# Thug Whisperers Deescalation Training



## jools

New Training From Veteran Trainers:

Marc MacYoung and Rory Miller of Conflict Communications will be teaching private classes in the Boston area at the end of August. We'd love to hear from agencies interested in hosting open training with the Thug Whisperers program during that time.

This deescalation program is geared toward law enforcement, corrections, security and related fields.

More info available at ConflictCommunications.com

Thanks in advance for your consideration. Be safe.

Julie - LETR


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## jools

*Correction to Thug Whisperers post*

The Thug Whisperers will be in the Boston area in early August, not the end of the month. E-mail [email protected] for course outline and brochure. Dates still available!


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## Harley387

Thug whisperer training Masscops Style.......










:wavespin:


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## TRPDiesel

Speak softly and carry an expandable baton!!!!


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## 263FPD

TRPDiesel said:


> Speak softly and carry an expandable baton!!!!


Speak clearly, with a firm voice, Taze often.


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## TRPDiesel

263FPD said:


> Speak clearly, with a firm voice, Taze often.


They won't give us tazers...........:sad_smile:


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## TRPDiesel

USMCMP5811 said:


> Tazers? Tazers? Shit, my dept won't even give me a shot gun, never mind a long gun because mumbles says so.......:banghead:


What are these things you speak of? Shotgun? Long gun??? The residents where I work are all better armed then we are. I think we have two AR's and one Shotgun assigned to the Troops at my barracks. So if it is their nite off better hope you can make do with the pea shooter and 37 rounds.


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## 263FPD

USMCMP5811 said:


> Tazers? Tazers? Shit, my dept won't even give me a shot gun, never mind a long gun because mumbles says so.......:banghead:


Shotgun??? What the Eff is a shotgun??? I think I touched one 13 years ago in the academy. Also, WTF is a Patrol Riifle??? I keep qualifying on one for the last three years, they tell us they are going to be mounted in cars any day now. They have been telling us that for the last three years.


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## 263FPD

TRPDiesel said:


> What are these things you speak of? Shotgun? Long gun??? The residents where I work are all better armed then we are. I think we have two AR's and one Shotgun assigned to the Troops at my barracks.* So if it is their nite off better hope you can make do with the pea shooter and 37 rounds.*


Yeah, but you still have more bullets then the community you serve has teeth. That has to count for something?


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## TRPDiesel

263FPD said:


> Yeah, but you still have more bullets then the community you serve has teeth. That has to count for something?


Not for long... Deval will be buying them teef soon


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## 263FPD

By the way, 37 is more the I carry. I got a P220 with two spare mags. Freaking Fire Arms unit is tryingto faze out the 11 remaining .45's and force us to take the P226.
Thank god they don't have the money to buy me a new 226. Besides the new ones all have rails, it will not fit my holsters and the PD will not spring for those either.

They are too busy trying to buy more Tazers ( we only have 20 or so of those)

---------- Post added at 03:10 ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 ----------



USMCMP5811 said:


> We have the artillery, just some asshat who thinks he knows better than the guys and gals with boots on the ground, decided that because of some coalition didn't want to be evenly / out gunned, we can't have them......


And then they bitch about 14 year olds taking 158 Gr. in the noggin. Go figure.

---------- Post added at 03:20 ---------- Previous post was at 03:10 ----------

So this thug whispering thing, is it like that absolutely pointless Verbal Judo?
I remeber they taught us this thing in one of our in-service classes (we hold ours in-house)

What is it that you have to do? Do you start urbanizing your vocabulary with these kids? (Yo, yo, Mother Effer) and such?


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## 263FPD

USMCMP5811 said:


> Fo-Shizzle my nizzle


 Oh, snap!!!


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## TRPDiesel

No I think you start pinching them on the neck and say PSSSSTTT. Like Caesar Milan does with dogs


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## 263FPD




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## TRPDiesel

263FPD said:


>


I have these for my pooches.... I think that they would work wonders on kids as well.....


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## jools

263FPD said:


> By the way, 37 is more the I carry. I got a P220 with two spare mags. Freaking Fire Arms unit is tryingto faze out the 11 remaining .45's and force us to take the P226.
> Thank god they don't have the money to buy me a new 226. Besides the new ones all have rails, it will not fit my holsters and the PD will not spring for those either.
> 
> They are too busy trying to buy more Tazers ( we only have 20 or so of those)
> 
> ---------- Post added at 03:10 ---------- Previous post was at 03:08 ----------
> 
> 
> 
> And then they bitch about 14 year olds taking 158 Gr. in the noggin. Go figure.
> 
> ---------- Post added at 03:20 ---------- Previous post was at 03:10 ----------
> 
> So this thug whispering thing, is it like that absolutely pointless Verbal Judo?
> I remeber they taught us this thing in one of our in-service classes (we hold ours in-house)
> 
> What is it that you have to do? Do you start urbanizing your vocabulary with these kids? (Yo, yo, Mother Effer) and such?


Good question - the goals of VJ and Conflict Communications skills are the same: to stay rational and professional regardless of the irrational behavior around you.

The techniques are very different. This training is a lot easier to apply to real life. It focuses on deescalating ourselves first and taking the ego out of the encounter. Sounds like touchy-feely s--- but it's not, and it works. You'll enjoy the class and find the skills come naturally when you've learned to find the "scripts" in each situation.

More info on this: Conflict Communication Training

Thanks for asking, and let me know if you have any other questions.

Be safe.

Julie - LETR


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## RAMiller

USMCMP5811, I'm in. I'd love to arrange a ride-along while in the area. My schedule has me in the Boston area the first week of August. Bring a vest, it sounds like?

CC isn't some theory put together in a college. Marc hasn't always been one of the good guys. I've spent seventeen years in a direct supervision jail working max, booking and mental health. My normal environment was to be 1 on 75 with no separation and unarmed. Then I went to teach this stuff in Iraq.

Here's the deal- give it a think and see if it might be useful: 
1)most of the guys who teach communications courses only ever talk with college students. they have no idea what it is like to try NOT to kill a 250 pound naked sweaty guy who is screaming how much he wants to die.
2)Anyone who thinks everything can be talked down is an idiot.
3) That said, when one of my troops got in trouble it was almost always because he got sucked into the crook's game.
4) That's the core of the class. The games are predictable and most of the time our reactions are subconscious. If you learn to see them coming, you can keep your buttons from being pushed. You can see when the guy is switching to assault mode. And you can articulate it better in court.

Sorry- I don't like coming on boards for just commercial purposes, but someone gave me a heads-up and asked.

I am very sincere about doing a ride-along in the area the first week of August.
[email protected] if anyone is interested.

Rory


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## Guest

I haven't read up on your site yet, but you have to understand how most of us approach stuff like this. It's not necessarily YOU that is the problem, it's the mealy-mouthed administrators/politicians/policy makers that want your type of program to be how every interaction goes. I'm a fan of having plenty of tools in the toolbox. That's why I love psychology, MMA, guns, Defensive Tactics, etc... BUT... none of us is going to turn our job into Hug-a-thug just because our bosses think it's the flavor of the month. It's a tough business you are in, so just understand you're going to get some skepticism here. I'm sure you already knew that though. Good luck.


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## 263FPD

Working inside with 75 bad guys vs. 1 good guy is not an easy job. However, you already know that these people are there because they are no good, and if you are any kind of a good CO, JO, or Deputy assigned to this task, odds are you have a pretty good idea who you are dealing with and what they are capable of. My best friend has been doing this for about twenty years now, and I hear stories. I do not go fooling myself in to thinking that the idiots in prison are there to get educated and turn their life around. A lot of the charecters inside just want to learn to be a better criminal so that they have less chance of etting caught later. Many of these people are phenomenal con artists who will lie to you (well, they will all lie to you) and tell you just what you want to hear.

Some years ago, I was taking a class on interview and interrogation methods based on the Reed Method. As a part of this course, we had to go and interview prisoners who were serving time in MCI Cedar Junction. The point of this was to get used to seeing the "Tells" and the body language of a lier in action. Interesting thing is, how the prsoners talk to you vs. the interviews that you conduct in the field or at the station with people not yet convicted of a crime. The inmates were so super cooperative that it made one almost feel at ease during the whole process. Meanwhile, when conducting interviews or interrogations in the field, there tends to be mnore hostility.

I was assigned to a community substation for over two years. This assignment placed me in the hot bed of our local gang activitiy. When cming in contact with these self proclaimed thugs in the street, the interaction and the dynamics were not that pleasant at all. You must remember that their "Boys" are watching. They feel the need to maintain their Street Rep. Ofcourse the whole dynamic would change when you lock them up because it's just you and them, no one watching so most of these "Bad Ass" kids get weepie and appologetic. 

On our end, the street dynamic presents a similar problem. While the bad guy is being an asshole, we have to maintain a certain level of "Asshole" as well. Rmember, their boys are watching. We can not allow ourselves get "Punked" by street trash,if we do that then it will never stop coming from them. We can't allow our fellow officers get "Punked" either for exactly the same reason. 

I am not saying that your system does not work. I am nopt saying that your system will not work for me. I can speak for this Verbal Judo thing because I was trained in it, and a I did use it, and some times I still do. I think it works great with a small percentage of the people that I come in contact with. I think it works great on traffic stops that will not go beyond a traffic stop. I think this method works very well when ealing with people who are for the most part rational and law abiding. I think that when dealing with a street thug who is for most part a half whitted bully selling narcotics or robbing people for a living, the method lacks. Every situation we deal with, may call for a different response. In some situations I may need to deescalate, in others I may need to make them believe that I am way crazier then they are. There are situations where they must unequivocablybelieve in their hearts and minds that I will hurt them badly even if they continue to not comply with me. 

You may have developped a great new way to talk to these kids, but in reality most of us here just simply do not believe that there is such a thing as a Jedi Mind Trick that will make the wrst of the worst crumble at your feet in complete and total surrender.


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## RAMiller

Excellent. 
You guys know your job, your selves and your bad guys. That's the way it has to be to be successful and (unless you hide behind a desk or spend your career being a little slow to answer calls) survive.

You guys also know what you tell rookies, and what rookies need to know. But there's that one point when you tell a rookie, "This guys going to jump-- stand over there" and when the guy jumps, the rookie asks how you knew. Too many good officers can't answer that question. They know what they know, not how they knew it, which both makes it hard to teach and sometimes makes it hard to explain to bosses or a jury.

CC is about what lies under those decisions.

Everyone has touched on it-- the boyz watching makes a difference. Absolutely. What are the odds that if you blindly follow your instincts you'll wind up playing a role that works for them? Wind up in some kind of Monkey Dance? We've seen it happen and most of us have fallen into it a time or three.
Command presence is essential, but every bad boss I've ever worked for thought that his particular brand of being a dick was 'command presence'. Where does the real thing come from?
Then, of course (not to rant or anything) his 'command presence' gets us into a situation we have to fight down and then he decides force was unnecessary, even though he created the situation but he doesn't have to worry about BBPs all over. (Ahem. Rant over.)

If a bunch of veteran officers made a list of what worked, I think the bones would be really close to what we have here. We've just spent more time on the why, which allows a little more experimentation. And tried to package it so that it would intrigue management, since they make too many of the training decisions anyway. 

There are three kinds of training- liability reduction training, feel-good training and effective training. I've been in enough screaming matches with the lieutenant over refusing to do the first two. I won't do them on my own time.

Rory


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## fabian2roach

I act "Idiotically" every day. I go to work and I do my job.Daily working hours feels like hell.There should be something which we have to create to make our job environment fun loving.It helps in increase in company rank too.


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