Insights on Observation & Officer Safety

In 1970, a luggage manufacturer named Bernard Sadow attached four small wheels and a strap to the bottom of a suitcase and walked it through an airport. It was, by any measure, an absurdly simple idea. People had been hauling heavy suitcases through train stations and airports for well over a century by then. And yet, no one had put wheels on one.

It wasn't a technology problem. Wheels had existed for roughly five thousand years. It wasn't a materials problem, or an engineering problem. It was a seeing problem. The solution was so obvious that it became invisible — camouflaged by its own simplicity, hiding in plain sight until someone finally noticed what everyone else had walked right past.

Observation training has a similar story.

Ask most veteran officers whether they can "read" a scene, and they'll say yes — with confidence earned over years on the street. Ask them where they were trained to do it, and the confidence usually falters. The honest answer, more often than not, is: nowhere. Observation isn't a course. It isn't a formal skill set. It's assumed — treated as something officers either have or don't, like eye color, rather than something that can be deliberately built.

That assumption is the blind spot. And like the suitcase, it's been sitting there the entire time.

Every academy in the country trains firearms proficiency. Every department requires it, tracks it, and requires periodic requalification. But the skill that determines whether an officer ever needs to draw a weapon — the ability to see a threat forming before it fully arrives — gets almost no formal, structured attention at all. Departments will spend hours on the range perfecting a skill officers may use once or twice in a career, while the skill they rely on in every single interaction, every single shift, goes essentially untrained.

This isn't a criticism of officers. It's a criticism of a blind spot in the profession — the same kind of blind spot that kept wheels off suitcases for a hundred years. Nobody built observation training into the curriculum because nobody realized it was a discrete, trainable skill in the first place. It's just what a "good cop" is supposed to already have.

But vision, reaction time, and threat recognition are not fixed traits. They're neurological skills — trainable in the same sense that marksmanship or defensive tactics are trainable, through the same kind of deliberate, repeated exposure that built those skills in the first place. The science behind this isn't new; it dates back to WWII-era pilot training and mid-century police academies that experimented with it decades ago. What's new is finally recognizing it for what it is: not an innate gift, but a skill with a training gap nobody had gotten around to closing.

Sometimes the biggest opportunities aren't buried in complexity. They're sitting in plain sight, waiting for someone to finally put the wheels on.

It is a Tuesday morning and at 10:05 am a call comes into the 911 center that there is an active shooter at your local high school. The frantic caller states that shots have been fired. The dispatcher puts out the call and, following the new active shooter procedure, the first closest cars are dispatched to the scene. Three patrol officers respond and arrive at the school. One officer goes to his trunk and retrieves an M4 automatic weapon. The two others meet him at the entrance of the school. As the team of three enters the school a terrified teacher runs up to them and states that she believes the shooter is on the second floor in one of the classrooms. She thinks there is only one shooter, but is not sure.

The three officers proceed to the second floor and while climbing the stairs hear three additional shots fired. As they traverse the hallway a young male comes running toward them with an object in his hand. One of the officers yells: “Stop, put your hands above your head!” With their service weapons pointed at the youth, one of the officers believes he sees a gun as the young man moves his hands forward gripping the object. The officer, fearing for his life, takes a shot and hits the young man in the chest. The officer with the M4, believing the other officer saw a weapon, shoots a burst of three rounds at the young man, all missing the target except one that hits him in the left arm. As the three officers approach what they believe is the shooter, they observe the young man is only holding a cell phone.

While their attention is drawn to the boy lying in the hallway, the active shooter — who has spent numerous hours playing video games — levels the .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol he has taken from his father's dresser at the officers. He pulls the trigger and shoots the first officer in the head, killing him instantly. This active shooter's reactions are so fast, intense, and without remorse — because he is used to hitting the reset button on his video games — that he takes another shot at the second officer, also hitting him in the temple, and he falls dead in the hallway. The third officer, attempting to react, fires the M4 in the direction of the assailant and misses, sending rounds into the classroom, striking another student.

Yes, this is a worst-case scenario — and one that should be keeping every police administrator awake at night. Is it possible? You bet. It could happen on any given day in any community around the country. In analyzing, or performing a theoretical autopsy of, such a scenario, we need to look at what could have prevented this type of tragedy. When we examine the training of the officers we must question what firearms training they have received and how often they practice their skills. We need to question what observation skills and visual acuity officers have as they make a determination of what is a threat and what is not, in real time. Officers also need to be trained to recognize and be prepared to accurately react to behavioral cues.

In the initial training of a police officer there are no courses or consistent training given to develop or increase observation skills, let alone any in-service training during an officer's career. Although such skills are fundamental requisites of every operational decision required in a law enforcement officer's career, there has been a dangerous oversight based on a false notion that personnel coming into the profession have innate observation skills. Officers must be trained to understand the offender and be instinctively aware of behavioral cues.

Seasoned police officers rely on their experience to recognize patterns they have observed and depend on becoming situationally aware from prior incidents or anecdotal stories. Yet there is no consistency to what is experienced or what an officer learns on the job. Experience alone not only takes time, it can be a tough and fatal teacher. According to FBI statistics, we know that offenders most often carry a gun in their waistband, or in the groin or small of the back, and do not use a holster. Yet how observant are officers watching for these cues? We also know that approximately 40% carry a second or backup weapon — yet are officers always cognizant, when searching a subject and finding a gun, to continue searching for additional weapons? Are they checking any associates, like a female accompanying a male who may be armed or handed a weapon to hide discovery? Are officers trained to observe behavioral cues such as dress or movement that indicate potential violent actions? Does the officer notice a shirt that is rippled on one side and not the other, as an indication a weapon may be hidden? Are officers cognizant of a person frequently touching a concealed weapon with hands or arms to assure position — especially when changing body positions: standing, sitting, exiting a vehicle, or running in a way to control security of the weapon? Are they observing whether suspects or offenders blade their body away from the officer to ensure concealment and ease of access?

All of these behavioral cues need to become automatic, extrinsic observational tools — as important, if not more so, to the officer as the firearm carried on his or her belt. It must also be noted that research indicates most offenders are street combat veterans who are ready to shoot when threatened. In nearly 70% of police shootings, the offender hit the officer by point shooting and by firing first. Officers who have been trained to align their sights, versus point shooting, need to retrain themselves for street combat readiness.

Using a weapon in the line of duty is what a law enforcement officer will do the least in his or her career, yet it is the most important decision he or she will ever make. To err on one side can result in a criminal offense or severe civil liability that can ruin the officer financially and psychologically, along with the officer's family and department. To err on the other side can result in the death of the officer, colleagues, or other innocent persons.

Most officers have learned the legal and tactical considerations necessary when deciding whether or not to use deadly force. Neither learning from a textbook, a classroom, nor a firing range can adequately prepare an officer for a sudden violent confrontation. Officers are expected to respond to dynamic conditions in a fraction of a second and are put at a tactical disadvantage, having to react to visual stimuli or cues before taking action. Couple this with an FBI estimate that the criminal element does approximately 40% more firearms training than law enforcement officers, and that today's youth are playing violent video games that train them to shoot with incredible speed and accuracy, and officers are placed in even greater jeopardy.

Enter Rapid Recognition Training (RRT), or “rebooting your brain through mental athletics.” RRT is a methodology that trains your eyes and brain to see faster than you have ever imagined. The human brain is the most incredible operating system known in the universe. It has often been said that we only use a small portion of our brain — estimates of about 10%. That is not true according to current research; we use all of our brain for different functions. It is the potential of what our brain is capable of that we only use a fraction of. If you have ever done any athletic or fitness training, you realize your physical body will make changes, even grow, to accommodate the stressors that physical exercise places on it. The same holds true for our visual and mental processes. When we exercise our visual system and brain, our bodies accommodate to learn new skills. Conversely, like physical movement, if we don't exercise our physical body or brain, they will atrophy.

During World War II, a psychologist named Samuel Renshaw developed a system to help in the identification of enemy versus friendly aircraft and ships. He invented a device called a tachistoscope — a slide projector with a lens attachment that enabled an image to be shown in microseconds. The Army and Navy both credited Renshaw for saving countless lives by training pilots and sailors using this system. What Renshaw found was that by flashing images at extremely fast speeds, the human visual and mental system would accommodate, enabling pilots, soldiers, and sailors the ability not only to see, but to rapidly identify objects. Current research has determined that new neural connections in the brain are created when exposed to such training.

Flash Recognition Training, as it was called, was also used during the 1950s at the Southern Police Institute (SPI), where it showed significant success in training police officers. In a study written by Professor Rolland Soule, Assistant Director, he states: “…the individual sharpens and enhances his visual preceptors (eyes) and seeing becomes more effective, more coherent and more fluent.” He further found: “By gradually increasing the speed of the flash and the amount of material to be perceived, unnecessary eye movements are eliminated, and the span of perception and recognition are broadened.”

The time it was successfully used at SPI was far before the appearance of the personal computer. The system used the tachistoscope, which was cumbersome and required a classroom setting and numerous hours of training — which is likely why the system was not further explored. Observation on Demand has taken this proven methodology and enhanced it through the use of computer technology, making it a convenient system that only requires a personal computer to practice the skill. The Rapid Recognition™ mental workout has been designed to be law enforcement specific and can be practiced at a self-regulated pace.

Consider the worst-case scenario presented at the beginning of this article. What if the officers had been instantly able to distinguish the difference between a weapon and a cell phone? What if their ability to accurately scan the area for threats or danger had been trained and increased? What if their ability to more accurately assess a target and kill zone had been enhanced? This training is not only effective for officer safety, but could reduce liability lawsuits and the devastation of wrongful shootings. It would provide officers with the edge they need to be effective in rapidly changing, dynamic situations. It can also serve as a force multiplier by making officers more effective in a tight economy.

The effectiveness of Observation on Demand's Rapid Recognition Training has been beta tested using a laser-based force simulation shooting system. Preliminary test results, obtained by measuring a baseline of target acquisition skill prior to RRT and testing again after an 8-hour class, have shown an average of 32% initial improvement in target acquisition speed and marksmanship skill.

In today's techno-centric society, we must not rely on technology to do our job, because no matter what technology is invented, there continues to be a human being who has to make the decision. Technology is only an adjunct to increase our effectiveness — we can't let it “dumb us down.” We must use technological advances, such as computer training and force simulation systems, to grow our brains and increase our visual, mental, and decision-making skills to meet the difficult challenges of today's society.