 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Be cautious. Never assume that everything is OK. This is not a job for predisposed attitudes about people or about the job. And it's the unknown. I think that adds to stress. If safety's important to you, it's not going to happen on its own. How we carry ourselves is the key to our safety and achieving our goals. Focus is probably the most important part of personal safety. Our goal should be to help the defendant and to go home safely at the end of the day. Someone once said that your best tool or defensive tactic is your mouth and your mind. Losing focus, I think, is the thing that creates the danger. When you lose focus of where you're going, your surroundings, and you're preoccupied, that's the danger. Thinking about things beforehand, I think, to me, is common sense. What am I going to do if? If this happens, what's my plan? If that doesn't happen or something else happens, if there are more people, should I stay or should I go? I need to be aware. I can't be thinking of what I need to stop at the store to buy on the way home. Do I have some type of mechanism that if I need to leave the situation, if I think it's dangerous, can I leave? Am I aware of what tools I'm taking into the field? Are they working? Are they functioning? And do I have the paperwork I need? Am I ready to do that? Have I read up on who I'm going to see? Do I know where they live? If I have the opportunity to go over all of the addresses and people that I want to see on a given day, that day prior to actually making the visits, to sort of think it out, to try to think up negative things, and how would you handle them? And planning those things out in advance rather than just showing up and dealing with people. Live from the Federal Judiciary Studios in Washington, D.C., the Federal Judicial Center presents Safety Series, Scenarios for Officer Preparation, moderating today's program, Mark Maggio. Hi everyone, welcome to today's program. I'm Mark Maggio, and this is the second program in our FJC Safety Series. The program today is gonna focus on officer preparation strategies. Now remember that back in December, we did our first broadcast in this new Safety Series, and that focused on mindset, getting that mental processing aspect out and talking a little bit more about what was involved there. And now for the second program, we're getting into officer preparation strategies that takes us to the next step and begins talking about how that mindset then translates to behavior and with respect to our personal safety and how we conduct ourselves on the job. We're gonna be using a new format for today's program that will be supported through use of tape scenarios. We've got several that we're gonna show you through the course of the program, and the discussion will be facilitated by our lead panelist, Art Inouye. But the format, we'll use it to briefing format, very similar to the type of format that many of you are experienced in using both with the applied officer safety program that we've done which is scenario-based and running your own safety academies in your respective districts. Many of you do this sort of debriefing format. Well, we're gonna convert that and do that here today in terms of talking about the scenarios that you'll see. We're also gonna use this format in our upcoming third program in the series, which it will air on September the 19th, and also in future programs that we'll be doing in fiscal year 03. Let me say something else before I move into or introducing our panelists that I certainly would be remiss if I didn't say. This program was developed as was the first program by using an advisory, safety advisory committee from the field. A number of folks that many of you are watching today are experienced instructors and practitioners in this field and have done, have had years and years of experience in safety under your belt. These are the folks that we've used in the advisory committee to help develop and craft this program into something that we hope you'll find meaningful. And it couldn't happen without them. So we really think of this as more of a program by officers presented for officers. So let me just highlight that up front. Let me introduce now our panel who's gonna lead us through this discussion today. And we've got some of the heavy hitters on a national perspective with regards to the topic of safety. Our first panelist is Art Inouye. Art is a safety consultant and retired supervising US probation officer from the Eastern District of California. I've had the pleasure of training with Art in safety related settings for a number of years. And Art is nationally recognized as one of the gurus in this topic, in this field. Next we have Connie Smith. Connie is a deputy chief US pretrial services officer for the Western District of Washington. Connie as well has a lot of years of safety training under her belt and was one of the districts first in the country that really got the scenario-based training underway in their own district. And started doing the academies, very similar to the folks in California Eastern. So we're real privileged to have Connie. And certainly last but not least is my friend and colleague Art Penny. Art is a supervising US pretrial services officer from the District of New Jersey. And like the other two, Art has years of experience teaching safety and instructing not only for his district but also for us here at the FJC on a national level. So we've got a well-experienced group of panelists that are ready to carry you through the discussion. Now, before I turn it over to Art, Art's gonna be leading off each debriefing and we'll talk a little bit about, give you a nice lead in as we begin that discussion. He's also gonna be bringing in our push-to-talk sites. And we have six sites on board with us today. And what Art is going to do is going to divide up. We have the first scenario, he'll go to three of those sites. And then the second scenario, he'll go to the other three and he'll identify and introduce those sites as he goes along. But the push-to-talk sites that are with us, Art's gonna be calling on you guys throughout the program just as if you were a panelist here in the studio. Many of you have, again, a lot of experience in this field. So we're gonna be drawing quite a bit on your expertise. So get ready for that. And also our push-to-talk sites, if you hear one of our panelists bring out an issue or maybe in response to a fax question that we get, feel free to jump in and comment on it, raise a question, disagree if you have to. We wanna hear it all. But again, your input will be extremely valuable. And speaking of faxes, for our view-only sites, we've got the ability to fax questions to us as well. And we certainly wanna hear from you during the course of the broadcast. And you'll see the fax number appearing in the lower third of your screen. Finally, we've supplied you with some training aids, discussion guides for your review after the broadcast. And you can get additional copies of these, which are available on our website. And again, that address is appearing now in the lower third of your screen. Okay, I'm gonna toss this over to Art Inouye. Art is going to review the debriefing format for you and then introduce our first scenario, which deals with individual officer preparation. So Art, it's all yours. Thanks, Mark. I wanna tell you how happy I am to be part of such an important program. It is part of all of the skills that you learn, the broad spectrum of things you have to learn to do your jobs. We're gonna suggest here that learning to be a safe officer is as much a skill as anything else you do on this job. What we're going to do is go into scenario training. This is the second of the series of officer safety programs. And we're gonna take another step. We're gonna use scenarios. And in that process, we're gonna use a debrief program that will allow us to move in a different direction and discuss things that are essential to coming to conclusions that you need to come to in the safety arena. We're going to be analyzing each scenario as we usually do by looking at the safety issues. Some of the lessons that can be learned from digesting and taking apart what happened in this scenario. But in addition to doing that, and the push to site folks will give us a lot of information, illuminate a lot of ideas, that will be giving us things to talk about. Our panel will go even further, or we'll ask questions and discuss things with you. But what we're going to do is then is to extrapolate lessons learned, those academic conclusions that we can make clearly from what we've seen to how can we apply these to our circumstances at two levels. One on the job, when we go to the field, when we're in the office, what kind of uses can we put these lessons learned to doing that can be constructive for us? And once we identify those things, the next level that we really need to examine is how's that fit for us, for me as an individual? You see, personal safety is just that, very personal. Each of us is as different as our fingerprints when it comes to putting together safety, personal safety. It requires a commitment and an understanding of yourselves. Those of us who have engaged in experiential training know that despite the fact that we might have specified specialized training and some very dominant beliefs, we don't always act the way we think we're going to act under those high intense and real circumstances. So what it takes though is for us to revisit those and make it part of us. Make it part of the fabric of your safety foundation. And the pieces that you put together are dictated only by your understanding of yourself. No one else can do that. And once you start doing that and start understanding that it takes a commitment, to take in principles learned in training. Your subject matter experts, some sitting in your rooms right now, have put in a lot of time, a lot of years in developing these safety principles. It's a sophisticated process. We all know and have heard these classes, but the screen by which we see this is based on that fabric, a commitment to learning, to accepting the idea that I have to learn these things and make it part of me, an automatic reaction, not something that's in my head that I think I know, it is part of my normal process. It will happen because I've trained myself to do that. This is going to be an important part of starting. We talked in the last series, the last segment about mindset, that's where everything starts. And we're gonna revisit that here as we go. So we're gonna move into the first scenario with that in mind. And we're gonna go to the push to talk sites and we'll talk to the panel and try to flesh out all of the issues that arise out of this scenario. You'll notice it's a one person scenario where a person's in the field and you'll see a lot of familiar circumstances. So with that, let's roll the first one. When I get into my vehicle or when I'm driving along, I start to think about each individual's stop and to visualize what I know of this individual. If it's a new case, what I know of the individual by way of the written material in the file. Hey, Simon here. Hey, Janice. No, I'm not on my way in. I'm out in the field this morning. Can you get my email? Well, the network's down on a great. Now I have to stop at January house first and check on Anthony Waits. Then I got a few more folks to check on. It should be in around 11. Yeah, would you let them know I'll call them when I get in? All right, thanks. Anybody else looking for me? All right, like I said, it shouldn't take too long. So, all right. All right, thanks for calling. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. All right, this is Larry Simon with the Federal. Hey, Cindy. Hey, how you doing? Oh, good. Look, I'm supposed to meet Anthony Waits at your place at 830. Oh, is there already? Oh, great. Hey, do me a favor. Yeah, let him know that I'm on my way. Yeah, I should be there on time, but traffic's a bear right now and I don't think fate's on my side. Yeah. All right, thanks a lot. All right, I'll see you soon. Bye-bye. Simon. Hey, sweetie. Yeah, I know, pick up Josh after practice. Hey, look, I'm kind of in a hurry. Can't this wait? All right, I'll take care of it. Gotta go. All right, I'll call you later. Bye. Did I change? No, but a soup kitchen with a good breakfast is up around the corner on time. Oh, thanks. For you. Oh, fine, too busy as usual. Well, when you have a chance, can you stop by my office? I need to talk to you about Jamie Pollet. Oh, sure, I'll stop by on my way out. But if this is gonna take more than a few minutes, I'm gonna need to reschedule for a better time. Oh, no problem, thanks. Mr. Waits, good morning. Sorry I'm so late, but you wouldn't believe the traffic out there. That's about time. However, all is forgiven if you got it all worked out. If I got all what worked out, Mr. Waits. You might visit Request, what'd you think? My baby's sick, remember? You said you had to approve the visit because her mother's got her another district. You were gonna see to it that I could go. I never said that. Like I told you last time, it's not so simple. I said I would have to look into it. Man, I don't believe you. How long have I been waiting to see my kid? The one little thing I ask you to do. What's wrong with you? Look familiar? You bet. Before we go to the push to talk sites, wanna introduce the districts involved that will interact with us on the analysis of the scenarios. From the district of Kansas, Jeb Blankenship. From Kentucky Eastern, Tony Jocelyn. In California Eastern, Bruce Vazquez. They are moderating a group gathered, assembled at locations in their districts to respond to the scenarios. So let me go in that order. Jeb, what are your observations, you and your group, of the safety related issues here? These situations in which there are several things going on in our day to day lives, but one of the things that's important to do in a situation like this is to refocus and gather yourself before you meet with an offender. Be aware of the case, be aware of the issues that are gonna be discussed during this meeting and be prepared. Think some things through, put everything out of your mind and focus on the issue at hand. Right on the money, Jeb. Good to see you, good to hear from you. Your group came right through and plugged in those essential kinds of things that every officer should have in their process of starting out the day and that's a good one. Let me go to the district of Kentucky. Tony. Well, I think we noted that this individual probably has too much personal life involved in his professional life and to eliminate some of those stressors to begin with, he can just say, honey, please don't call me at work. It's gonna be a busy day, et cetera, et cetera. One officer mentioned they can just go ahead and turn the cell phone off. Also, they need to just go ahead and allow for more time during their scheduling. If an individual feels as though they're gonna be late and meeting with somebody and they know that the client's background, they know their past history, they know they have the opportunity to get somewhat impatient, just say, look, you know, go ahead and meet with your counselor and in the future, possibly later this week, we'll go ahead and reschedule. Bruce, in California, same issue. What are your observations regarding the safety related issues? How are you doing? One of the things we focused on here in our group is making sure that you allow a little extra time when it comes to doing our visits. And we focused on the idea that he obviously has a lot of distractions, as many of the other speakers have talked about. And we basically felt that the most important thing he could do is make sure he stays focused and assure that he allows maybe a little extra time, maybe starting off a little bit earlier in the morning. Thanks, Bruce. I know the Eastern District of California has extensive experience at analyzing scenarios and working their way through it. The three districts here, I know the moderators, all have a variety of deep experience in officer safety and we'll come up with these things and we'll help us as we go. I'm gonna turn to the panel right now, but I'll ask that as we go along here that to push to talk site, folks, at each location, talk amongst yourselves with regard to the scenarios. Because we're gonna move into some questions that delve in a little further. So let me go to our panel and I wanna first talk to Connie. What are your observations regarding the issues in the comments made by the groups? Or the thing that I heard, there's a common theme amongst all the push to talk sites and they use the word focused. And in order to gain that focus centered feeling, I think that a number of things need to occur regarding preparation for mindset. We're obviously all very distracted. We've got busy lives and there's a lot of stressors on the job. And some of those you might view as manageable. Well, you're behind on a report. You're trying to meet a deadline on a pre-sentence. You need to get a violation report out. You're behind on your chronos. You're behind on your emails. All these things, you might having some conflict in the office going on. All these things create stress. And then you're in a situation where you're going out into the field. You're carrying all the stress with you. One thing that I try in my life to work on mindset is to focus on what's most important to me in my life and what I wanna get home to me, home for myself. I wanna get home to my husband and my children. And am I going to take risks in my job that's going to jeopardize that? And that forces me to refocus every decision that I'm going to make. You heard Connie revisit the issue of mindset. We're gonna tell you now that that's where you start. That's where every officer should start is the mindset. If you don't have one that's put together based on your own beliefs and understandings and have been putting the issues related to that mindset, to the test, and you will have holes in your approach to safety. And we're gonna be pounding that drum as we go along again and again because it is essential. That's where we start. That's how we get to where we are as safe officers. It is important that you put as much effort into obtaining that information and clarifying that as you do any other skills that you have on this job. So Art, can you expand on what we're talking about in this? I think one of the things that really stands out in this scenario is this officer's unpreparedness. He doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have a course of action that he's gonna take. He doesn't have a purpose for what this contact is. He forgot what the nature of the contact was going to be, that he had an issue that he was gonna try and deal with with the offender, and his total lack of awareness of his environment. The contact doesn't start when you get to that defendant. The contact starts as soon as you go in the field. And all that scenario around there has to be taken into play also. So he's gotta be more prepared of what's going on in his environment. He's gotta know more about the history of the offender, his family, and so on and so forth, and know what issues he's gonna have to possibly deal with when he makes that contact. Preparation. Absolutely. Essential. And that preparation has to come automatically, doesn't it? It has to be something you do regularly on each case. And it all relates to safety. If you don't have it together when you go to the field, there's gonna be times when you're caught unprepared. Push to talk, folks. I wanna go to Jed. Can you elaborate more? Are there other improvements in the performance of this officer that you can suggest that will help prepare an officer in this kind of circumstance? It's important is that each officer goes through a transition period before they meet with their defendant and they need to transition from whatever they were doing prior to the meeting to the task at hand. But I believe everyone who's commented on this has picked up on the essential important things in this scenario. Tony. Was the primary key here. I think he could avoid that confrontation with his offender. Had he, I guess, gone ahead and scheduled ahead of time and just said, you know, let's reschedule for later on today. I'm gonna be late. Is that gonna cause a problem for you? He needs to make sure that his offender realizes that he's gonna be late. And if he's on a schedule, then he needs to go ahead and accommodate his schedule also. Bruce. We focused on the appearance of the officer appeared to not be familiar with his case. We felt that there was a need for him to know the case a little bit better before he went in there and know the expectations of the offender before he walked in the room. We also focused a little bit on the hands-free option of the telephone. We were a little bit concerned that an officer in our district would be occupied by using his hands on the phone and we're pushing heavily in this district to get the hands-free option of a phone usage. Good point. Real good point. Let's talk about what we've been referring to before. I want to hear from the Push to Talk sites about mindset now. After looking at this scenario and being illuminated in the previous segment, expand on the mindset, your understanding of mindset and how that plays in this kind of thing with regard to safety. I think we all agree that mindset is the key to handle any situation. The way you prepare for a dangerous encounter is gonna directly be proportionate to the outcome of that encounter. So mindset is the key, preparation is the key, everything we've already touched on in the past. Knowing your itinerary for the day, having time management, all those factor in. Thanks, Jed. Your group will lay the foundation for us to go further and with Tony, I'd like you and your group to give us an idea of what we mean about why is mindset so important, so central to what we do subsequent to anything. I think the main reasoning behind these scenarios and the main reason we're here today watching this video is to better prepare officers for confrontational encounters with their offenders, having good time management. And again, once you said the whole mindset issue, mindset is the key. Once you prepare for a dangerous encounter, you're gonna eliminate more potential for a negative situation the more prepared you are. Thanks, Tony. We have layered now on why it's so important, Bruce. How do you make it an important part of your persona? Because we're saying that it's central to everything we do. So, Bruce, in your group in California, can you tell us something about mindset, how we get there? We've been talking about how the mindset controls how the contact goes. It can escalate or de-escalate what the offender, how he's gonna represent you. And as far as mindset, I think as the panel has said earlier, safety is a personal issue. And anytime we walk into our job, we feel it's critical that we take responsibility for assuring that we're gonna be safe and what we're doing, and that's a mindset issue. Thanks, Bruce. I think it focuses for us where we need to go next because there's an issue regarding demeanor in this case, isn't there? I'd like to start off with our panel and ask them their observations regarding demeanor because that layers on top of our mindset, doesn't it? And where that goes is important when the outcome is affected directly by it. So I'll ask the first art, Art Penny, what are your views with regard to demeanor in this case? I think demeanor is real important in any kind of safety issues that you're talking about. How you treat a defendant could escalate or de-escalate a situation. I think a good theory to practice by is you treat people with respect and dignity, and you treat people with the way you'd want to be treated. You know, by going in with a predisposition on somebody about how they... how you expect them to be. In other words, if you have somebody with a violent history or so on and so forth, or maybe the offense that they're... they're arrested for, and if you have a pre-diagnosed disposition about them, you may act differently than you would if you didn't. So going in there with those kind of attitudes or a negative attitude could heighten or escalate a situation, so you really don't want to use those type of tactics. Connie? The only thing I have to add, Art, would be... I know people frequently use the word respect, and sometimes I think they confuse that. They state that, well, I don't want to... I don't respect this defendant, so why do I need to be respectful? So sometimes I try to move away from the word respect and utilize the word courtesy. We're an extension of the court. We're an arm of the court. We're hired to be professionals, and with that comes courtesy and respect for an individual, if not in what you feel about the person, how you're going to treat that individual. And I think when you utilize this as a safety technique, you'll find that your chances of remaining in a safer situation will really be increased. If you give an attitude, you're going to likely receive one back. And I think Art has stated very candidly that you treat someone the way that you want to be treated. I think if you find yourself in frequent arguments with defendants or offenders, or you have your defendants or offenders becoming very agitated or aggressive or defensive with you, you need to do a self-analysis of your own style and possibly get your own ego in check. Thank you. Push-to-talk sites. The demeanor is an important part, and I'm curious about what role that plays in addition to what has been said by the panel and how you view demeanor and its role with us in the field and go back to what you really believe a demeanor should be in the field or anywhere else in our job. So I want to start, we'll use the same sequence. So, Jed, I'll ask you and your group to comment on demeanor, which is an important thing to examine. One of the things that I think about demeanor is it starts with the very first contact you have with these individuals, and each contact you set the stage for the next contact. So that's an important part of just the overall safety mindset. If you leave your previous contact in an agitated state, the next one may very well pick up in an agitated state. One of our panel members here brought up regard for the defendant in trying to work with them to help them alleviate the problems that they're having in this particular situation and letting that person know that you're going to try to rectify this situation. At that moment of that contact, the person at your contacting should be the most important thing on your mind at that time, nothing else. It should be something that is all part and parcel of what you do and how you do it, isn't it? We are a direct arm of the court, and from the first contact throughout our association with defendants and offenders, it means a lot. And if we get into arguing or getting mad at offenders and defendants, we lower ourselves to that level and lose our professionality. There is a demeanor that we can talk about and should understand the root of where it comes from and where it goes from there. Both Bush talk sites have pointed out the importance and how it works. Tony, I want you and your group to tell us more about what you've talked about as far as demeanor is concerned. Okay, Art, thank you. We all agree that demeanor is extremely important not only for the officer but also for the offender. Now, obviously this morning, well, this officer's morning, it was a little bit congested with too many tasks. Now, getting too focused on the subject at hand can cause problems. Obviously this officer was too task-oriented. He needs to allow for more time to accommodate a better relationship possibly with his offender. Tony and his group point out a pretty prevalent factor about all of us is that we are task-oriented. If we focus only on how to get the job done without focusing on other matters and committed to getting that job done, we're leaving things behind and causing problems ourselves on occasion. Demeanor has much to do with that. A lot of us believe that we can use our authority to develop respect. Well, it depends on what you mean by that. I've heard officers tell me that they are strict with their offenders or defendants and that's how they get their respect. I submit to you that it is important for you to be firm when you need to be firm, but I think the fairness with which you pursue your issues is important as well. I think your professional approach to any kind of circumstance and you maintain a professional demeanor in the process gets you a long way further than if you acted on some of the emotions that might arise. The push-to-talk sites, I'm sure, are aware that in certain circumstances you have experienced emotions that cause you to experience anger and those kinds of things and you need to examine that and create techniques to handle that sort of thing. I want to go to California with Bruce and his group and illuminate on the matter of demeanor and what other kinds of considerations should we put into that. We wanted to add the importance of the nonverbal communication we have with the offender. We've kind of always heard that 85% of what we communicate to someone is based on not what you say but how you stand and how you present to that person. We also want to focus on the importance of focusing on what's important to the offender, whether we agree it or not. I think as Connie said, it's important that we respect them enough that we do what we can to at least give them the impression that what you're saying is important during the visit. And it's absolutely vital because now you're getting them into the thinking mode away from the anger, moving away from anger. That's a skillful approach. That is a technique you can use. It fits with a demeanor, a professional demeanor because you're being calm because you're looking at it from a different angle and not getting involved in the anger part of that. That works so well that we sometimes miss that because we get so involved in finishing the task and getting the job done. Jed, Tony, and Bruce's groups have all given us a layer upon layer of ideas with regard to the demeanor. And we've heard a couple of references now and I'd like to talk first to your panel about techniques and then go to the push-to-talk sites about what techniques they have and have experienced and learned through training to help calm themselves and offender under those high-stress anger situations. Connie, can we hear from you? I'm sure safety techniques are that many people apply in the field or in the office and it would consist of refocusing. Finding again and knowing what is most important to you in your life and whatever that may be, focusing on that. Taking a breath is such a simple task but just taking a deep breath for a second, helping you to think clearly again. Just to take a moment out and reassess the situation just through a simple breath can do wonders. Always keeping in mind too that the task that you're attempting to complete that day doesn't always have to be completed that day. If it means that your safety is in jeopardy, is that worth risking what's most important to you in your life? Again, refocusing, what do you want to do? For me, I want to go home at the end of the day. I want to maintain my family. Am I going to take a necessary risk to jeopardize that? In most all the situations, the answer would be no. I'm not going to jeopardize that. Part of your duty is not to take a risk that would create harm to you. It's important that you be organized in that respect and to pursue that. Art? A couple of things I always try to emphasize, Art, with officers in my district is that, you know, first of all, you have a plan. You know what you're trying to accomplish. You know what the goal of that home contact or that field contact is going to be. It shouldn't be something that's just random. And I like using the word random because in my mind, there is no such thing as a random contact or a routine contact. Something that's uneventful because you don't know what could possibly happen. And the second thing I try to emphasize a lot is that you never have enough information about your offender or defendant that you supervise. I have people say, well, should I go back and get PSIs from 10 years ago? Is that too old? We don't need that information. I disagree. I think the more information we have about somebody, the better prepared we're going to be able to deal with that contact. So even this officer who was going in and trying to review his notes at the last second and not stopping to talk to a counselor to maybe rely on a treatment report that he had from three, four weeks ago and not know exactly what maybe happened in session yesterday, what anxieties this guy is feeling, what other issues have evolved in some of the counseling sessions that he may not be aware of, and not having that information handy for you when you're going in there to make that contact is definitely a dangerous situation. And that really points up to us how important it is for us to be aware of what we're doing and use techniques that we've learned to train ourselves for that. And you folks, I want to ask your group, are you aware of any techniques to help calm yourself first and offender or defendant in a high stress anger situation? We all agree that measuring your responses and not just shooting from the hip is probably a reasonable thing to do in a situation like this, one of the techniques that can be used are negotiating skills and making the offender believe or feel that they are a vital part of resolving this situation and making it a win-win situation for both people. So measuring your responses, not shooting from the hip and investing this person on getting the problem resolved is a great technique to use in a situation like this. And not to overreact to certain things. Investing in that kind of approach, a technique that allows the offender or defendant to come to a thinking level, that's a great kind of way to get to that. And if you can make that part of the skill, it's important that we do that. Tony, you and your group, do you have any techniques? Actually, I think the best thing to do in any type of confrontational situation is just to step back from the situation and just take a deep breath and just say, okay, relax, what's your problem? Discuss the problem at hand, see if you can come up with a resolution. If you can't, if they want to continue to get heated in an argument, this isn't a fight, this isn't a fight we want to pick. And a famous person once said that he who angers you controls you. And in a situation like this, that would be so accurate and so true. So another officer on our panel actually mentioned that we stress professionalism all the time. However, professionalism does not necessarily mean that you have to wear a suit and tie. Now, let me elaborate on that. Wearing a suit and tie and looking professional is professional, that's what everybody likes to see. But do our offenders really rationalize, do they relate to that type of environment? No, not really. I mean, most of the people that we deal with out in the field, you know, rarely do we wear ties and suits. We dress appropriately. But we want to be able to relate to them and to relate to their problems. We want to take a laid-back atmosphere with them and, again, verbal judo, verbal presentation, verbal skills. I think you can't train enough on those training issues like that. I mean, our district, not just our district, but our system in general, we always train. I think the most training that we have is firearms training. And simply because I think society in general tends to focus on negative situations, negative encounters. He who angers you controls you. That's great. And all of the comments from your group really appreciated that kind of understanding, fundamental to what we do is really important. We have to move along now. Bruce, you and your folks, can you give us a quick rundown on techniques that you have there? We talked about watching your voice tone, opening up discussion with the offender and letting them know that it's to our mutual benefit to reach a settlement which will be good for all of us. And we also talked about not getting hooked into the emotions of the offender. Keep an objective. Okay, good. Thanks, Bruce. I want to... You folks have all layered upon the issue, the various views and how much depth there is in the various things that go into being a safe officer. I want to now, because we are at the point to wrap up the first scenario, to ask Art to give us a review of what we've gone over. Art? You know, one of the nice things about doing these kind of programs and dealing with officers who are experienced like this in safety is that I'm sitting here writing down some of the things that they're saying because they're things I haven't heard before are really good learning experiences. Some of the key points for this particular scenario was what is our personal mindset? You know, is that something we need to develop ourselves or is that something that can be taught? Distractions, I think they're a part of everybody's life. There's no way of getting around it, but the important key is to try and minimize them as much as you can. Unpreparedness, we all saw what that could possibly do to you in a situation if you're not prepared for an event. You know, have a plan, have a goal of what you're trying to accomplish, and this is something I'm going to take with me for a while that I really liked. One of the officers said was a transition period. I really liked that thought because when you think about it, how much can your mind process when you're sitting in the car looking at the file for two minutes and then dealing with the offender a minute later? You don't have a time to process all that information, so transition period is really good. Knowing the history, knowing as much about an individual as you possibly can the family, to the defendant's behavior, to his neighborhood, to his culture learning as much as you possibly can. Um, demeanor, knowing about courtesy and respect and treating people the way you want to be treated. And then finally, practicing good listening skills, letting the offender know that you're interested in his situation. He doesn't realize that you're dealing with 50 or 75 people at a time. All he knows is his issues and he wants to be sure that you understand them and that you care enough to at least try and help him in his situation so don't go there not knowing what's going on in his particular life. So some real good points that these guys had. I liked them a lot. You can tell just one scenario can bring up in terms of issues related to all of the things you need to be concerned with. It all goes into the fabric of what you're all about in terms of personal safety that you need to pay attention to and train yourself with because they're all tools. They are vital to anything that you're going to be doing in the safety arena. Well, with that, let's remember the principles that we've just learned and extrapolate them over to a two-person partner situation. Now, I know that a lot of districts don't partner, but the safety concepts that come out of the discussion can be used by single officers and it's important for us to illuminate on some of the things because we do go to the field sometimes with other people. The considerations that go into that are much more elaborate than you might suspect and I know that the Push to Talk folks have experienced this and I know that the people, you people in the field are experienced at this at various degrees but it's going to be very helpful. So let's go to the next scenario where in a team you have four eyes and you're looking out for each other. You're also assessing an environment. I'm not on just a social visit with my field partner here that we need to remember why we're out in the field here, why we're conducting a field visit, what the purpose of the field visit is and try to keep it all in focus on why we're out there doing this job. Hang on a sec. So after this next visit, we have what? Three more to go? Yeah, something like that, three more but look, you have got to see this movie. It's great. I don't think so. I'm not at all that into violent horror movies. I go to the show to be entertained, not scared to death. But come on, it's funny. You'll love it, trust me. Yeah, right. Okay, so tell me more about this guy It's um... Oh, would you look who's here? Hang on, it's only a second minute. Mrs. Davis! Mrs. Davis, good morning. Haven't seen you in a while. I've missed you. How have you been? Mr. Graves? That you? What are you doing here? Hello. Mrs. Davis, I'll get to meet my partner, Beth Newfield. This is Mrs. Davis. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Davis. Nice to meet you, Mr. Graves. So, Mrs. Davis, you never answered my question. I seem to just keep missing you. Why is that? Well, you know how it is with work and whatnot. I'd explain, but I don't want to keep you from your business. I'll call you later. Well, you know, it just so happens that Mrs. Newfield and I are running a little early this morning. So, I have a few minutes. And since I haven't heard from you in so long, we could just stay here and check, wouldn't we? I'm not keeping you from anything, am I? Oh, no, not at all. I mean, I'm busy, but I suppose I could stay a few minutes. Good, good. So, tell me, what have you been up to lately? What's keeping you so busy at work? Boy, that's an interesting set of circumstances. Before we go to the push-to-talk sites, let me introduce the moderators in those districts that are participating. We have the Eastern District of Missouri, Ron Schwier. A million names coming up. Western District of North Carolina, Jeff Neighbor. And we had a problem with feedback on Deborah Wojcicki's district of Maryland. Deborah, we didn't do this on purpose. We had to disconnect you because we were getting some feedback. But I encourage your group now to give us some faxes with regard to your questions regarding this. It's important that we hear from you because you're prepared. And you know what this is all about. We were counting on your participation. I worked through the fax system to get through to us, okay? But what I'd like to ask the push-to-talk folks first at the outset is what are your observations regarding the safety issues here? I want to go first to Ron. That's good always to see, by the way. Our group here is discussing or has discussed a number of issues. First of all, communication between the field partners. Our observations obviously are that there was a lack of communication on who this third party was. Also, the discussions leading up to the contact with this third party focused on entertainment, et cetera, versus discussions on the contact that was forthcoming. Right on the money. It is clear to anybody watching from the outside, but we were task-oriented. And we weren't seeing these kinds of things in this scenario. And that means that somehow our mindset didn't allow for us to be careful under those circumstances. We didn't react automatically. So let's go to Jeff. Jeff, you and your folks. It's good to see you again. One of the things that we just discussed was the level of awareness, the officers that were involved in the scenario and how it really changed quickly. And another comment was that the officer, the male officer seemed to be hasty in getting to the person that they confronted on the sidewalk. It's clear that the person who we call a contact person in any circumstance was not considering the totality of circumstances in the field. And it's one of the things that happens, and if you aren't set ahead of time with proper training, that's going to happen. I want the people on the panel now to kind of flesh out some of their ideas regarding partnering in this particular scenario and what happened to you. Connie? Obviously, in this scenario, there wasn't any preparation which should occur before the field contact. Obviously, the contact officer was very consumed with discussing a movie, and the cover officer attempted on two separate occasions to intervene and stop him from talking about the movie, which he continued to discuss with her. Again, they were in a surrounding that may or may not have been questionable. The risks always remain unknown. When they encountered this, was it the offender, was it the defendant, was it a third party? We don't know who it was. The object in the backpack, was that a weapon, was that not a weapon? All those require pre-planning, and that's essentially through the simple form of communication. I think we're given a lot of tools to conduct this job, and all of great help, being our firearm, our OC spray, all the technological skills that we need, but sometimes I think we need to get back to the basics, which I'm glad we're doing this today, which is communication in order to prepare for a contact. Good foundation for you, Art. Sure is. I think some of the things that stand out the most is that these situations are reality. Even our best safety officers and the length of time they take to prepare for doing a contact, where you run into somebody on the street or when you're out socially or so on and so forth, and you have to be prepared for that type of situation. By him having little time to discuss it with his partners, even if he gave her an indication that A, it was a defendant that he was going to see, B, even a code word that they could have developed beforehand to let her know that there was an issue with her or that there was a danger in her background or a history of violence or something, just a code word to make her more familiar with the situation, she might have been able to do a better job as a cover person also. She had no idea in that contact whether it was a friend, whether it was somebody that he knew as an acquaintance or whatever, or whether that was a defendant that they were dealing with. So the lack of communication that Connie talked about, I mean really put that cover officer and the officer himself in an uneasy or dangerous situation. And the other thing that stood out I noticed too was his theory or his process of wanting to get that task done. He was so focused on it that he was losing sight of the fact that the defendant was a little uneasy, that she was starting to score him around a little bit, she was trying to end the contact right then and there, and he was so task-oriented about, you know, you've got to come to the office, I haven't seen you, that he was losing sight of some of those other issues. So these, from both of your comments, indicate that going to the field as partners is more than just two people going to the field. There's substantial amount of considerations that have to be made and understanding and established. I want to go to the talk sites. I want you folks to illuminate on this idea of what we can do to improve a performance in this circumstance rather than allowing this situation to occur in the field. What can we do to keep that from happening? Ron, let's go to your group first. Thank you, Art. We were discussing some of the basics of safety, particularly positioning. They're in the hesitation by the third party, the escalation of the conversation, and the like. As far as the officers communicating, a cover officer has a responsibility to communicate with that primary contact officer, not just sit back and let the scenario unfold before them. It certainly won't, it could be something that we will not like to encounter. And if the primary contact officer in this instance isn't focused on that contact, that cover officer needs to help that person focus, bring to their attention that we need to discuss issues regarding this case, and focus back on why it is that we're out there to begin with. What's the purpose of the contact? Ron and his group emphasized to us what's important in the communication process, partnering, and it's important that we do that, but it doesn't come naturally. You have to train each other in communicating out there in the field. We talked about signals, we talked about various techniques to make sure we know that we're on the same page in every circumstance when we're out there together. That this communication has got to be automatic. That if we see our partner conducting themselves in a certain way, that means something to us, and that we both are on the same page. That's a good run, thanks a lot. Let's go to Jeff and his group. Jeff, can you illuminate any more on this issue? Yes, one of the comments we had in our group just a minute ago, one officer mentioned that if we fail the plan, then usually we plan to fail. I think that adds a lot to the second scenario today where it was obvious the two officers had no plan. Maybe using a code word when something didn't look right or even to back up from there when the officers were crossing the street just a quick sentence from the lead officer to the other officer about what this contact was all about probably could have helped quite a bit. Absolutely, Jeff. You folks just pointed at a particular part that's very important in the process of partnering, and thanks a lot. What just happened was the facts came in from the District of Maryland. Nobody's going to shut out Deborah Wojachowski. That's for sure. I don't know if the group are going to give us their comments. It's interesting how trained minds go in the same direction. I need to read this to you because you heard this from Connie and the same kinds of things and from Art. The comment was there was no communication between the partners, no code words. You heard us talk about that. The PO viewed what might be a gun and didn't alert the partner. We talked about that too. Unaware who the third party was created problems. These are considerations that are common if you have the right mindset, that pop up at you right away and doesn't allow you to get task oriented and miss these kind of high risk situations. I want to get into the partnering situation and ask you all, what are the benefits of partnering? Let's go first to Ron and your group. What kinds of things that you know are beneficial because you partner? The primary benefits would be it's a second set of eyes to either scan the area for you or focus on areas of the party being contacted. It's also a second brain, a person that can interpret what those eyes see and convey that information to the partner. Benefits are phenomenal to have that partner there with you. Peripheral vision, it provides so much more in terms of being aware of circumstances and producing ideas with regard to what's happening. Great observation. Let's go to Jeff, Jeff and his group. One of the comments here was that officers tend to be more investigative, spend more time, whether it's an employment check or a home contact and reiterating what Ron just said. We look around a lot more when we have someone else, another officer with us. Absolutely. We have to be aware that people are around and that cover person provides so much more and allows us to relax a bit and be task oriented because they're watching our backs. I want to ask the panelists how that relates to individuals and what kind of considerations go into that as well, as well as their observations regarding partners. I'm going to start with you, Art. I think there's clearly a lot of pros when you're talking about partnering. There's definitely safety in numbers. It allows you to develop a triangulation effect when you're dealing with an offender which gives you a better oversight of what's going on during a contact. I think the quality of the home visit is greatly enhanced by having partners, not only from a safety standpoint, but from an investigative standpoint. You, as the contact person, your focus has to be on the offender. You're watching body language. You're watching mannerisms. You're watching his nonverbal cues. You have to focus on that. Your cover person, he's scanning the area. He's looking for those danger signs or clues that may give you some information for the next time you make a contact. But it also serves as an investigation tool, too. So the quality of that home contact is greatly enhanced by having a second person there with you. Connie? Just to play devil's advocate, I want to acknowledge that there are many officers who work in rural areas. Even if you don't work in a rural area, you may choose to go out into the field alone. If you're in a rural area, you may not have an option to partner. And I think that people need to look at how they conduct field work and say, do I really always go out into the field with my partner? Or do I have a partner who I go out with maybe 50% of the time? There are a few of those occasions that you might run up to the halfway house. You have an EM hookup. A lot of times a specialist is going to go on their own. Or you're just running down to the treatment center. A lot of those circumstances dictate you going alone. So in those situations, you become the contact officer and the cover officer. I think you have to pay attention in those situations and apply the same techniques that we're talking about when you are alone out in the field. That points up how important it is if we partner to know that the benefits of partnering also place an obligation on us to use those same concepts when we're not partnering. One of the things that we're going to be talking about is the downside to partnering. One of the things that can cause risk for us is that we get too comfortable with partnering when we're alone. Forget that we have to cover our own backs when we're alone and that we have to keep that in mind when we do that. I'm advised that there is a fax that just came in and I'd like to throw it to Mark to let us know what that is about. Art, we've got a fax from Northern District of California. One officer from Oakland. One officer from San Francisco. One is Steve Sheehan from Oakland. Rich, you're going to have to forgive me. That's the last name and I don't want to butcher it. So Steve and Rich from Northern District, here we go. Would you have handled the situation differently referring to the partnering situation we saw if you are carrying a firearm? Let's go to the push-to-talk sites first because that's an important issue to think about here. So let's talk to Ron first. I don't like being put on the spot, but I'd like to think that our officers would handle the situation the best way possible, irrespective of being armed or not. We have very few officers that are unarmed here, but they don't rely on that firearm. Obviously, our training is emphasizing their mindset, what they look at, what they think, and conveying that lower level of, how shall I say, intervention on the use of force continuum first. As far as positioning goes, we notice that the cover officer was near a wall, it appears. We train our officers to use any available items in the area, trees, cars, poles, whatever, as cover in a high-risk situation. But given this third party and the viewing of what could be a weapon, I'd like to think that the officers would communicate with that primary contact officer and try and get out of the situation before potentially resorting to the use of a firearm. See what training does for you. You don't have to think. You can be put on the spot and come up right where you need to be with regard to that issue. That is, thanks a lot, Ron. I can't emphasize enough the presence of your firearm shouldn't change your consideration of the circumstances, I think. Jeff, do you agree? Yes, Art. Ron said it best in that through rehearsal and conditioning and putting ourselves through this type of training or training that simulates what we've seen here today is the best response, a preemptive response if we run across the situation like this. I don't think there should be a difference as to whether we're armed or we're not. I think with proper planning again and with the planning through training that our officers should have the ability to react safely in a situation like this. We all know in the safety arena our firearms shouldn't allow us to do things that we wouldn't ordinarily do if we were not armed in terms of taking cover in terms of diffusing the circumstances. All of those things are important for us to consider under the circumstances. If it was a life-threatening situation we have the tool to respond and that's what that's all about. We're going to turn to our panel now and ask Art what are your considerations regarding this? I think one motto that I always like to use is you never go into a contact or a situation armed that you would not go into unarmed. Your weapon doesn't make the difference whether that is safe or not. It's the environments, the surroundings, it's the nature of the contact that will enhance or reduce what that risk is. Which brings to another question along the same lines is how much do you deal with non-compliance issues when you're in the field? How much do you really deal with in somebody's home the fact that they've given you a dirty urine or the fact that they haven't been reporting as they're supposed to or in this scenario out in the street like that? Was it safe to do it that way or would it have been better served to just let the offender know that there's some things you need to discuss with them and you want to see them back in your office which is a much more safer environment than out in his territory? I could see heads around the country of trained officers who know that the firearms should not make a difference and when you were saying those kinds of things I could just see the heads going like this. Absolutely, that is essential that we understand that it's a tool that you use in specified circumstances but it isn't an offensive tool and it isn't one that allows us to do things we wouldn't ordinarily do. And again, we have to emphasize that and that's why you have to have that fabric put together tightly so that you know how to handle these things. Connie, can you add anything to our conversation with regard to this? There's been so many good comments I think made about particularly Ron by art and just to capsulize that it's just again refocusing on do I have another option here? Could an option be in this situation where having a code word already prearranged and possibly leaving the situation like you know what I forgot my checkbook whatever your code word might be it could be something so simple but it takes that preparation and planning to keep you and your partner safe. And that's important that is very important for us to keep in mind and again I'll tell you that these kind of things don't just pop up it comes from training and understanding fundamentally what you have to do and what we're seeing now and hearing from the groups is another officer it has to be established before you leave for the contacts you have to have a training program of some understandings common understandings amongst all officers so if you change a partner all of you have the same understandings with regard to communication know the pages you need to be on when it comes to signals and those kinds of things all of these take training it is not something that just happens because you review a piece of paper it's understanding a second nature to you you know these officers I'm not giving these push to talk folks a lot of time to consider these things but they're whipping these things out because they've trained they know these kinds of things it's second nature to them and that's what you should consider doing for yourself so I understand that we're getting rained on with faxes and we need to get to some of those at least before the end of the program so I want to go over to Mark one of the faxes here's a question for you and our sites in the panel with regards to the partnering issue what should you do if you're with a senior officer and he or she has a different safety mindset i.e. someone who's more relaxed than yours when you're out in the field as the younger officer or the newer officer I should say how can you handle the different philosophies without challenging the senior officer's experience pretty touchy I want to go to the push to talk first because I know the panel has some real concrete answers with regard to this and push to talk folks I want to go to Ron Ron, you and your folks with regard to this situation first of all, statistics bear out in the past at least that the newer officers are the ones that are least assaulted in the field and it's the older officers with more years of experience that are assaulted more frequently there's been discussion in the past that tenure is a problem usually it's complacency according to our group here and a newer officer should ideally not fear saying something to their partner particularly related to their safety obviously if it's a partner that is not in tune with the surroundings or the safety issues at hand then the primary contact officer's safety is going to be affected and the new believes that the officer with police seniority in this instance that you cite should say something consider re-partnering with another person or if it is becoming a significant risk issue terminate the contacts for the rest of the day go out another time with a different partner great observations we, Ron and his group put their finger right on what's really important for us to understand I want to go next to Jeff and his group in North Carolina I agree with what Ron just said and also again I go back to our conditioning and rehearsal through training in this situation if we can train with the people that we work with I think that will really have a big impact on how we are going to work together in the field leave my comments at that what we're being told is a subject matter that requires us to prepare ahead of time I think that if we're going to talk to another officer it has to be a common ethic that is part of what you do at the end of the day that is you debrief and talk about things openly and honestly you're expected to do that and so a newer officer will not feel constrained out of respect not wanting to offend a more experienced officer if you make that part of the process and understanding that that's what you do at the end of the day if you have a question with regard to what happened out there and then you come to better understandings and are more aware of what you're doing out there with each other I'll go to the panel now and ask them their views with regard to this kind of situation Connie I first of all feel bad for this new officer in their position it's very awkward and I can state that because I've been in that position many years ago myself I think something that is required comes from within and it's courage you recognize you're a newer officer and that you want to maintain a good relationship with the senior officer and you want to maintain your safety and I'm sure you don't want to upset the senior officer but again you may choose to go out in the field with them or you may elect not to I think it could be a more effective technique to maybe put it back on yourself like hey I'm just looking for some advice here could we maybe talk about how this played out what would you recommend do you mind if what do you think about my opinion on this also educating that senior officer in the process but at first it takes some courage to open those lines of communication good practical suggestions in a minute or so Art can you tell us about your view of this it is a very touchy situation and it should be handled delicately but what you have to keep in mind is that an unsafe officer is putting someone else at risk also but what may affect me may not necessarily affect you I may not feel the same sense that you do about a dangerous situation because for whatever reason it doesn't have that impact on me so maybe later on after you've left the residence and you discuss hey you know Art this is what I saw when we were there I felt really uncomfortable about this you know how did you feel you know bringing it to his attention maybe something he wasn't even aware of hopefully we'll you know put a little bell in his head and say hey this was a dangerous situation and if that doesn't work you know confronting him may be an issue you might have to deal with or maybe even bringing it to your training officer not in a sense of identifying something that somebody did wrong but say hey look this happened to me when I was in the field once can we bring this out in training in a future date so that maybe this person sees it up front and then maybe that will generate you in providing ourselves a tool but I think one important thing to do is to get these techniques and put them into a system of training so that everybody's on that page and understands these kinds of things work are expected and should I'm told there's a fax we need to get into quickly so let's turn to Mark and get the fax in Ok Art we've got one from our friends in Maryland Deb Wojachowski and they just again offered some comments to the group in the discussion with regards to partnering talked about the benefits of partnering first they list as you have witness and you have verification and then provides a double presence and then if the offender is alone it removes the PO from possible compromising situation they list those as some of the benefits of partnering disadvantage partnering may provide a false sense of security and it could also provide rather a distraction instead of talking with the supervising PO the offender may now end up talking to the cover officer great observations what I want to do now is to move from that those kinds of things that all the push to talk sites including Maryland thank you very much your comments to wrap it up into a summary of this particular section and then we'll close from there so Connie can you give us a summary of what we just went through first of all I want to thank all our push to talk sites Ron and Jeff and Deborah we really appreciate all your feedback I want to open it up with a comment from my friend Jeff here which I think is so wonderful and I've heard him state this before if we fail to plan we plan to fail I think that is so wisely stated and it really capsizes everything that we're talking about today and a lot of the points that our participants brought up were again starting off with mindset and how critical that is partnering the pros and cons and deciding what is best for you are you do you go out alone do you partner have you ever thought about switching a partner and seeing what that new challenge is like and again communication a lot of that is so simple and we took the time to do it and preparation again a lot of that can be conducted through allowing more time through time management organizational skills and again communication it was also brought up the role of the contact and the cover officer what are the responsibilities of each of those roles again can be addressed through communication what if you are the contact and cover officer you go out alone you're playing both of those roles Jeff also mentioned rehearsal when we train with people we'll know what to expect when we're actually training with them and also the point of debriefing how critical that is that tells us doesn't it that we've just touched the tip of the iceberg because we can talk about debriefing all day long which is essential to partnering let's take a look at what we've gone through we've picked off all of the summary points and we have them available for you what is really important here for you to understand is each of the topics are pushed our groups have given us our classes in and of themselves but these classes are useless unless and until you make some personal commitments with regard to personal safety personal safety is your obligation to yourself and if not yourself who love you with that I'll turn it over to Mark Ard, thanks a lot and thanks to you and to Connie and Dard Penny for giving us your time, talent and expertise to make today's broadcast possible I want to thank all of our push to talk sites Debbie I'm sorry we lost you we would have loved to have heard you on the broadcast but thanks so much for faxing your comments in and thanks to the others for again making this I think a very worthwhile discussion for faxing questions and speaking I've got time I want to reference one other fact that we got not for the panel but just for commentary because I think it's important to mention but let me mention before I do that that we'd like to remind you that we've got some additional materials at your site so please continue the discussions that we've started here as Art in a way said we've just touched on the tip of the iceberg there's 90 minutes of discussion here two scenarios there's a myriad of issues associated with safety that we didn't even we couldn't even touch on and so continue these discussions use these these scenarios, these videos these safety programs we're doing in district training brown bag presentations so we can have discussions wrapping into other existing safety training that we know so many of you have got in place in your districts now from scenario based to lecture based to running safety academies but before I conclude let me take a minute to reference this particular fact because I think it's interesting and I think it speaks to the passion and the sincerity with which a lot of folks in the field feel about this topic it's from Craig Brunner Craig is senior USPO and firearms instructor and Dats Officer from Tallahassee, Florida and without reading the whole thing because Craig had a lot to say Craig wanted to emphasize from our first scenario that what really should have been discussed from a safety perspective was things like the poor driving skills taking a beverage while on the road reading a file, grabbing for documents using the cell phone I think Bruce Vasquez's group referenced this issue of cell phone and the hands free things so Craig I think that was addressed at least on that aspect he says the chances are if an officer gets injured it might be or will be driving a car I think it's a great point Craig and granted it wasn't a discussion we touched on a few issues but I still think you bear out the fact in that there are other things that need to be discussed in this topic and some are going to feel that some of the issues we hit aren't as important as what you just mentioned Craig another thing you mentioned really dealt with environmental awareness the officer in the scenario in the first scenario was not aware of his circumstances and surroundings when the parking lot he allowed his back to be turned to the stranger he did not appreciate the possibility that the stranger could have serious mental health problems been affected by minor altering substances or had a weapon again all valid and on target points and again I'll go back to what my colleague anyway just said we just hit the tip of the iceberg Craig you went a little deeper with the iceberg on this and I think you hit some really valid points things that are additional food for thought thank you for your candidness thank you for your honesty with regards to this discussion and having said all that I want to thank all of you again please as always enjoy the rest of your day