender throws his weapon down and is no longer presenting
an imminent threat justifying deadly force--and the officer needs both
hands free to deal with him.
There's little doubt that the "knife culture" and related attacks on
officers are dangerously flourishing. Edged-weapon assaults are a staple of
the news reports of police incidents. Recently an officer in
New York City was slashed in the face during a fight that broke out on a
man-with-a-gun call...in Ohio, a state trooper fatally shot a berserk
motorist who charged him with a hatchet...another offender, who called 911
in Pennsylvania to report he was having a heart attack, ended up shot 13
times and killed after commands and OC failed to stop him from lunging at a
trooper with a chain saw...in Calgary (Ont.) a blood-soaked man waved a
bloody butcher knife over his head and charged at constables who responded
to a domestic...a suspected rapist attacked a Chicago detective with a
screwdriver after luring him into an interrogation room by asking for a
cigarette...in the reception area of a California prison, an inmate serving
time for trying to kill a cop stabbed a correctional officer to death with
a shank...in Idaho, an out-of-control teenager punched holes in the walls
of his house with a 15-inch bayonet, then turned on a responding officer
with the blade and sliced his uniform before the cop shot him....
"Given today's environment, rather than draw back on edged-weapon training,
officers and agencies should be expanding it," Lewinski declares.
"Edged-weapon attacks are serious and should be taken seriously by
trainers, officers and administrators alike. Finding out what works best in
the way of realistic tactical defenses and then training those tactics as
broadly as possible has never been more needed."
FSRC is currently involved in additional research on the dynamics of
edged-weapon confrontations and plans a major report on its findings before
the end of this year.
