The Psychology & Physics in Police Work

Police Work: A perspective on the Psychology and Physics Written November 2017, published to the Internet January 2018

By Don DuPay

I was privileged to work with two fine men as regular partners on the tough-town streets of Albina and St. Johns, Portland Oregon for six dangerous years as a Portland police officer. I have witnessed the split-second psychological reactions of various police officers approaching a drunk or high, extremely uncooperative and dangerous offender.

I preface this written commentary by sharing that I speak from my own experience as an 17-year-veteran in Law Enforcement. I worked as both as a street cop and later as a detective for eleven additional years. I also gained experience with firearms from my times as a youth hunting small pests with shotguns and .22 rifles while living in rural Montana in the late 1940's.

As a US Navy petty officer I was trained with and used rifles and pistols on a regular basis. I kept a military Colt .45 semi-automatic close by while involved in dangerous operations for my country in a far away land. In 1961 I joined the Portland Police Bureau and for 17 years I carried a .38 special 6 shot revolver both on duty and off duty. I am, in a nutshell more than well acquainted with guns.

While working as a young idealistic patrolman, I coined the phrase “Beer Bottle Tigers,” as those folks who were foolishly emboldened by use of alcohol and a bad attitude and thus brought to police attention by a plaintiff who would call us for assistance. Beer Bottle Tigers generally assault those near them, or out on the street milling around bars and taverns late at night, and are essentially cowards.

Pragmatically, in my experience, two officers can surround and confuse a subject if one officer stays in front of the person and the other officer gets behind. With two cops using this approach rarely, and I emphasize rarely would my partner and I receive much serious resistance, if any.

Two man traffic stops are ultimately safer for both the officer and the violator. One officer talks to the driver while the other officer observes the interior of the car letting any other occupants know they must remain peaceful and cooperative or they will force the officers to ramp up their aggression. If it turns out that the driver or an occupant is going to jail, two officers together can maintain peace and civility, while one officer alone risks not only his own safety but also the continued safety of all others at the scene.

I often worked graveyard shifts alone as a “wild car.” A wild car was what supervisors called an officer who works any district, as either a traffic enforcement officer, or working “prowl” on the streets. When I was working “wild” though it was dangerous at times, it was also quite rewarding.

A one man car is inherently unsafe requiring the officer to be acutely aware of not only the driver but possibly three to five occupants as well, and that is a huge task and challenge for one officer. While two officers in this situation will rarely be involved in physicality with the car occupants, let alone a shooting, an officer alone is often required to use physical force and will be much more likely to be hyper-vigilant and perhaps even use his gun to defend himself.

When I worked graveyard alone, suspects that elected to defy me and become physical usually found themselves waking up on the concrete handcuffed and returning to consciousness from the “carotid hold” I had placed on them and on their way to jail to sleep it off. This was back in the day when the carotid hold was still an option for police officers in Portland and elsewhere. I used it hundreds of times and no one ever died. I still feel to this day that it should be an option for officers when dealing with a particularly volatile and combative offender.

Lets look at this from the violators point of view: Perhaps you just lost an argument with your bartender about that extra drink you demanded, and you're so drunk you can hardly stand, and the police are on the way. If one officer shows up you may feel you can out-talk or out-wrestle the officer because your blood alcohol level is encouraging delusions of grandeur, aggression and foolishness. If two officers show up it is unlikely you will do anything except comply with their instructions to either go home or go to jail because you know you can't beat two men in a fight.

In recent years I've learned that the use of one man cars is a blatantly unsuccessful attempt by police agencies and their administrators to save money, and increase coverage over a larger geographical area. This theory and practice has proven to be a dangerous fallacy. It simply does not work! Many calls for police assistance require a “backup” officer, and how many of us have watched videos on You-tube where a concerned officer is calling for backup because he knows he has a situation he can't handle alone? If two one-man cars show up at the call, what has been achieved in savings? Then two officers are occupied as well as an additional vehicle. If the second car doesn't show up in a timely manner, the first officer is alone and a target for aggression, ambush and perhaps even a deadly encounter.

Looking back, over recent years at incidents between police and the public, we see that far too often one officer engaging in a simple traffic stop easily turns into a dangerous wrestling match or a lethal shooting. “If I just had time for backup to arrive,” said Officer Darren Wilson, who killed Mike Brown in August of 2014. If Wilson's back up had been in the patrol car with him, Mike Brown may still be alive today. Ultimately, there is no saving when one man cars are used as a paltry means to save resources. One man cars only become unnecessary dangers for both officers and the citizen offender out causing mayhem.

“Why did that cop have to shoot 'em eight or nine times?” the outraged citizen demands to know. This complaint is heard nationally at least every few months, but the reality is most civilians simply do not understand the complex realties of ballistics and why lethal incidents happen. The citizen generally come away convinced its because the police officer is a badge-happy “killer” who actually enjoys murdering people. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I say that as a veteran officer. No police officer I ever worked with wanted to take the life of an unruly citizen, drunk, or sober.

Lets examine the physics of why the dynamic of lethal police shootings is so prevalent in modern times, from the perspective of someone who knows and has experience in law enforcement.

In the early 1960's the Portland Police were required to use factory loaded 150 grain lead bullets. The round was so paltry that it was inadequate, in every way. They were inadequate to protect the officers life, and wouldn't even puncture a tire at point blank range, let alone bone or metal. Most Portland officers of that time realized the .38 round was dangerously inadequate and they either “hand loaded” more powerful .38 special rounds or they chose to carry .357 ammunition, which was against policy. It was a secret that we hand loaded or carried against policy ammunition, but not really. Though the administrators and sergeants pretended they didn't know, they did know, and we all knew they knew. (DuPay, 2015.)

As a street cop I realized the shortcomings of the six shooter. With only six rounds I knew if I had to shoot, that first round was the only one that had to count. This was something my coaches drilled into me. There was no way I could see myself in a shooting situation with only one or two rounds left and a difficult to load revolver. The point is that the other officers of the time, including myself all realized that first round had to count. It was the only way we could stay alive and we all wanted to stay alive, just like any other person. There would be no blasting away six rounds at a time because the bullets in those revolvers were in a sense scarce. We only had the six.

In 1988 Glock came to the United States with mass advertising and big discounts to law enforcement for large purchases of their weapons. There are different models of the gun but most can be loaded with fourteen rounds. This appealed to officers as well as the ability to quickly reload a second clip in one deft motion as opposed to loading one bullet at a time in a revolver. The stopping power of the 9mm Glock is roughly the equivalent to the .38 special but more rounds can be brought to bear on the target as more rounds are available in a Glock. Why then are we hearing complaints that suspects are being shot eight or nine times without falling down? Officers are accurate shooters. They are trained to be and it is also a source of personal pride for an officer to be accurate. There are many dash-cam videos as well as bystander films of the rounds hitting their target.

If we can put aside the confusing emotion people feel when a person is killed, and look at the situation as pure physics and from the perspective of the shooter, the problem becomes obvious, particularly to someone trained in using fire arms.

Lets do an experiment; put yourself behind the gun. If a deadly threat is running at you whether it be man or animal you pull the trigger, right? Bang! You are expecting the threat to fall down. But he doesn't. Bang! Another sure hit, right? But the threat keeps coming. Bang! He's still coming. Bang! He still didn't fall down? It always works in the movies, right? Bang! He's getting close. Bang! It's like a nightmare where you're running from danger but your feet are stuck in mud. Bang!

Now, you're becoming more and more terrified. Bang! Are you counting the shots? You are up to seven now! Is the suspect down or no longer a threat to you? If not you can shoot him again because you still have more bullets in the gun.

There is an old saying in ballistics, “Lethal begins at .40.” This would eliminate .38 special and 9mm rounds as they are essentially the same size bullet. It's helpful to remember that the .45 was invented because the .38 round formerly used by the US military wouldn't stop a determined and high enemy. (morolandhistory.com).

The Filipino Moro warriors who fought against our military in the early 1900's proved essentially impervious to the Government issued .38 Special revolver, unless the first shot was to the head or the heart. These Filipino warriors often took seven or eight body shots and kept coming. Does this sound familiar?

In ball park figures the .38 slug travels about 1,250 feet per second, which is fast, and if it hits soft matter in the dead center of the body, it will often completely go through and penetrate the flesh. The 9mm round travels about the same speed so both rounds are in my opinion unsuited for police work, generally speaking. I believe the newspaper headlines bear me out on this issue, as those who are shot often don't fall after the first bullet.

Here is the difference; the .45 round is bigger and travels much slower, at about 900 feet per second. This bullet hits like like the proverbial Mack Truck because it travels slower and comes at its target with more energy behind the shot. The threat when hit by one or two .45 rounds will no longer be a threat, whether they are killed or not because of the energy that comes with each round.

I must also mention the .357 Magnum is basically a .38 bullet but on steroids. It was developed in the early 1930's because during prohibition, the gangsters had better weapons than the police. However, in my opinion this round is also generally unsuited for city police work. The .357 may penetrate a car from front to back and through the driver, too. But this round is better suited for use by the State Police or Game Wardens because they might have to kill a bear or other large animal, and in those wide open spaces they're not worried as much about where the round will go and who might be impacted. A city cop has much more to worry about when firing his weapon in a densely populated urban area. In police work as in any other profession, it is important to have the right tool for the right job.

In my opinion, police departments today have too many specialists. The patrolman rank has been dangerously thinned by this foolish trend. No officer wants to be “just a patrolman” as they say, but their first desire should be to be a good police officer, whether a patrolman or in a different specialized department.

Many officers want to be a Vice Cop or a Narcotics Cop or an Intelligence Officer or an Internal Affairs Investigator or a Gang Enforcement Cop or a motorcycle Cop writing tickets. One man patrol cars is what we have left. Besides the trend of specialization, much of what we think of as law enforcement is merely cops on the street gathering revenue for the city. Traffic cops whether they are on motorcycles or working radar cars are revenues specialists and essentially meter-maids with wheels out to write tickets.

Although politicians and police administrators may disagree, police work should first be about public safety, not about bringing in bucks for the city. If we put the “specialists” back on the street as police officers, we could have two man cars again, as in my day, and this would result in better overall public and officer safety. These two man cars should will answer radio calls from burglaries to family beefs, write citations as they see them and direct traffic as needed after motor vehicle accidents.

If the standard police weapon is upgraded to a .45 caliber the public perception of “gun-happy” police officers who are out there happily “murdering” people by firing too many shots will also disappear. With these changes I see better policing, better safety for all involved, and a real chance at community policing simply because there will be more police on the street and they will have a better weapon with which to do their job. If more civilians understood these things, perhaps they would also understand that most police officers are good folks who care, want to make a difference and do not enjoy or benefit from lethal violence incidents.

References:

DuPay, Don. (2016). Behind the Badge in River City: A Portland Police Memoir. Oregon Greystone Press.