The following is an except from an article I wrote a number of years ago on the topic of imagery versus visualization. I would like to revisit this issue by sharing my thoughts from the article: There are a number of scientific theories about how the human mind processes information. One prominent premise, as evident in a great number of books on sports psychology, is that the mind processes information in pictures. In these publications the reader is encouraged to use visualization techniques by closing their eyes and seeing or picturing themselves in their mind’s eye performing some … [Read more...]

In July I had the great fortune to attend the Force Science Institute five day certification course in Calgary. This course was attended by over 70 law enforcement trainers and investigators and was a result of the efforts of Staff Sergeants Darren Leggatt and Chris Butler of the Calgary Police Service. Darren and Chris are dedicated professionals who had attended the Force Science Certification Course the previous fall in San Jose. Having seen the value of the program they worked tirelessly to bring the course to Calgary. The September 28 issue of the Force Science Institute newsletter … [Read more...]

Before we leave the topic of CEWs I need to address two more training gaps / unintended consequences I have observed in CEW training:   The failure to expose officers to drive stuns. The failure to train weapon retention and disarming with CEWs.   Lets start with exposure to drive stuns. Too often the only expose officers observe or experience in training occurs with proper probe deployment to the torso and results in full body lockup. Combine this with the number of times officers have watched someone being rendered unconscious with a drive stun on television and the … [Read more...]

In the first two parts on this series of posts on CEW training I talked about the importance of failure drills and placement of CEW training in the overall recruit training program. Today we will address some issues concerning exposing officers in training. Now there is a lot of controversy around whether or not officers should be exposed to the CEW during training. Personally I feel there is little benefit to continuing to expose officers they way it has traditionally been done. What I am referring to here is where either the probes are shot into the officer or simply taped onto the … [Read more...]

In the previous entry we talked about the need to incorporate failure drills with the CEW in training, and the issue of introducing CEW training earlier in recruit training programs to provide the opportunity for decision making training and the failure drills. In a continuation of the discussion on failure drill training I highly recommend you find videos and press clippings of field deployments where the CEW did not stop the subject. Like all videos we must be aware of how we use the videos but the videos and press clippings can be valuable learning tools. Both videos of failures and … [Read more...]

I have been concerned for some time about training provided to officers in the use of Conducted Energy Weapons (CEW). Let me state first of all that I am a big fan of CEW's and believe they are a valuable tool for officers in the field. I pushed for five years to have them adopted by my agency and got the approval just before I retired. The concern I have is that too many agencies have simply adopted the manufacturer training model. While this training provides a good foundation in the use of the tool there are some elements missing (or at least there were when I went through the instructor … [Read more...]

The following is an excerpt from a recent newsletter by Lou Tice of The Pacific Institute: "Do you know what Scotomas are? Everyone has them and they can keep you from seeing the opportunities all around you." "So what, exactly, is a "Scotoma?" It's what doctors call the defect that blocks sight in one part of our visual field. It's also a term I use to describe our occasional failure to see what's right in front of us because we build our own Scotoma, or mental blind spot, to it." "You see for the most part, we see what we expect to see or what we look for, not what is really there. … [Read more...]

At the Winning Mind Training 2009 Legacy of Excellence Conference we were honored to have Dr. Kevin Gilmartin as one of our presenters. Kevin is a former Marine, a retired officer from the Tucson Police Department and a psychologist. Kevin is the author of the book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement. This book should be required reading for all law enforcement trainers, supervisors and officers. Kevin has a profound message on how the profession of law enforcement changes an officer's world views and can lead to excessive degrees of cynicism. These effects are caused in part by the … [Read more...]

In recent blog postings we talked about weapon disarming training. Another important aspect of weapon disarming, or officer hostage training, that is often neglected is the scenario where there is an officer being held hostage and there is one or more another officers (we will refer to them as cover officers) at the scene. In the past, various organizations and agencies advocated that you have a code word with your partner that you rehearsed and would use in this situation. The code word would let the cover know that the hostage officer is about to move out the way allowing the cover … [Read more...]

Eight years ago today the terrorist attacks that will forever be know as 9-11 took place. Today we need to take a moment and reflect on a few things:   The courage of all the first responders who ran to the scene. The first responders who lost their lives working to save the lives of others. The families of those first responders who have to carry on after the loss. The courage of those first responders who continued to work at Ground Zero attempting to find more survivors, then attempting to recover remains of those lost for the families left behind. The warrior … [Read more...]