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Being streetwise means being street-effective

Being streetwise means being street-effective

Enhanced defensive tactics are essential if officers are to keep up with the criminals. Gregory A. Walker reports

The need for street-effective armed and unarmed defensive tactics training has never been greater. The reality of violent crime, gang violence, armed cults, racial and religious intolerance, political terrorism and sexual assault is evident every day to the working police officer. All too often it is the front line law enforcement professional who faces armed or unarmed assault while seeking to carry out his or her duties.

Today's defensive tactics and training programmes for officers demand a higher degree of efficient instruction to offset the notable disparity of force which can exist between an arresting officer and the unwilling suspect. Not only must instruction be clear, concise, and to the point, but skill maintenance is equally as important. What an officer may learn at the academy must be regularly re-examined and reinforced by his department's in-house defensive tactics instructors. Such a cadre should be expected to further improve or enhance front line officer skills with additional training and programmes.

Hand-to-hand combative skills, armed or otherwise, are perishable. Unless an ongoing training programme is established within a department or agency with specific testing and retraining, the majority of officers will see their initial life-saving skills diminish within 30 to 45 days. Such a gap in the officer's defensive armour is normally self-bridged by placing additional emphasis on weapons, to include chemical sprays, batons, night-sticks, and firearms. In most cases this emphasis seeks to resolve street confrontations between the officer and the suspect with tools normally considered to be potentially lethal in nature.

Quality and ongoing defensive tactics training reinforces an officer's ability to resolve physical confrontation using non-lethal means.

It also provides an officer with an increasing ability to respond immediately and with clear intent to resistance coming from a suspect who is not necessarily hyper-violent.

Sport karate and judo are offered by the vast majority of martial arts systems available today.

This commercial vending of defensive skills is meant for the esoteric enjoyment of tournament competition, exercise, or stress management.

All too often law enforcement interests are confused with this evolution of martial arts business concerns, with general programmes in sport karate mutated to appear functional as street survival skills. To the streetwise officer who deals daily with unknown subjects whose intent and skill levels are increasingly counter-arrest inclined, spinning wheel kicks and fancy joint locks lack credibility in the 21st Century world of cops and robbers.

An often overlooked and underplayed aspect of modern defensive tactics is the criminal's increasing interest and ability to counteract police hand-to-hand fighting skills. The tail-end of the 1990s sees exceptionally brutal and effective martial arts training ­ to include stick and knife instruction ­ being offered to anyone having the funds and time to participate. The Filipino and Indonesian martial arts, known for their direct incorporation of weapons as well as empty hand skills, have surpassed traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean schools of martial thought.

Parallel to this troubling evolution is an increased interest on the part of hyper-violent criminals of all ages and both sexes to secure effective firearms training via personal and group instruction. The availability of quality, step-by-step video programmes in concealed carry and combat-style shooting encourages skills development for sometimes less than US $39.95.

Indeed, the video revolution today permits criminal enterprises as well as individuals to self-train themselves in the utmost secrecy.

The benefits of such training only becomes known when an officer or officers make contact with a suspect, gang or group that fights back with an often horrifying degree of effectiveness.

Modern police attitudes about defensive training and tactics can address their officers' needs in this area through pyramid training. Once the base foundation of an officer's skill level has been laid the enhancement and maintenance phase should begin.

Off-the-shelf defensive tactics programmes are available as never before.

Defensive tactics instructors should research these, choosing to explore specific needs within the department. For example, initial instruction in the ASP baton can be reinforced and enhanced by a seminar in Filipino stick fighting given by a Filipino martial arts school or instructor.

Counter-knife training may also be addressed by bringing in an instructor whose background includes serious knife combatives.

Further emphasis might include not only traditional knife-fighting/counter-fighting instruction but specific training in areas such as defensive tactics using the officer's own bladeware, if such is commonly found in a department's equipment inventory.

Empty hand skills can be improved by introducing basic grappling techniques, such as submission holds and chokes, as well as simple yet effective joint locking and manipulation skills.

A truly dynamic programme will fuse empty hand tactics and techniques with weapons training, creating a street officer capable of moving from a weapon to empty hand, or empty hand to weapon, within micro seconds.

In many cases such skill will result in fewer injuries suffered by officers as well as a lessened chance of physical conflict occurring with suspects.

Progressive law enforcement martial arts instruction must seek to provide its officers with a skill level in a variety of fighting systems and techniques.

No one system has all the answers, nor does any one hybrid system or instructor offer an end-all solution to street combatives.

International law enforcement experts in both empty hand and weapons instruction should seek a lively, free-spirited debate and exchange of information for the purpose of increasing the individual officer's ability to protect himself while on the job. Such an enterprise will create a network of information and skills exchange that will directly benefit the front line ranks, regardless of skill level or experience.

The majority of martial art forms available today depend on the same training practices and theories which birthed them, in some case centuries earlier.

These 'game plans' were functional responses to the unique social and criminal environments of the time. As law enforcement races into the next century, practitioners of defensive tactics must evolve and improve their skills in order to be effective as enforcers of the law.

Concept training is a judicious selection and incorporation of different combat-proven fighting systems. For law enforcement, relying upon defensive tactics training dating back to the 1970s is as arcane as it is a disservice to those on the street today.

The challenge for today's police trainer is to mentally and physically review his or her department's defensive tactics programme.

New and improved martial arts instruction tailored for law enforcement needs will incorporate weapon and empty hand skills.

This approach will result in an officer able to defend or attack while enhancing his effectiveness to stay alive on the street.

Most importantly, such a programme teaches officers how to limit or control the suspect's ability to injure or control him or her during physical confrontation.

Compliance training: Officers working undercover must know how to use impact weapons

Defensive tactics: Dynamic training techniques are taught to protect officers and the public alike

Empty hand skills: These techniques should be taught in conjuction with weapons training, offering officers the necessary skills

Close-in confrontation: Tackling armed suspects requires intensive skill development on the part of the officer

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