# Survival gems from the ILEETA gold mine



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Nuggets mined from the rich training lode at the recent annual conference of the International Law Enforcement Educators & Trainers Assn. (ILEETA):

*Deadly trends.* More than 18,300 LEOs have been killed since the first line-of-duty death was recorded in the U.S. in 1792, and these deaths have spanned every hour of the day and every day of the week. During the last 10 years, though, more officers have been feloniously slain on Fridays, the least on Sundays, and more have been murdered between 8 pm and 10 pm than in any other two-hour period. 
Last year, domestics and traffic stops/pursuits proved to be the deadliest encounters. With the possible exception of six officers who were fatally ambushed, all those murdered in 2007 "were involved in activities where danger should have been anticipated."

The general trend since 1978 has been a decline in felonious deaths of officers and an increase in accidental deaths. Now traffic mishaps "are the biggest killers of police officers." Possible contributing factors: training is not matching this trend (most agencies require no driver training/refreshing beyond recruit level), more distractions in patrol cars, increased call volume, more agencies changing to smaller vehicles, an increasing percentage of recruits "are getting their driver's licenses on their day of hire," fatigue as "officers try to crowd too much into their lives," and a failure to follow safety protocols.

_-Lt. Ken Solosky, NYPD (ret.) 
Instructor: What's Killing Cops_

*Fatal legacies.* Three officer murders and one near-miss with inherent lessons for training and practice: 
• An officer who had earlier taken off his vest, possibly because of heat discomfort, was investigating a collision at a street corner. A suspect lunged from a crowd of onlookers, knocked the officer down, snatched his gun and killed him. The assailant "had set out deliberately to kill a cop that day because police were hurting his drug business." He'd come across another officer earlier but decided not to take him on because "he looked sorta ready." The eventual victim, "extremely overweight," didn't exhibit comparable command presence. Six months earlier, the targeted officer had been disarmed in another street encounter. He had received "below average" performance evaluations, but was still assigned to work the street. 
• On a traffic stop, a suspect with an outstanding warrant came out of his vehicle with a gun concealed in his pocket. The subject handed over his license, and the officer started his paperwork while the two stood between the vehicles. "He wasn't watching me so I pulled the gun and shot him," the suspect explained. Although the round struck the officer's vest, he collapsed; it's thought he may have fainted from being shot. The assailant saw him moving on the pavement, then stood over him and delivered a fatal round to the head. Was that victim "killed" in training by instructors who told him "You're dead" whenever he got "shot" in combat scenarios, instead of urging him to fight back and win? 
• A prisoner who was handcuffed in the backseat of a patrol car stepped through the cuffs and shot the officer behind the wheel. Why? "He disrespected me." Moral: "Treat everyone you contact with respect. Don't yell at them or demean them, even gang members. Respect seems to be a big thing in survival, but how much training do we do on this?" 
• A suspect with a gun hidden his crotch was searched three times by an officer who failed to discover the weapon. Finally, the officer asked, "Do you have a weapon?" 
"Yes," the suspect said-and meekly handed it over. 
"Don't tell my sergeant about this," the officer cautioned. The suspect commented that he hadn't attacked the officer because "I was brought up to respect police."

Full Article: http://www.policeone.com/training/a...sive-Survival-gems-from-the-ILEETA-gold-mine/


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