Page 46 - Oct Nov 2017

What The Fire Service Can Teach Us About The Use of Force,

a school, office or shop- lesson hopefully we safety officers. I would

ping mall certainly pres- can all keep from being never say that you should
ents us with a lot that burned, literally or figura- base your use of force de-
needs protecting. More tively. cisions on whether will be

and more we are seeing a riot or not, but the great- P
incidents where a lot of What does progress mean er issues of public safety O

force was used to save in the security field and must always be on our L
nothing. This is almost how can we apply it to the minds with every decision I
always due to a poor as- use of force? It’s about we make. Predicting the C

sessment of the incident keeping up with current way others will respond to E
and that generally comes events and following cur- your actions is the men-

from a lack of training in rent trends. This year has tal equivalent of knowing B
and understanding of the seen a number of high your backstop in shooting. R
use of force. This is not to profile use of force inci- U

say to let the burglar get dents. There has been a A few years ago we start- T
away with the big screen huge public response in ed hearing about less than A

TV, but we do not apply the form of rioting and lethal weapons. Some of L
deadly force to save that destruction. As a “domino these tools are common- I
entirely replaceable elec- effect,” this could lead to place among us now, like T

tronic appliance. more use of force inci- pepper spray. Some are Y
dents, as a relatively small becoming more prevalent

Think about that last incident leads to large pro- like Tasers. Others have
subject you were facing, tests that could ultimately yet to be seen in great
that wasn’t really all that lead to more incidents quantity like bean bag and

threatening so you didn’t involving many people net guns. However, think-
use force. In the back of and many properties, both ing progressively means

your mind you were think- public and private. Before we have to look at these
ing of what you would do we know it, we are at the options and take them into
if he took certain actions. risk of compromising our consideration. If they are

You placed yourself in a rules of engagement. not permissible within the
hopefully safe position private sector we need to

relative to the subject, but These incidents, while work hard to make them
you were contemplating mostly involving law en- permissible.
how you would respond to forcement officers, could

any threats that escalated. just as easily involve pri- “Let no man’s ghost, say
By applying this shared vate security and public his training let him down.”

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