THE THEORY OF PRESUMED COMPLIANCE
Let's say the 49ers had a 7-0 record midway through their season. Would they make the playoffs if they stopped practicing, saying, "Let's kick back -- we're undefeated, aren't we?" Would Barry Bonds of the Giants be where he was today if he started coasting during his training, saying, "I've done all right in my previous games. I know I'll keep on doing well." If the 49ers or Bonds acted this way, they would be providing a perfect illustration of the Theory of Presumed Compliance, a concept first explained by Tony Blauer, a Canadian defensive tactics instructor.
Presumed Compliance (PC) is a mind set of complacency and optimism. It affects how we think, feel and behave. It breeds overconfidence in general and tactical overconfidence in particular. PC can make us apathetic ("It won't happen to me"), thus dulling our mental edge. When "it" does happen, we find ourselves in denial ("I can't believe this is happening to me"). Denial increases our reaction time, and increased reaction time can get us injured or killed.
PC is a prevalent attitude among police officers, based in part on how we perceive our roles as police officers, and the nature of policing itself. As authority figures, police officers are stereotyped as being powerful, knowledgeable, and in control at all times. When we were growing up, we regarded the police officers we encountered as having the same qualities. Why should other people regard us any differently now that we are police officers?
We are taught when and how to use force. Our policies and procedures are designed with our control of the situation in mind. We are the hunters, and the criminals are the hunted. When we respond to a 211 in progress we go Code 3, but as we near the scene we use the siren sparingly, if at all. Why? Because we don't want the suspects to be aware of our approach and make their getaway. We want to catch them.
We are the hunters and they are the hunted. The LAPD cops who approached the scene of a bank 211 in North Hollywood in February 1998 probably had the same thought in mind -- we are the hunters and they are the hunted. This bank robbery quickly turned into a terrifying firefight with opponents wielding more powerful weapons than the responding officers.
We control every situation. We spot a moving violation and we make the driver pull over. The driver's door suddenly opens --certainly not the prelude to an attack on us, Presumed Compliance assures us -- the driver just wants to meet us on neutral ground to plead his way out of a citation. We still have control over the situation. This is probably what a New Mexico State Trooper was thinking right before he was taken hostage at gunpoint by the driver of a car he had pulled over. The action was captured on the videocamera mounted in the trooper's vehicle. You see a white VW Rabbit stopped in front of the trooper's vehicle, with the driver's door wide open. From the left side of the screen you see the trooper begin to make his approach. He has just left the cover of his driver's door and is at the front of his vehicle when the stopped driver steps out with a .32 auto in his hand. The weapon is held at arm's length and is turned sideways (like they do in the movies).
The trooper is caught flat footed, in the open. The gunman approaches him and points the gun at his head. To make a long story short, a struggle ensues off camera, the gunman flees but is later captured down the road. The trooper is unharmed.
It is my belief that the effects of Presumed Compliance led this trooper to step away from the cover of his door and approach the open door of the stopped vehicle. The videotape revealed his overconfidence and apathy ("it won't happen to me") as he approached the open door, denial ("I can't believe this is happening to me") as the trooper froze when he saw the driver's gun, and the resulting increased reaction time.
Over-reliance on arrest statistics reinforce the effect of Presumed Compliance. Most of the arrests we make are accomplished without the use of physical force. Some suspects resist initially, but then give up. But, Blauer asks, have we defeated these resisters because we were better trained, or because the resister simply lacked the training or the will to continue fighting? We learn our hands-on defensive tactics in classes with static drills and compliant partners, who know how each hold is supposed to finish, and who don't want to get hurt by resisting too much. Will the level of skill we attain in these classes enable us to defeat an aggressive, motivated resister? We'll find that out when "our preparations meet reality."
One of my personal heroes for the past 25 years has been Dan Gable, the 1972 Olympic Freestyle Wrestling Champion at 149.5 lbs. At that time he was described as "the most perfectly conditioned man in the world." In junior high, high school and college he lost only one match -- a "batting" average of .999. During the Olympics not one of his opponents scored a single point against him. Prior to the 1972 Games Gable was interviewed by a reporter at the Olympic Trials in Anoka, Minnesota, where he had easily dominated the field. The reporter had said something like, "Gee, you must never think about anything but winning," to which Gable replied, "No, the only thing I think about is losing."
It was Gable's recognition that hard work made his successes possible. He knew what could happen if he let up in his training routines. We need to adopt the same type of mindset in order to overcome the dangerous effects of Presumed Compliance. We need to think about losing. Think about what it takes not to lose. A survival mindset is essential for our line of work, but we must remember the old sports adage, "The will to win compares little with the will to prepare to win.
Our preparations must match our attitude. If we say, "Nobody's going to take my gun away from me," then we had better begin practicing weapon retention drills frequently. That weapon retention course we took a couple of years ago (or longer) isn't going to be enough. "Shoot as if your life depends on it -- it does." Then we had better make a regular routine of dry fire, live fire and other weapon handling skills, if our preparations are to match our attitudes. We've probably all heard plenty of officers worry out loud about qualifying at the Range. Yet these same officers will respond without a moment's hesitation to a man with a gun call, where they may encounter a situation far more difficult than anything they would have faced at the Range.
I started this article with an athletic analogy, so I'll continue in that vein. Lots of us work out on our meal break, or before or after work. We make a schedule and block out time for our activities. Some of us have notebooks filled with our workout routines -- how much we lifted, what exercises we did, how far we ran and how fast. We know that on Monday, Wednesday and Friday we're going to be in the weight room or on the track. Staying in shape is one way of beating back Presumed Compliance.
We need to do the same thing with our other survival preparations -- make them part of our regular routine. When you put on your uniform and gunbelt, leave the gun in the holster, but practice establishing a firing grip and unsnapping the weapon. Do this two or three times. Or quickly draw a magazine out of its pouch and make sure that you're holding it in the proper position for quick insertion into a weapon. Over time, the two or three repetitions you do each workday will add up to a large number of repetitions, and a stronger muscle memory. If there's a heavy bag in the weight room at your station, try standing close to it and do a knee strike or an elbow smash against it. How hard can you hit it? How many times can you do an elbow smash in 3 seconds? Some day these skills may be needed if you're up close and personal with a dangerous suspect.
These are just a few routines that we can add to our daily schedules to improve our survival skills. We can't guarantee we'll always win, but we can enhance our chances of coming out on top.
Training must be geared toward defeating the motivated, aggressive resister, since this is the type of criminal who accounts for most of the injuries and deaths in law enforcement. As Blauer puts it, "You can't fake endurance. You can't buy confidence. You can't buy experience."
Experience only comes when we put our preparations to the test. Deciding how much preparation is necessary for survival is an individual choice. Only you can decide.