As public safety providers, we could make a fundamental improvement in developing situational awareness by looking at how we train. There are some valuable lessons from brain science that can help improve the design of our training programs. One such lesson is “context dependent learning.” It has been validated through numerous studies. If you are a training officer, this article may cause you to rethink how to train fellow police officers.
The concept of context dependent learning is fundamentally simple, yet often overlooked in the training of police officers. Essentially, it means if we train police officers in the same environment in which they are going to perform their work they are far more likely to recall their lessons when put back into the same environment on the job.
I remember I had this experience once in the gym I work out at. I remember we were training for an event call “Murphy”. It’s a very grueling workout that begins with a one mile run, then proceeds with 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 air squats, and finishes off with another one mile run. This is all done while wearing a 20 pound weighted vest. We would do this at the gym every Memorial Day.
I can recall doing this workout several times and I practiced and trained for it at Yorfit in Ramsey, Minnesota. I used the same weighted vest, the same pull up bar, and I ran the same route around the building every time. My times reflected this and I got my personal best time while training at my gym and doing the Murphy on Memorial Day.
Fast forward a few months and I did the same workout, only I went to a different gym. I wasn’t used to their pull up bar and I didn’t know the exact route I was going to run. The lack of familiarity had a huge impact on my times. I had never trained in this environment before and my results showed it.
A more formal research study involved two groups of SCUBA divers. One was the test group and one was the control group. The researchers put the test group in ten feet of water and gave them some information to memorize. They did the same thing with the control group, except the control group was on land. Then the researchers tested the participants by putting both groups in ten feet of water and asked them to answer questions about what they had learned. The group that learned the information while in the water had a remarkably better recall than the group that learned the information while standing on dry land.
This is an example of context dependent learning. It can work while wearing SCUBA gear in ten feet of water, and it can work in police training. If we train police officers how to perform hands-on tasks while in a classroom, they are likely to recall less of what they learned when they are in the field. We need to do more realistic, context-dependent, hands-on scenario-training that involves stress.
Drew Moldenhauer’s advice
Train police officers in the environment in which they will be performing their tasks. It may seem trivial, but science suggests the brain ties the lessons to the environment. The more the learning environment mimics the working environment, the stronger the lessons are encoded into memory.
I recall learning many of my active shooter lessons in a classroom. It wasn’t very realistic. To improve recall, put police officers in their natural working environment and teach them how to handle realistic situations. The lessons will be more readily recalled when needed most.
Action Items
When you were trained in your basic police skills, did your learning environment always mimic the real-world environment you would operate in?
Provide some examples where instructors taught basic skills in a context dependent environment that you would consider unique.
Share some ideas for how your training programs could be improved by using context dependent learning.
Written by:
Drew W. Moldenhauer, M.S, has 15 years of Law Enforcement experience with two police organizations in Minnesota. Some of the titles he has held in his tenure are Active Shooter Instructor, Use of Force Instructor, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Instructor and Field Training Officer. He is currently a full-time licensed police officer that works part-time with the City of Osseo Police Department. He holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Public Safety Executive Leadership from St. Cloud State University. He is a Certified Master Instructor for Situational Awareness Matters and has a passion for training his clients on this very important subject.
Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, CSP is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making. He is the founder and CEO for Situational Awareness Matters, a teaching and consulting organization located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached at [email protected].
Curiosity killed the cat, but it’s not curiosity that is killing police officers, it’s complacency contributing to flawed situational awareness. What does it mean to be complacent? I could offer you the Webster’s dictionary definition, instead, I’d like to offer you a definition based on my observations of those who suffer from the affliction.
Complacent
To believe that bad things only happen to other people; To fall into a comfortable rut of apathy – laziness; To have enjoyed success for so long as to believe all actions will result in successful outcomes; To rely on knowledge and skills that have grown stale for lack of practice and renewal; To develop a sense of indifference – to lack concern for – one’s safety and well-being. Let’s break this down now by expounding on each component of the definition.
In Law Enforcement, we are very prone to becoming complacent on the job. As a matter of fact, most police officers die in the middle of their career. According to Kevin Gilmartin, author of Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement, most police officers die feloniously on duty between year 10-15 of their career. Complacency is a big contributing factor to this.
Some of the ways I have shown my complacency on the job have to deal with traffic stops and alarm calls. I remember making traffic stop after traffic stop and using good tactics and nothing ever bad happened. Until one time when I let my guard down and used poor tactics. I stopped an individual and causally walked up to the car thinking to myself this is just another routine traffic stop, when he opened his driver’s door, hopped out and started screaming “just kill me.” Thankfully, he did not have a weapon on him and I was able to deescalate the situation, but he definitely caught me by surprise and had the tactical advantage on me from my being complacent.
I can also remember going to a lot of alarm calls in my career. 99% of the time the alarm calls were false alarms, were set off by the cleaners, or animals inside of a home tripped the alarm. However, one time I was called to an audible burglar alarm covering glass break. I arrived thinking this would be just another false alarm. To my surprise it wasn’t, it was the real deal. Someone had done a smash and grab at one of our local gas stations and took the cash register. Here again I did a poor approach to the building and was being very complacent which could have got me killed.
Believing Bad Things Only Happen to Other People
This is often rooted in a mindset of judgment. While watching a video or reading about a casualty incident, the complacent police officer becomes a judge. The mindset is not one of trying to understand the root cause of what happened and to extract the lessons behind the lessons. Instead, the complacent police officer wants to ridicule and offer judgment upon the misfortunes of others. One who is judging, cannot learn. This causes the lessons to be missed and perpetuates the belief that bad things only happen to other people.
Falling into a Comfortable Rut of Apathy – Laziness
The energy required to develop and maintain competency is immense. It requires both a cognitive and physical effort to develop the knowledge and skills essential for top performance. Any deviation from being exceptionally prepared will result in a consequence, right? Hardly, in fact, the vast majority of cases with large deviations from top performance have no consequence.
That is both a blessing and a curse. If such deviations always resulted in casualties, the results would be catastrophic. For that, we are blessed. Yet it is the same lack of consequence that promotes apathy. The proof that one needs not work as hard, rests in the successful outcomes achieved despite a reduction in knowledge and skill development/maintenance.
Relying on Knowledge and Skills That Have Grown Stale for Lack of Practice and Renewal
For skill and knowledge to be retained and useful, they must be practiced over and over again… and then over and over AGAIN… rinse and repeat. The process of learning and relearning skills is never ending. The pathways that access knowledge in our brains are strengthened through repetition. Just because something was learned in school 10 years ago does not mean the skillset is still flawless. Every expert in every field practices incessantly to keep their skills sharp. So must police officers!
The complacency within an organization is often a byproduct of the organization’s culture, undisciplined leadership and individual member mindsets. This can change. The journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step. Do something today… take a step toward reducing complacency.
Everyday life
Complacency happens in everyday life all the time. This can be dangerous when working with power tools or using knives in your kitchen. Think of the last time you were operating a chain saw. Did you get complacent as time went on? How about the last time you were slicing up some food. Did you cut yourself because you became complacent? We need to stay focused so we don’t become a victim to complacency.
Discussions
Discuss what ways you combat complacency.
Discuss what training you implement in your department to avoid becoming complacent.
Discuss how you can assist your partners if you notice they’re becoming complacent.
Written by:
Drew W. Moldenhauer, M.S, has 15 years of Law Enforcement experience with two police organizations in Minnesota. Some of the titles he has held in his tenure are Active Shooter Instructor, Use of Force Instructor, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Instructor and Field Training Officer. He is currently a full-time licensed police officer that works part-time with the City of Osseo Police Department. He holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Public Safety Executive Leadership from St. Cloud State University. He is a Certified Master Instructor for Situational Awareness Matters and has a passion for training his clients on this very important subject.
Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, CSP is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making. He is the founder and CEO for Situational Awareness Matters, a teaching and consulting organization located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He can be reached at [email protected].
My students often ask me, “Mr. Moldenhauer, what’s the worst call cops could ever go on?” My response is always the same, an active shooter call. I have had my share of terrible calls in my career that will stay with me forever (i.e. suicides, child deaths, and fatal car accidents just to name a few). However, I don’t feel any of these could ever be as bad as responding to an active shooter call.
I couldn’t imagine the horror of showing up to a call that someone is actively killing innocent people. We in law enforcement all took an oath to protect and serve. The trainings I have been to with my fellow brothers and sisters in blue makes me confident that we will do whatever we can to stop these horrible incidents as fast as humanely possible.
We have come a long way in training for these incidents. I can remember when I first started as a police officer attending active shooter training, we had one goal in mind. That goal was to take out the shooter as fast as possible. While at training we would work on tactical and rapid response techniques on how to stop these violent suspects from killing innocent people.
Taking out the shooter is still our number one priority. However, what do we do with the people that have been shot and are possibly dying? We didn’t train on how to save these people when I first started. But now we have improved our training and adopted a new philosophy: STOP THE KILLING, STOP PEOPLE FROM DYING, GET THE INJURED TO A MEDICAL FACILITY. We do this collaboratively with firefighters and EMS.
As police officers we must STOP THE KILLING. After all, we are the ones with the guns and body armor. We need to respond quickly. This was tough for us at first because we were taught that we may need to sacrifice our own safety to stop the killing. When we would attempt to seek cover or use slower, more controlled tactics, our instructors would reprimand us and tell us to keep moving.
They reminded us that every time we heard a gunshot, we were to presume someone was just killed. Our instructors told us the priority of life goes as follows: lives of hostages, lives of innocent civilians, our own life, and lastly the killer’s life. This was tough for us to get used to. Throughout the entire police academy and our careers, we were told officer safety is first priority. However, in an active shooter incident, all bets are off and we may need to sacrifice our safety to persevere life.
After the killer has been taken out or contained, we must STOP PEOPLE FROM DYING. We do this by applying tourniquets on people and triaging severe injuries as quick as possible. Several trainings I have been in lately have included assistance from firefighters and EMS personnel. We form teams of firefighters and EMS personnel, protected by police officers, to assist in getting the most severely injured victims out as quick as possible.
I am happy we have incorporated firefighters and EMS personnel into our training. I commend them for their bravery to enter these violent scenes with us. Working together has produced some impressive results. Our final priority is to GET THE INJURED TO A MEDICAL FACILITY. Once the victims are outside the hazard zone, fire and EMS have the primary responsibility for triaging, treating and transporting.
Something to keep in mind with training for active shooter incidents with your department is to keep the training as real as possible. When we train in controlled environments, where we can slowly go through our tactical evolutions, results are near perfect. However, the minute we introduce stress into the scenarios, police officer behavior changes and it impacts our performance.
For example, we may introduce stress by arming the shooter and officers with simulated ammunition (i.e., paintballs) and crank up scary music with screaming and gunshots. This changes everything! Armed with simulated ammunition, I have witnessed police officers, put under stress, shoot other police officers when they round corners, police officers shoot other police officers in the back, officers freeze in doorways and I have witnessed a complete breakdown of communications among teams.
You may recall from my previous article titled “Do We Train to Fail”, I noted practice makes permanent. When we respond to one of these horrific calls we must be prepared to handle the extreme stress we are going to encounter. Training that requires officers to perform under highly stressful conditions will improve critical thinking skills and tactical performance.
KEY TAKEAWAY
Situational awareness is key to officer survival and will help us save as many lives as possible when dealing with an active shooter. Consider conducting mental rehearsals of active shooter scenarios. During a mental rehearsal you would image yourself in an active shooter situation and think through what the environment would be like. Imagine using all of your senses (e.g., what would you be seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling). Vividly imagine the situation in as much detail as you can.
Practice “if-then” decision scenarios. For example, you might think: If I was in a hallway and I heard a gunshot on the floor above me, then I would ________ (fill in the blank). Rehearse as many “if-then” scenarios as you could imagine, building complexity into the scenarios as you gain confidence.
One of the benefits of mental rehearsals is two-fold. First, mental rehearsals can reduce surprises. Our critical thinking skills can be impacted by the element of surprise. When you find yourself in a real-world situation that you’ve mentally rehearsed, you won’t be surprised. You’ll be expecting it and you will have already thought through one (or more) decision options.
The second advantage of mental rehearsals is they will help improve our prediction skills. In active shooter situations, we have to always be thinking ahead of our current action – being mindful of not only what is happening right now, but also thinking about what is going to happen next (e.g., What’s going happen around the next corner?).
When practicing “if-then” scenarios and performing mental rehearsals, think beyond yourself. Imagine the actions of other members of your team (e.g., other officers, fire, and EMS personnel who may be with you).
Discussions
Discuss how active shooter training under stress changes officer behavior.
Discuss the benefits and challenges you can anticipate from working collaboratively with your local fire departments and EMS provider.
Share some examples of mental rehearsals you have performed.
Share some of the specific “if-then” scenarios you have practiced.
About the authors:
Drew W. Moldenhauer, M.S, has 15 years of Law Enforcement experience with two police organizations in Minnesota. Some of the titles he has held in his tenure are Active Shooter Instructor, Use of Force Instructor, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Instructor and Field Training Officer. He is currently a full-time licensed police officer that works part-time with the City of Osseo Police Department. He holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Public Safety Executive Leadership from St. Cloud State University. He is a Master Instructor in Situational Awareness and has a passion for training his clients in this very important subject.
Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, CSP is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making.
Is it possible to erode a police officer’s situational awareness and to train a police officer to fail? Absolutely! I have seen it often. In fact, I still see it at police academies, on YouTube Videos and during police officer training sessions.
There was a time when I didn’t see it. In fact, I was one of those instructors who were training police officers to fail. I didn’t realize I was doing it. No instructor would train a police officer to fail on purpose. But, accidentally, it’s happening all the time and the consequences can be catastrophic.
I remember when I was in the academy and we would do a variety of training to get us ready for our careers as police officers. One of the drills we would train on was felony stops. Felony stops were intended for when we would pull someone over that had just committed a felony level crime or had a felony warrant.
We would first learn to put space between our squad car and the suspects car. This was to give us more reaction time and create a safe distance from the suspect. We would then exit our squad, take cover behind our driver side door and call the suspect back to us. We would then either have the suspect lay on the ground or kneel. Our partners would come up and handcuff the suspect, search, and secure them in the back of the squad car. The drill would run smoothly, and officers would feel good after it was all done. However, without even knowing it we were training to fail.
How were we training to fail? Well, in law enforcement we learn the difference between cover and concealment. Cover is something we can hide behind that will stop bullets from hitting us (e.g., a brick wall, the engine block of a vehicle).
Concealment is something we can hide behind that bullets can penetrate (e.g., a car door, bushes, sheetrock). In the felony stop drill we were concealing ourselves behind the car door of our squad, which bullets can penetrate. Instead we should be angling our squad cars and hiding behind the engine block of the squad, while giving the suspect orders. We were training to fail, we were placing ourselves behind concealment instead of cover. This could have catastrophic effects if a suspect were to exit their vehicle and begin shooting at us.
KEY TAKEAWAY
The lesson here is that under stress, we become creatures of habit. Our brain will instruct our body to perform exactly how we were programmed to perform based mostly on memorization and repetition. This is true when recalling cognitive information (e.g., people’s names and email addresses). It is also the case with muscle memory (i.e., the physical movements tied to performing a task). Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent! This can lead to eroding a police officer’s situational awareness and in stressful environments police officers can revert right back to how they were trained. Let’s train for success not failure!
Everyday life:
Think of when you trained a friend or your teen on how to change a flat tire on a vehicle. This training usually takes place in nice the controlled safe environment of a clean garage (unless it’s my garage). In reality, they will probably be changing a flat tire on the side of a busy road with a lot of traffic cars passing by, often at a high rate of speed. Have they been trained when it is unsafe to change that tire and call a tow truck instead? If they haven’t been trained on this alternate decision, this could lead to poor situational awareness and they could get struck by a passing vehicle operated by an inattentive driver.
Discussions
Look at your department’s training programs. Can you identify areas where you may be training to fail?
If you can identify areas where your department is training to fail, discuss solutions so that officers can avoid catastrophic mistake. Example: Have your officers ever thrown stop sticks during training from behind cover? Remember practice makes permanent.
The most important objective is for police officers to go home at the end of their shift. Training for success plays an important role in improving situational awareness and high-risk decision making.
Written By:
Drew W. Moldenhauer, M.S, has 15 years of Law Enforcement experience with two police organizations in Minnesota. Some of the titles he has held in his tenure are Active Shooter Instructor, Use of Force Instructor, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Instructor and Field Training Officer. He is currently a full-time licensed police officer that works part-time with the City of Osseo Police Department. He holds a Master’s Degree of Science in Public Safety Executive Leadership from St. Cloud State University. He is a Master Instructor in Situational Awareness and has a passion for training his clients in this very important subject.
Richard B. Gasaway, PhD, CSP is widely considered a trusted authority on human factors, situational awareness and the high-risk decision making processes used in high-stress, high consequence work environments. He served 33 years on the front lines as a firefighter, EMT-Paramedic, company officer, training officer, fire chief and emergency incident commander. His doctoral research included the study of cognitive neuroscience to understand how human factors flaw situational awareness and impact high-risk decision making.
