Dear Police Officer!
If you make people insecure, you don’t contain the situation!
If you make people insecure, you escalate the situation!
If you make people feel safe, you control the situation.
If you make people feel safe, you de-escalate the situation.
If you as a police officer don’t know the law or otherwise call for unlawful action, people will disrespect you.
If you calmly convey you know what you are doing and what you are talking about, people will respect you.
If you threaten people and they start fearing for their lives, they WILL go into fight/flight mode! Everybody does! Even you! And THEN it become impossible to predict how people will react! Some will react rationally. Some will react irrationally.
There is NO WAY you can beat a man up and at the same time expect him to be calm and act rationally. It is NOT possible because the reptilian brain takes over and bypasses Neo Cortex (the logical thinking brain). He is not dangerous. But his reptilian brain will tell him to fight to survive. The officers’ ego is dangerous!
So the Officer often provokes unpredictable situations without knowing he is the one responsible.
The most dangerous people to the police are those who are calm and collected.
Why?
Because they have experienced this many times before. They have been to war. Been shot at. Been in prison. Got beaten up. They are experienced and they know what to do!
Besides – one of them has invented taser safe clothing which he is manufacturing, so a taser is harmless to him. They always wear cut-proof clothing, so they are almost 100% immune to knife attacks. They also have Kevlar in the sleeves and ankles so if they are attacked by a dog (which has been trained to go for wrists and ankles) it will probably break its teeth.
Furthermore, they have concealed weapons everywhere. Hidden tools to open any door. They can slip out of handcuffs in five different ways within five seconds. They are well well-trained, well-educated, and extremely well-prepared. They are superior, and they can handle almost any situation. So they are not afraid.
These guys are people with a lot of experience from real life-threatening situations. They have been in much worse situations than this. Multiple times. And survived. Two men with guns can’t scare them.
When a police officer lets his ego take control he loses control of the situation. He is a danger to citizens. 1004 people were shot and killed by the police in 2019.
Unfortunately, the police no longer serve and protect you! The police are used by the top of society to serve and protect their money. And they do this by putting fear into easy targets. They kill them. They beat them up and they throw them in jail. The US has the BIGGEST percentage of its population incarcerated! Almost twice as many as Russia!
The basic problem is antagonizing.
If the police start out with the attitude that ‘the others’ are the enemy, and we are the good guys they are starting from a polarized situation. This escalates and the ‘distance’ between the parties becomes bigger and bigger. So does the problem. This is called escalation.
Another huge problem is racial bias.
Unfortunately, a lot of police brutality is racially biased. The statistics simply state that if you are a black American you are 2.5 times more likely than whites to be killed by police! Let’s say that again – LOUD:
If you are a black American you are 2.5 times more likely than whites to be killed by police!
Read this interesting research about racial bias in the police force.
How do we overcome police brutality?
It is actually very simple. My friends who I mentioned before are on top of the situation no matter what. They are prepared. They are educated and they are well-trained. Police officers are not! That’s why the police are scared and cover it up by acting tough with huge guns.
What makes a Navy SEAL on top of the situation is months and months of training and years of experience. Realistic training. Training that is similar to or even worse than real-life situations. Training that makes normal police work look like playing Counter-Strike which means the SEALs are able to take it easy simply because they KNOW they are in control when they have the right attitude. They do NOT escalate the situation. They contain it and because of their training, they can de-escalate any threat before someone gets hurt.
The opposite of antagonizing is harmony – which is healing. Instead of splitting the situation, they make it whole by bringing the parties together in harmony.
When I was a kid I was afraid of walking the streets of Kwangju but after several years of martial arts training, I got the balls to go everywhere in my city day and night. I was on top of the situation and nothing ever happened.
So don’t defund the police and don’t continue the militarization of the police. Educate them properly. Prepare them. Train them! Teach them to be REAL men. Not wuzzies that hide behind a badge!
Overcome your fear so you don’t have to play tough guy to hide it!
Watch Jocko talking about how to handle tough situations without escalating them:
