 You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Be cautious. Never assume that everything is okay. 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. All 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. You're just doing reports and writing and maybe you don't have anyone coming in right away. And you have a certain comfort level. And your mind gets distracted by other things you have to get done that day. And I know I'm very guilty about this. You just forget that even in your office, you could have an incident and that something could happen to you. Just because someone passes through the metal detector and has no weapons on them does not mean that they cannot be a threat. Their size doesn't even matter. You could be a small person and still be a danger to someone. So I do a visual of the clients when they come in. And if I see something there that bothers me or is a red flag, I pass that information on to the officer before they come out. Can we predict what someone is going to do? I think we do the best we can based on the information that we have. And I've learned to make decisions based on that information and leave it at that. Each offender you're working with is different. And I think you need to know when to back off or when to be assertive. And I think often if you come on too strong, authoritarian with certain ones, you could aggravate the situation. It's important to have procedures established ahead of time so that in the event of an emergency or an in-house arrest, that the coworkers know where to go and what to do so no one gets hurt. There may be a pre-sentence report in the file. There may be a number of police reports, psychological, psychiatric. It doesn't matter. There's always going to be something about that individual that's not on paper. I don't think it's possible to put a person on paper. It's only what they've shown. And all you know is what they've shown is the unknown that presents a challenge and danger. The unknown. Live from the Federal Judiciary Studios in Washington, D.C., the Federal Judicial Center presents Safety Series, Office Scenarios. Moderating today's program, Mark Maggio. Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us. Today's program is the third in our Safety Series. Recall that the first broadcast we did addressed the topic of mindset, to sort of set the stage and emphasize how important that concept is across the board when you talk about officer safety. Next, we addressed field scenarios back in May with our second broadcast. And today we're moving the discussion into the office. It's an area where when we talk to people in the field, a lot of them say, yeah, you feel pretty safe working in the office. So we've got some vignettes we're going to show you today that were taken from reports of hazardous incidents that came in from the field. We've based the videos you're going to see on those actual events that occurred. So again, what you'll see are based on events that have actually happened in your system and not something that we just sort of drummed up on our own. They're real-life events and hopefully I think you'll find them rather thought-provoking and good fodder for discussion. Now as I said, we're dealing with office scenarios today and that inevitably draws into the discussion, the population in the probation pretrial office of administrative staff. And to sort of boost that part of our discussion, we did invite someone we consider to be one of our nationally recognized members on the admin side of probation pretrial and I'll introduce Rhonda as well as the other panelists in a few minutes. As always, today's program comes as a result of working with the Safety Advisory Committee that we have been steadily working with since the inception of this series. These folks have again just proved to be an invaluable assistance and provided tremendous resource to us as we develop these programs and always to remind you in the field that we don't develop the stuff in a vacuum. We get a lot of feedback from folks and the advisory committee have been there from the get-go and continue to give us a lot of very solid information and things that we can build programs from. So many, many thanks to the folks that have served on that committee. Let me introduce our panel for today. Our facilitator for the program will be Art In-A-Way. You remember Art from our last broadcast. Art is presently a safety and management consultant and also a retired supervising probation officer from the Eastern District of California. Chris Sutton. Chris is a supervising probation officer from the Central District of California. Art Penny. Art is a supervising pretrial services officer from the District of New Jersey and is promised Rhonda Forsythe Mosul. Rhonda is a budget analyst currently with the Federal Probation Office in the District of Nebraska, and in addition to that credential Rhonda has served as faculty for First Line Safety for the Federal Judicial Center. She's taught in the state probation system and taught on the topic of safety and also serves as faculty for their district safety academy in Nebraska. So in addition to the safety and training credentials of our other panelists, we wanted to emphasize that Rhonda brings that to the table as well as her experience from the admin side. So welcome to our panelists and at this point, Art In-A-Way, it's all yours. Thanks Mark. Today we move to the office setting, a place many believe to be a relatively safe place. We're going to examine that assumption and look at various parts of it because it is an action-packed series that we have to present to you today. So let's not waste any time. Procedurally, here's how we'll go. We'll go to each Push-to-Talk site after the video. Push-to-Talk sites will give you a heads up in the order in which we're going to present four questions to each site. We encourage the sites that aren't on air at that moment to jump in with matters they feel should be aired and their observations of the video or some expanding on discussions that were being made at that point. And then we'll move from the Push-to-Talk site to the panel and the panel will do the same and that is we'll have a lead person and then the other panelists will enter into that. And that's the procedure. So without further ado, because this is an issue-packed series, I promise you, here's where we'll go. So let's start, let's roll the first video and from there we'll move on. We'll answer the questions in the following order. District of Maryland, the District of New Mexico, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the District of Arizona. Yeah, well I know you need it today. You only told me about 6,000 times, but I can't. Tomorrow is the best I can do. Take it or leave it. Yeah, I'm hanging out with the feds again, so what? Yeah, you're telling me. I took care of Watson, that solved a lot of my problems. A nice chokehold. Just kidding, ma'am. Everybody. I'd never hurt Mr. Watson, he's a friend of mine. Look, you want to get somebody else? Be my guest. I don't need this crap from you right now. No. What don't you understand about tomorrow? Ma'am, could you come up and relieve me for a while? It's past time for my break. Thanks. I've already missed a point. Mike, you do to see Eric Slattery, right? Yeah, he's here, and he said something I thought you'd want to know about. So Mr. Slattery, how's it going? Well, if you want me to be honest, it ain't going too good. Have a seat. So, how come we're in here instead of your office? Sometimes we interview here. Is there a problem? It's because of what I said out front, right? About getting rid of you. Frankly, yes. You said something that was understood as a threat. I said it was a joke. So you got an armed bodyguard out there? We don't need to go into that. You can just assume we're in a position to deal with any physical threats. So if I threaten to leave this place and go to work, is he going to shoot me? Nobody needs to shoot anybody, Mr. Slattery, but you do need to sit down. You know, I'd like to get you out of here without wasting time, but we've got several things to discuss. Discuss away. I'm concerned about these missed appointments. You were scheduled to meet last month on the 3rd, but you didn't make it. So we rescheduled for last Tuesday, but you didn't make it then either. You didn't call either time to say you weren't coming. We're getting way behind on your reports. Oh, we are, are we? Well, I got news for you, Watson. I'm fed up with this report crap. I'm just trying to live my life here, but every time I turn around, you're bugging me about some damn thing. Some damn report. I got to come to your office for something, and you've been following me, nosing around my wife and asking stuff that's none of your damn business. I've just about had enough. I went to your house because that's one of the conditions of your supervision. I explained that to you when we first met, remember? Now I can understand you feeling supervision is intrusive. Intrusive? It's choking the life out of me. I know you're not happy, but want to sit down and tell me more? Let's figure out what to do about this. I had a job today that somebody else is doing because I'm stuck in here. So my soon-to-be ex-wife is pissed because I'm not bringing home enough money. So she makes up all kinds of garbage and you lap it up without even getting my side of the story. I'd really like to get your side of the story now, Mr. Slattery. I do need you to sit down, though. I'm not raising my voice. I'm being respectful. I need you to respect me, too, okay? You said you're missing out on a job, but this is the first I've heard about it. Can you go and do the job after you leave here? No. I cuss the guy out. I don't think I'm going to be going back there anytime soon. Are you still taking your meds? Not in your business, asshole. What do I got to do to get you out of my face? Look, we can't have this conversation in this way. I need you to come back out to the waiting room with me and then you can talk to a supervisor. Pretty tense, isn't it? Let's go to the District of Maryland, Debbie Wojachowski, and push the talk group into District of Maryland. The threats should be taken seriously. The possible dangerous behavior of the offender and the escalating behavior of the offender. Should be taken seriously. Debbie, your group, having said that, the other push-to-talk groups, what do you think about what goes into that in terms of taking it seriously? What should be done? Let's get the District of Arizona first. Lori Trigelio from the District of Arizona and her push-to-talk group. Things were done right off the bat. The receptionist identified that there was a problem with the offender and in a manner that didn't alert the offender, she told the officer so that he was able to take the offender into an office that didn't have items on the desk and that type of thing, and possibly also to let people around the area know to keep an ear out for what may happen. Jim Muth, thank you, Lori, from the District of Arizona. Jim Muth, the District of Pennsylvania with regard to what were the safety issues in this case? Obviously, there was a threat made that was ever heard by the receptionist and we believe that the receptionist did the right thing and notified the officer right away. The one thing that we felt that really should have perhaps occurred and taken place was a phone call to either the FBI or one of the other authorities to come up and deal with the individual before you brought him back to the office. Excellent observation. An important option. Let me turn to the panel now and ask Art Penny to lead us into the discussion from the panel. I think these guys have hit a lot of key points, they've touched on a lot of things that we should have done or should have been done beforehand. One of the things is precautions. What precautions can you take before letting this individual into the office? We used a special room where there are any special features in there that would enhance the safety of the officer. It was great having no objects on there and so on and so forth but it didn't look like there were any special things in there that would make him safer than not using his own office. A backup. At that point, somebody should have been alerted and let them know that this guy is highly agitated. He said some things in the lobby. I'd like you to stand outside the room and listen to what's going on. Thirdly, his positioning should have been a little bit better giving him access out of the room as opposed to the offender. When the offender was standing, he clearly could have blocked that door and it wouldn't have been any way out. Precautionary things I think are real important when dealing with these types of issues. I would be concerned of the other offender that's in the waiting room. I would have liked to seen that offender removed the first before the officer removed the one who was posing the threat. So perhaps if his officer came and said, I need to see you because he was in the midst of this and I believe we have a responsibility to this person's welfare also. The administrative person played a significant role in this scenario so I'll ask Rhonda to give us her perspective. Well, I think that as this scenario shows administrative staff and support staff are actually the first line of defense for an office and the administrative staff person she was actually the eyes and ears of that officer and by notifying him she kept that office safe. So what we have here is an alert staff member who knew what to do, was trained at it. There was a procedure in place and officer who could have positioned himself better and dealt with it and used some verbal techniques to try to take care of that situation. There were other matters that could have been taken care of by other means as identified by the push-to-talk groups. Definitely many more things that could be said about this and establishing this kind of high-risk circumstance and office circumstance more for you to consider. Let's move on though and go on to the next scenario, next question. Let's find out what the officer do well and for that I want to go to Tammy Yerkeson in the District of New Mexico and push-to-talk group there. Tammy from the District of New Mexico. We identified several things that the officer did well including taking the offender to a neutral room, acknowledging the threat but not focusing on it using a calming voice when talking to him and excellent voice commands by telling the offender to sit down just regularly using his voice commands. I want to move the question then to Rhonda with regard to what the officer did well. I thought the officer did a very good job of asking questions and trying to bring that offender back into a thinking behavior. He remained very calm and not threatening to that offender. He had open palms and it seemed like maybe he knew that offender enough to let him vent and go on about his situation but the officer seemed to be very helpful. I would have liked to seen the officer, well I should say it, I liked the way the officer said I'm respecting you and in turn I would like to have the respect back from you. I thought that was a nice strong comment to make and potentially settle the person down a bit. I think one of the things he did is he didn't escalate it any further. Raising your voice, becoming loud or argumentative with him when the offender was raising his voice you know what that can do in a situation and it could highly escalate something. So I thought he did a good job with that. Absolutely. He used some techniques he obviously was trained to do and could use some safety training with regard to positioning, that sort of thing. The next question then, the natural next question, I'll go to the district of Pennsylvania and ask the question what could the officer have done differently? Jim Muth, and the push to talk group there. Well, as we said before, we feel that perhaps the police or the FBI should have been called in ahead of time. As far as bringing the individual back to a secured office, we felt that was a good idea. However, we didn't like his positioning in the office, especially a few times when the offender had stood up in a threatening way and the officer remained seated. We didn't really agree with that. We thought that was lacking in safety. As well as we didn't feel he had good control over the conversation. He was trying to keep a low key conversation going. However, it seemed to be getting out of hand. Let's move then to the panel. I'd like to go first to Rhonda because I want to talk about, in this instance, the receptionist Rhonda. And if there are any administrative people in the push to talk groups, I'd like them to comment with regard to the receptionist role here and how that receptionist performed in this circumstance. Once again, as I said before, the support staff is really the first line of defense for the office. They're the first person who meets and greets that offender or defendant. And how they react to that makes a big difference in keeping that office safe. The receptionist was very good. She was alert. And even though there was a window between her and the reception area, she remained alert to what was going on. And I think that that's one of the things with our offices that do have the safety windows and glass. We need to be recognizant of what's going on out in that waiting area and not become recombinant and not pay attention because we are the eyes and ears of that office. She didn't challenge the offender at all when the offender was making threats. She just kind of acknowledged it and went ahead and called the support staff person. There was obviously a procedure in place. Called the support staff person and moved into another office to warn that officer of the threat. Okay, let me include the panel in a combined response to what the officer did and then to the receptionist's question as well. Invite your comments regarding both. I agree with the sites that the officer needed to stand up. The offender stood up three times and the officer didn't stand up to the last. I would have liked to see him at least stand up in the second one. Do you have to bring this person back? If somebody has a threat, can you structure them outside that in the waiting room, if you cleared the waiting room, that this is not going to be acceptable and you will come back tomorrow or something of that nature? Are we bringing our problem back to us? This is just one option. The seating arrangement also bothered me, as was mentioned, and I think this officer was very, very task-oriented. He was just threatened again by the profanity, et cetera, and then he continued to ask, we haven't reported, da-da-da-da. So the tunnel vision was taking place. What about the receptionist? Receptionist did an extraordinary job, I think, because she was calm and she didn't instantaneously react and call. She let it settle down for a minute and then she made that call. In this situation, she should be commanded. You know, watching this scenario, I had a difficult time sitting in my chair and not wanting to stand up here, so I can't imagine a real-life scenario that I'd be sitting there that calmly. However, there is one thing to keep in mind if you rise, again, depending on the size of the officer and the defendant, you know, a six-foot-three officer could be a very intimidating force and that may be enough in itself to resolve or calm him down. On the other hand, it could also entice him. So just, you know, I'm not saying that we want to remain seated. I agree that it's put us in a defenseless situation, but be prepared for what may occur when you do rise. Another thing that stood out with me is one of the things Chris said also was the fact that he had an opportunity to go out into the waiting room and assess the situation, and that's the whole opportunity. You know, you have him right out there. You knew something was wrong before he even got him in and he didn't take advantage of that. And then thirdly, you know, he used a couple of charged-up words like, we're ready to deal with any threats. You know, that's something to maybe get him going a little bit even more, than what he did. He put the receptionist in danger because he indicated to the offender that he had been told about those threats. Another consideration. Let's go to the Pistotoxites. Lori in Arizona, you have an administrative person there? This is Renee from the District of Arizona. Hi, Renee. What are your observations? The receptionist did. I think she did very well as the panel has noted. She remained calm. She didn't cause everyone else in the lobby to become upset or to feel threatened, rather waited until she could get away from her phone and alert the officer as to what was going on. Great, thank you. Are you finished? You got cut off there. Okay, we'll go to Jim Muth. That's all, thanks. We'll go to Jim Muth in Pennsylvania. I think the receptionist did an excellent job. But I think since the officer came out and he didn't know if he contacted anybody else to let them know that there was a potential problem with the defendant, she could have contacted the duty supervisor just to make sure that officer was safe. Good observation. In Maryland, Debbie Wojcicki, you have an administrative person there with some observations about the receptionist's part in this? Yes, we do. Our John Toomey. Hi, I'm John Toomey from Baltimore. And the thing that I noticed was the receptionist, although she did a great job, she did let the offender know that she was calling somebody. Because he said, you did call somebody when we didn't, you know? And I think she could have done that a little bit, you know, better as far as notifying him that she was calling somebody and reporting him. I think that she put the other gentlemen in the waiting room in danger at that time. The focus here is on the receptionist and the role that the administrative staff plays can be an important one, and procedures and roles to be played should be clear in your offices, and that's what we end with here. On the question of lessons learned, what lessons can we learn from this? Let's go to the District of Arizona to lead us into this discussion. As we've been stating, I think primary lesson is the importance, as you stated, the first line of defense, the receptionist. And she is the eyes and ears. And to be trained to do the things that this receptionist did, to listen to stuff, to be calm, anything that is a threat, to advise the officer, and possibly other officers around to kind of keep an eye on the officer and the offender when they're meeting. Another one would be that a neutral office is often a good thing to do, frequently, so it isn't an unusual circumstance. The offender wouldn't be put on alert that something's different. By using a neutral office you don't have your family's pictures showing you don't have your stapler, your pin sitting out. Another one was the importance of making sure that all staff has been trained in verbal judo or deescalating situations. Another point I think that Chris Sutton made is officers too often are task oriented. And when somebody is getting so upset you just need to cut it off and say I'm not going to put up with this, you're going to have to leave until you can calm down or call me tomorrow morning and we don't have to finish what we were intending to do that day. Again, I think the last point we'll make is the positioning of the officer where he was sitting in a very vulnerable position with the offender angry and over him he was blocked, he could not get to the door so again I think it's anticipating what could happen where do you want the offender to sit where do you want to sit and I guess that wraps up some of the issues and lessons that we received from the scenario. Very complete Arizona, thank you very much. Walk and talk technique is one thing the officer could have used. Let's move to the panel with a question about the lessons learned in this scenario. Art? I think Lori is right on target. The main thing to realize about this is that it's not a one man job. The safety isn't responsible, it doesn't fall on to the safety person or one person in the office, it's everybody's responsibility. It goes from the receptionist to the support staff to the officers to the administrative to the chief. Everybody has to take an active role in protecting the officers and staff within the office. Also realize that this was a very obvious scenario where the behavior was very clear that he was angry and made a threat. It's not always going to be that clear. It's not always going to be that obvious. It's important that we provide all staff especially though the receptionist and the clerical staff, the administrative staff in this type of training so that they can pick up on it first again that could be a real important step in not letting something escalate. Another thing to keep in mind is that trust your instincts. If it doesn't appear right, if it doesn't seem right to you guess what? It's probably not. So if you sense something, if you feel something's not right stop it where it is and move on and get it another day. And lastly, if there's an outburst and something goes wrong you've calmed it down and now you think you can re-engage him in conversation you're probably wrong because you're going to go somewhere that's going to agitate him again and then we're right back to square one again and maybe even worse. So, nip it in a butt and stop it. I would emphasize too that in this situation in any situation the old adage, expect the unexpected is underlining everything and furthermore take this situation outside of the office setting and in the future when any home calls are made and done in pairs on this particular individual. I also think that it would be a good idea to alert the other individuals in the office, especially admin staff of this individual and his behavior and threats so when this offender comes into the office again that admin staff person is going to be aware that there's a potential problem with this individual. You make a good point that we include admin and support staff in our training and in our policies and procedures and we also need to remember when we bring new staff on to also train them and update them on what the policies and procedures are. Obviously you can move on with more and more questions with regard to each of the issues here you can talk all day. We encourage you to do that. Let's move on to the next scenario. What we're going to do is ratchet it up a notch so let's roll the video. We'll answer the questions in the following order. The District of New Mexico Eastern Pennsylvania District of Arizona and finally the District of Maryland. So Lily, you've been out of the hospital two weeks now. How are things going? Okay, I guess. You guess? Well, mom's been having some of her headaches that always makes things a little bit harder but I'm hanging in there. It'll be fun. She's feeling a little bit better already. Good. Um, can I ask you a question? If I'm okay for a while could I go back to seeing Mary Brandt? Well, Lily, the way we look at it once you've had severe mental health problems it's a good idea to see a mental health specialist for a while. But if some time passes and there's no reoccurrences we can talk about reassignment, sure. It's just she kind of understood what was going on with me. I understand that you and Miss Brandt had a good rapport. But for now you should consider me your probation officer. If there are things I need to understand just talk to me, okay? Yeah. So how's the job going? It's okay. Anything new there? No, not really. How about the GED? Any progress there? Not yet. I've been just working and helping mom pretty much all the time when I'm home. I think a GED would make a big difference in your life. I know Miss Brandt thought so too. Okay, Lily, I have a note here to ask you about your DUI cases. What's going on with them? I really don't know. I figured somebody would tell me when to go to court, but they haven't yet. That's odd. Should have at least had a date scheduled by now when we call and find out. Okay. Hi, Josie. This is Larry Simon's at federal probation. I have a little gladstone in my office. She has two pending DUI cases. I'm trying to find out what's going on with them. Yeah, the first case is uh, 012487. Sure, I'll hold. You okay? Want some water? Really? Hmm. Look, is there anyone there I can talk to help her figure out what her options are? Okay, thanks. Did you know you have two bench warrants out for your arrest? I didn't know anything about it. Okay, Lily. Just uh, just have a seat and we'll figure out what to do about this. Okay, now the clerk's office said that you missed two court appearances on April 2nd and April 18th. Do you remember getting any notices about that? No. I didn't get any notices. April 18 now. I wasn't in the hospital then. You know that. You said so yourself. How could I go to court? Okay, we'll make sure they know that. This shouldn't be too hard to clear up. She said I could find out more from the sheriff's office. You want me to call him now? Okay. Hi, Sergeant. This is Larry Simons at Federal Probation. I'm calling about Lily Gladstone. I understand you have a couple of warrants out on her. Well, she's in my office now. I'd like to help her get this cleared up. Can I put you on hold for a minute? Look, Lily, this isn't so bad. You just have to guarantee that you'll be in the sheriff's office tomorrow morning. What if I can't do that? Then they'll send someone to arrest you now. Look, Lily, this is important. You need to make this a priority. I'll tell you what the priority is. My mother doesn't know anything about these DUIs. And when she figures out I've screwed up again, she's going to kill me. Doesn't anybody care about this? Of course, Lily, we all care. We can clear this up. It's not really such a big deal. Just sit down and we'll talk about it. No, I can't go back. Lily, do you want to talk to Mary? This looks like it's getting out of hand. I'll go get the marshal. After you've calmed down, we'll move to the push-to-talk group in New Mexico. Mexico? What are the safety issues here? I was a little bit concerned in the beginning. Maybe we should have continued to ask her about her feelings in the beginning with more questions before confronting her about the warrant. Yes, and that's a significant point at which you could have intervened. What are your other observations with regard to the issues involved here? The other we're looking at here is the office situation and keeping her calm and making sure she's not in an area where there's something that she could pick up as she did. She picked up something that became a weapon for her. Absolutely. What you have on your desk means something in the area around it. The other issues we are looking at is that she was not comfortable with her probation officer and maybe bringing in her previous probation officer to discuss matters may have calmed her a little bit to talk about some of her emotional feelings before moving on to discussing the benchmarks could have eased the situation a little bit. Okay, thanks. Debbie, what was your husky? One of the safety issues would be the PO prepare prior to meeting with the offender particularly regarding the mental health issues and the pending warrants. Perhaps the call should have been made prior to the meeting if the warrants were outstanding and also there would have been a value of having the initial PO at the first meeting since that PO was aware of the mental health issues and had worked with her. Thank you, Debbie. New Mexico, thank you too. Let's move to the panel and start with Chris in the panel discussion regarding this issue packed. I think both sides have really covered most of the issues but I think there is one or a couple that haven't been that we haven't thought about and have we ever been trained to identify potential suicide individuals suicidal individuals and what are we supposed to respond to in that particular situation when they exhibit these signs or symptoms in our office and also what when this escalated where are we on the color code of awareness and also on the use of force continuum how would we resolve this would we use a capstone for our practice so beside defusing the escalating verbal situation that's going up what are some of these other things that are potential resources to us to be used to bring the situation under control? I also think one of the major issues here is the other employees in the office and what happens when they become aware of an emergency situation how they handle that and when and if they're going to intervene in what they should or shouldn't do you know with this art there are so many signs that she presented her body language, her nonverbal cues were persistent throughout the entire video and I'm wondering how much training in this video the individual had on recognizing those signs and symptoms so I think that's real important to mention it's also important to realize what you need to know about your individual the history of the case the events going on in her life you know she kept touching on her mother and issues going on with the mother and he didn't really delve into that at all about what's going on, why do you have so much anxiety with your mother so on and so forth he was focused on the GED and on the benchmarks and so on and so forth so there were clearly issues that she was having difficulty with he wasn't responding to and lastly what about the pocketbook did that cause anybody any concerns at all you know the way she was clinching on to that and it was very large and God only knows what could be inside of that but you know you have a lot of potential weapons that could be in there and she had it so close to her you know how do you handle a situation like that you know is there a way to calmly without bringing attention to it get that away from her obviously the spectrum of issues here brings us through administrative procedures it brings us to personnel skills that you have when you are facing this sort of thing use of various defensive weapons such as capstone understanding your indoors all kinds of considerations that go into this let's take a look at what the officer did well and for that question let's turn to Jim in Pennsylvania his group, Push to Talk group there Jim? Officer definitely had a difficult offender to deal with and any one of us could have at some point in our careers have to deal with that type of a person the one thing I did see that I thought was pretty good was he tried to remain as calm as possible he tried to talk in a helpful and understanding way when the offender started acting out he positioned himself in as best a way he could he stood up and looked to be ready for a possible attack against himself and also he you know he attempted to contact or have Miss Brant contacted to possibly bring her in to help intervene Excellent observations Jim let's move from the Push to Talk group to the panel and ask a runner to lead us off with that question, what did he do well? I think it was very friendly and very reassuring to Lily he tried to ask questions kind of bring her back into thinking about what was going on he left the door open so that others could hear he was just very calm and very reassuring you know he also offered her a drink, he asked her if she was everything okay so he was trying to assess the situation could have gone a little bit further but he did ask those types of questions he was also trying to be helpful for her in trying to resolve the warrants I think he could have taken that one step further when he was on the phone with the courts he had documents verifying where she was he might have tried to resolve it right over the phone as opposed to saying to her you're going to have to go down here tomorrow otherwise they're going to arrest you today so he could have taken it one step further he also saw that the button he was pushing his mother and I think if he would have delved a little more into the mother what's your mother's situation stuff like that it would have been more helpful good observations so a logical question that arises is what could the officer have done differently and for that let's turn to Lori Trigelio in Arizona and her push to talk group hi this is Eric Olson from the district of Arizona some of the things we saw that he could have done differently some of the things was he kept going past the mental health issue and not dealing with it he was very task oriented and just kept continuing to do that rather than listening to her concerns and delving into her issues perhaps on another day it would be a better day to deal with the other issues but he definitely needed to deal more with the mental health he said he was wanting to help her and work with her and stuff but again he wasn't listening to her he could have brought in her past probation officer at an earlier time which would have probably not permitted the situation to escalate and help the transition a little bit better he could have instilled perhaps a little more hope for her by like I said delving into her mental health situations and just her anxiety with her mother and that type of stuff a little bit more interesting how we can just click off the things that we could do in the heat of battle we forget that there's not just the job to be done but there's the immediate to deal with and we should have the skills to do that discussion let's turn to Art Penny to talk about the issue what could he have done better one of the things is that he kept using some emotionally charged words severe mental health problems he said not a big deal several times you know to him it's probably not a big deal because he realizes how this is going to be resolved to her though she's hearing arrest she's hearing warrants she knows what's going on with her mother so for her it was a big deal and I want to try and keep her calm not agitator even more the other thing that stands out with me is you know pre-trial services for example is at a big disadvantage we get cases sometimes an hour later after they appeared in court and now we're dealing with an individual like this for the first time so the more information you can gather about an individual the more you know sources that we have where we can pull their history from is greatly enhance your safety there's a lot of valuable information that explains her behavior things you should be aware of and so on and so forth and then the other concern that I have is with an OD how many times do we bring an individual like this into our office who we've never dealt with before our mental health specialist is on vacation and now you're dealing with an individual who you're seeing for the first time you're not really aware of what the problems are it's important to review the past month or so of what's been going on with her maybe the officer who's handling it some areas in the top of the crons that would highlight what some of her issues are maybe some of her normal behavior if there is such a thing things that she may display which are not threatening but typical to her behavior would be a good cue for the officer who's now looking at this case for the first time alright I would have liked to see the officer call the hospital and get records from the hospital that would because she just recently was released I would have liked to see and pay more attention to her non-verbal signs the twirling of her hair pushing her back her hair the hyperventilating which he did it momentarily and then he glanced down and looked at the case number or whatever and I think that and played a more important part to prevent the situation from escalating as highly as we can learn from this situation for that let's turn to Debbie Wojcicki in the district of Maryland Debbie some of the points that have been brought up have already been discussed however I have gotten some excellent feedback from the group here today in Maryland one would be that the personal safety is the primary goal at this time the second would be that the phone call regarding the outstanding warrant should have been made prior to the meeting next the PO should have listened better I know this was already mentioned however it did not appear to several people in our group today that the PO was really listening at all to her what she was saying or to her body language also another excellent point that was raised is that when the PO put the sheriff on hold he could have taken it off hold as a safety factor so that the sheriff could have listened to the situation that was occurring in the office and finally a better plan should have been in place in the office there was a plan in place of the two officers that came in to help didn't really know what to do excellent observations a couple of which the panel was really impressed with so let's go for the panel's impressions and have Chris lead us into the discussion about lessons learned well I agree with Debbie that he didn't have a plan but he didn't have a plan B or C things escalated and he needed different plans this lady was in a crisis situation and when anyone is in a crisis situation let it be ourselves or an offender their behavior is not what we normally know of them so he was not expecting the unexpected we always need to expect the unexpected if it's a mental health case or if it's a case that we don't feel is a high risk issue also what is our responsibility to assist somebody that's attempting suicide in front of us in our office and then all of a sudden the tables turn there's a potential risk to ourselves as well as to third party the individuals that were coming through the door what do we need to do I think we would all want to try and assist this offender but we also have to put ourselves in a position of safety and then think of the third person involved also and again I think this raises a significant training issue we all need to have this type of training support staff administrative staff and officer staff need this in case these situations do come up to this level that we saw in this lady I do think that had there been a code word in place indicating the emergency or that something was wrong the officer could have turned to either one of those individuals said that code word and they would have been aware that something was actually going on this was an emergency situation once the officer jumped up from his desk I'm assuming there was probably a panic button distress alarm on that desk he was away from that resource of hitting that panic button and getting help push to talk sites made an observation regarding the third parties here what are your observations regarding them important questions anybody this is Laurie in Arizona hi Laurie it did seem that the people that came into the room also escalated it at least the gentleman the second gentleman and had he been trained and possibly coming in maybe in a calm way can I help also I do agree with Rhonda having a dress button something available or a word possibly that the officer may tell to the other officer to let him know that this is escalating maybe you could get some back up good good observations preparation verbal skills ability to focus on the real issues in front of you and to consider matters regarding legal and ethical considerations regarding your responsibilities your obligations are matters that you're going to discuss later I'm sure because they're issue packed all the way through we have to move on and then to the next one we're going to move it up one more time this is an unusual admittedly an unusual circumstance but it's full of a couple of important questions that we'd like to examine here so let's roll the tape the districts will address the issue in this order Eastern Pennsylvania District of Arizona District of Maryland and the District of New Mexico hi Mr. Ferrell come on back hey Miss Johnson how you doing I'm fine are you okay you look a little wobbly I had the flu I'm still spaced out I would have got here sooner but I couldn't get out of bed not for three months I hope has it been that long yes it has okay the last I saw of you was in early May when I saw you at your mother's house since then I couldn't find you yeah well things got kind of confused when I had to move out of mom's you knew about that right yeah your aunt told me that your mom was incarcerated I'm sorry to hear that thanks so where have you been all this time no here and there mostly at Angie's though now Angie is that someone new yeah well I've known her for a long time but we just sort of got together now and what's Angie's address it's what is it 282 West Summers something or other is that an apartment yeah it's a 54 B I think Mr. Ferrell I try to track you down but no one knew where you were so I had no other choice but to get a violation warrant I'm gonna have to call the marshals to come and arrest you I knew that before I came in my aunt told me I really hope you can help me with that Miss Johnson because if I go back to prison they'll kill me for sure you know that they almost killed me last time I can't just let you back out there so you can disappear again but maybe we have some other options looking at you now it looks like there's a lot more wrong with you than just the flu have you been taking drugs again oh god Miss Johnson don't even ask yeah that's what I thought why don't you tell me about it well I keep trying and trying to quit that ship but I don't know I just keep on what would you think about some inpatient drug treatment I think I sure could use it but I don't know what about the warrant well I'm gonna have to let the marshals know that you're here but we may be able to work out something so that you can get to that treatment facility I think that'd be really good why don't I give the treatment provider a call now before you call um I've got to go to the man's room I don't feel so good sure I'll walk out with you the restroom is right around the corner Angie what are you doing here oh I just thought I'd come down and have a few beers with the PO's I came to get you to take your home Selma told me you were here yeah well thanks but I don't think Miss Johnson here is gonna just let me leave she was about to call someone to have me arrested oh big surprise why'd you come down here when you knew they had a warrant out that was just dumb way let's just calm down but the longer I wait the more trouble I'm in yeah they would have had to find you first you were doing just fine look we're not gonna talk about this in the hall Mr. Ferrell go ahead and go to the restroom you can't put him in prison because of all that garbage with the old gang are you trying to get him killed Wayne why do you trust her nobody even said he's going to prison yeah I've heard PO's lies before you're not gonna get him killed not now that's not okay Wayne run before I go to Jim and his group in Pennsylvania I invite the other push-to-talk groups to give us some input with regard to what you see and fill in some of the parts that aren't being said and give us some of your observations okay so now let's go to Jim in Pennsylvania and the push-to-talk group there whole bunch of problems with that scenario let me start at first there was the fact that she brought in a fugitive that could have been a little better coordinated by perhaps having the marshals ready ahead of time second there were safety issues you know it was dangerous for herself and at one point also the defendant her positioning the location of the interview and the lack of communication with other agencies and officers should have been brought up and there was also just a flat out lack of control of the situation it was a lack of control there are other observations I'd like the other push-to-talk group to give us their thoughts this is Laurie from Arizona hi Laurie that's what are your thoughts stairwell really was a dangerous position to place herself in that can go into many things her falling being isolated just a myriad of different safety problems having conducted many safety academies in Arizona you can point out a lot of the issues here any other push-to-talk group thanks Laurie how are you how are you good to hear your voice what we observed here was again like the other districts mentioned they were chasing to the hallway you're looking at a trap situation basically the officer was assaulted by a third party there was no call out for help there was an individual who came down the hallway it looked like it was an office member that turned around and went we're assuming they left to obtain some help we're hoping that happened the officer continued to escalate and get into a situation that put her at risk not really helping anybody but putting her at risk and that's one thing we don't want to do excellent absent any comments from the other push-to-talk group we'll move to the panel and on Baltimore one of the officers here just brought up a very good point concerning a safety issue that the PO should she have really been interviewing the offender when the offender appeared to be intoxicated good point you're just asking for trouble when you do that aren't you any other push-to-talk observations okay let's move to the panel and examine as closely as we can and with that I want to turn to Rhonda I think one of the big issues here was the layout of the office space and the very fact that this officer had to leave a secure area to take that offender to the restroom possibly she could have alerted someone else taking another officer I think she was very good about remaining calm but maybe too calm in the whole situation what are your observations did she have to bring him back to her office could she have called I would have liked to seen the receptionist when the receptionist called her Rhonda say so-and-so is here then she called the marshals if they're in close proximity okay and then once that they arrived bring him to her office or whatever especially that was mentioned when he was unstable on his feet why bring him back just keep him maybe in that waiting room at this point and once the conversation got going his mindset was something else she had a mindset he had a mindset and so we're having a clashing right at this point as far as what she did well there wasn't a whole lot here that could be noted that was done well she did get down the stairs with no problems so she was probably in good shape but other than that there was a lot of issues on the other spectrum of what she could do differently in handling that situation my hunch here is that this person is a good counselor is in the helping mode but this isn't the helping mode circumstance and for us all we need to consider what the circumstance is and have an approach for each because in this circumstance there was nothing we're going to do to help anyone and that the defensive mode would probably have been a good way to go it's a volatile circumstance so we are real interested though in one other aspect of this and I want to turn it around for this what about the third parties the person in the hall what about them it looked almost like the officer went into tunnel vision as soon as the situation changed and a third party came in and the girlfriend was there I don't believe she recognized that there was someone behind her she kind of focused in on the girlfriend and kind of lost sight of the whole picture at this point if it would have been a probation or pretrial employee and there was a code word in place she could have said that code word to indicate that that there was an emergency situation also this is another area where she had to go outside that secure area had she been in the probation or pretrial office this situation would not have occurred because the girlfriend probably would not have gotten back into the office with him let's go to the district of Maryland and push the talk group to the district of Maryland what could the officer have done differently the four main issues that we have decided the officer could have done differently first of all again some of these have already been mentioned and I apologize for that the warrant should not have been served in the matter should not have been addressed in that manner at all that was out of place the officer should have not have taken the offender into an unsecured area and the question that was raised here in Maryland we were a little bit concerned with the secured area for example how the girlfriend was able to get into that area it didn't seem like there was any security measures whatsoever in place another good point was that a plan should have been in place and a male officer should have been escorting the offender to the restroom particularly if the offender was perhaps hiding in the restroom and last again we mentioned this earlier the officers wanted to know how the girlfriend the third party was able to enter the area real good questions for us to answer anything else from the push to talk group yes Art this is Jim from the eastern district of Pennsylvania we just feel that there should have been a plan and she should have utilized the plan it appeared to us that she brought this individual back who was wanted and was going to talk to him meanwhile it appeared that no one else in the office was notified there were no signs that the marshals had been called ahead of time and we feel that all those steps should have been taken care of prior to the individual even coming into our office and certainly when you have a wanted individual you're not going to allow the person to go to the bathroom at that point at least not un-escorted by a male officer good observations let's move from the push to talk sites and go to the panel and let Chris lead us into the question what this officer could have done differently well, she certainly the officer didn't expect the unexpected in this one and I would have liked to seen her distance herself she was way too close to this offender walking down the hall they look like a couple I mean she needed to spread out once the third party came up I would have liked to seen her back even further away so that she has that triangular effect being able to see both of these and I don't think the girlfriend would have been able to push her also what about a cell phone we all are gadget oriented now we all have our cell phones if her cell phone was on her person she could have back to way continue to back away never turn her back to these two people and call for help if she couldn't get back to the office I think we've all agreed here in the panel as the sites have also we wouldn't be running down chasing someone downstairs especially when all of a sudden the person we have a person in front of us and the person that shoved us is to our back also why couldn't she just let him go and telephone the local police or the marshals and haven't picked up at the bottom those are the things that really seem very troublesome here I think she got caught up in the emotion of the time and didn't think this through didn't have a plan and I guess did she comply with what her district's policy or procedure was for when somebody comes in reports with a warrant those are the things that I think could have been done a little bit different you know the one thing that I question though isn't it our role as law enforcement officers we have somebody with an active warrant here we have not contacted the marshals yet but we know that there is an active warrant for her and we have somebody trying to flee our responsibility as law enforcement officers to subdue that defendant and bring him back into custody I think it is our responsibility to some extent as long as it's done in a safe mode and there was no safety factors in place here she allowed him to go to the restroom it would have been nice if she was working with you and could ask you to go in to the restroom and make sure he was okay and then come back out and have the marshals there but do we chase people and if we chase them what are we prepared to do once we catch him one of the things that really bothered me in this one is what if there was he's running he had his plan the girlfriend had her plan and they grabbed the officer or they grabbed somebody out at the bottom of the stairwell and took him hostage because he was adamant he was not going to go to prison he was worried about his welfare apparently he had been threatened by some gang group before so he knew what he was going to do I'm sure there were some districts who were raising their hand wanted to ask if they can pursue that's not my stance but I just wanted to generate that because I wanted to hear what kind of response we have I guess there might be a certain situation where you might want to pursue but I think typically that's not our role that's what the marshals are paid for if you know an individual is possibly a threat to either himself like the scenario from the last one where the woman was possibly going to attempt suicide or a threat to someone else then maybe that might change a little bit in your thought of pursuing somebody but again I don't think that's our role as probation and pretrial officers you're in a public place and if you elect to use force you have to consider the other people around and the risk you put them in doing that sort of thing so there are all kinds of considerations here to be made I also think that once the situation changed she wasn't expecting the unexpected when she walked out in the hallway the situation changed completely she had a girlfriend in front of her that was very confrontive obviously wanted her boyfriend out of the role of the probation officer didn't want him to go back to jail and then she also had that third party that came in also well actually the fourth party either the employee or whatever that situation changed and I think we have to look at those mindsets and make sure that we're prepared if the situation changes in a flash like it did here and not be surprised at those elements she also touched him okay it was a nice gesture trying to guide him but I don't think we're in the position where we should be touching people and then shaking their hands and I think this could have escalated the situation a little bit more with the girlfriend the girlfriend was very possessive of him I think sometimes officers believe that they can handle any situation and that I have a good rapport with my defendant and I can kind of predict what he's going to do but I think the unexpected but you can't predict anybody's behavior firstly you haven't seen this guy in three months you have no idea what's been going on for the past three months he just got done admitting to you that he's been using drugs and they have somebody under the influence who typically are not rational individuals they're not a thinking person when they're under the influence so you're not going to be able to predict their behavior so I think for her to make that assumption was a big mistake on her part and many of us watching this can just eliminate all of the things that we believe and know to be right one of the things that I want to emphasize is that we can have an understanding of what things have to be done but unless we condition ourselves to develop a mindset that will work when we're in a high risk situation when it becomes tense when things have to happen automatically that's when we're conditioning that we've done for ourselves works and in this circumstance it's a perfect example that the person should have there were a lot of things that could have done before that but once in that circumstance could have reacted and we often talk about connecting the mind to the feet and have the feet work so that it gets you out of trouble and that's just one technique and many that the subject matter experts in your districts can teach you but it's a matter of your commitment to it and taking personal safety seriously and not as an academic exercise Ron did you have some comments? Well I was just going to say we do become so task oriented this offender had not been in the office he also she knew that there were warrants out she knew once she let him go that he was out of the office the marshals couldn't come in and arrest him and she became very focused on that when do we let go and when do we turn around and just say okay this is it turn around and go back and call the marshals or hit the panic button good questions those questions that are matters for us to examine later on in our individual groups but let's go to lessons learned to Tammy in New Mexico and her group in New Mexico and ask about what lessons can be learned from this scenario I think what we just saw was a culmination of the last two scenarios and what the entire nation should learn is that we've got to look at training we've got to look at teamwork we've got to not make the mistakes that were made in this third scenario we need to work together we need to look outside the box not just with pretrial and probation but you also talk to the marshals service your court security personnel when they see you out there with three other individuals that they're aware that something might happen also getting each individual each probation officer clerk everybody prepared for this type of scenario that's not what we just saw happen in real life right on the money letter important observation with regard to lessons learned let's turn to the panel now for lessons learned and for that I'll turn to Rhonda first well and I think one of the lessons learned is does your district have a policy when you're arresting someone in the office the policy state that you will call law enforcement before hand the marshals the police whoever's going to arrest that individual and do you let other people know if an arrest is going to be taken place also what do you have a policy regarding chasing after a fleeing offender if not maybe that may be something we can examine and take into consideration what are you going to do and practice that and mentally rehearse that so we know if a situation like this comes up we will know also if you do need to take someone outside a security area you need to be in the mindset that anything can happen you need to expect the unexpected and that mindset you not only need to know what your own mindset is you need to consider the offender's mindset as well as that third party that came up so now you've got all kinds of different individuals in the mix rather than just the two one thing that stands out is pay attention to nonverbal cues again he indicated he had to go to the bathroom well did he know he had done this before and that he would be going out into an area that was not secured when he went into the bathroom with nobody with him possibly he did have a weapon was going to try and get himself out of that situation so pay attention to those type of things and I think one of the most important things out of all these lessons is nothing is more important than your own safety subduing that individual is not more important than you going home that night you may have put yourself in a very dangerous situation by going down those stairs or going into that hallway and I understand that you're trying to achieve a task there you're trying to make sure that warrant is executed but it's not more important than your safety and I think that goes in with all these scenarios that we just went over we've gone through just three circumstances but they were issue packed weren't they a verbal threat what's that mean there are so many considerations here for you to consider and for you to talk further and develop ideas with regard to what procedures should be in place what kind of training do we need a suicide situation where do we go with that I mean how many people know what to do in that circumstance third parties and your administrative staff there's a role in each of these circumstances for everyone and that role should be one everyone be well aware of and training attached to that so that everyone can act in concert and when you come into a circumstance like this last one your physical setting means everything and maybe if you have to escort someone into a public setting you need to reconsider whether that's a safe kind of thing to do and you should have develop some practices that make it safer equip yourself with the kind of safety techniques that allow you to respond in a circumstance of this nature and to understand what your role is in a fleeing offender or defendant circumstance be clear on that and have concluded ahead of time procedurally and by policy in your district to understand what your limitations are what your obligations are and these are things for you to discuss as a group and we've just touched the tip of the iceberg in each of these circumstances haven't we we suggest that each of you do that and I want to thank you for your participation and turn this over to Mark thanks a lot Art appreciate the discussion thanks to our push to talk sites as has been pointed out today many of the points covered by our push to talk sites in answering the questions the panel discussion truly has touched the tip of the iceberg as Art has said about many of the safety issues associated with each of these scenarios and as I said before these scenarios are based on actual events I'm not going to offer to you that we actually recreated verbatim we do the best to research talk to the people involved and depict them as close as possible to what actually happened but again based on actual events that occurred in the field you still have unanswered questions you still have things that hopefully each of you will go to the what if mindset and entertain at your own site in the scenario with Lily our mentally disturbed individual at one point during that scenario she picked up a plaque and went after a third party what do you physically do at that point you know do you tackle her do you go after her do you spray her if you've got caps done those should be some of the questions again that folks should be talking about this last scenario with the girlfriend suppose you have the policy you're not going to chase this guy down the stairwell what do you do about her she's just assaulted you in the hallway just back away make note of it go back to the office and recoup or how do you deal with her if you're left in that situation again the what ifs with the fleeing individual as well it was brought out in discussion yesterday during our rehearsal sure the policy generally is not to flee nothing is worth your personal safety as Art Penny has said but what if you have knowledge what if you have a direct concern or aware that that individual either the fleeing individual intends to hurt themselves or intends to flee because they intend to go out and hurt someone else again the what ifs scenarios carry these out to other options and other concern other areas and discuss amongst yourselves what are some of the other things that could have happened even though they weren't necessarily depicted in the scenarios that you saw as you continue hopefully one of the things we've learned since we started this series is that sites are going back and using the scenarios using these videos and other trainings that are doing in house and understanding that when some of the districts are doing that some people who are charged with facilitating those discussions may not be totally comfortable in that role may feel a little bit like a duck out of water we went at the center want to offer you the opportunity if you'd like to call upon one of us to assist you in facilitating those discussions in your district we'll be happy to do that via an audio conference with you and again feel free if that's something that you think you'd like to have just as an extra voice to help get the discussion going or someone to play devil's advocate so to speak give us a call you can call Bill Timmich and his number is in the FJT in Bulletin under the listing for this program and give him a call at the center and we can set that up for you we'll be happy to do that as always we thank our panelists we thank our sites and we thank all of you who took the time out of your busy schedules to watch today's broadcast and until the next time we get together let's keep the dialogue going take care