September 30, 2020
I decided to write this after the attempted murder of the 2 L.A. Sheriff’s deputies in California. We owe it to ourselves and our families to remain safe by not compromising our situational awareness during our downtime. Although an ambush is an ambush, it may be impossible to see it coming. We can prevent being taken by surprise by not focusing on our technology and not compromising our hypervigilance.
Information technology has infiltrated our police cars through computers and cell phones. Both have become a way of life for us in law enforcement. Back in the day when tickets were written, most of us officers would stand off to the side of the road, in a swale, or on a sidewalk, and stroke out a citation. All the while keeping our eyes on the occupants inside the car. This method also gave us situational awareness by allowing us to see nearly 360 degrees around us.
Boy, times sure have changed.
These days, officers are glued to their computers and rely on this technology to perform essential patrol functions, such as traffic crashes and ticket writing, from our CAD system. Our cell phones have become a file cabinet of information that inundates us with unlimited information that most of us consume during our downtime while on duty. There is no question that social media has become a daily way of life. These distractions are making us technically unsafe.
Electronic distractions are new additions to our daily onslaught of radio traffic, situational awareness, and response to calls. There is no way to combat this deluge of constant information other than minimizing our use when we think we are safe but forget that we are vulnerable.
Suppose you have, or are currently, sitting in a parked police car in front of Walmart, Home Depot, or another business in order to be visible to deter crime from occurring well. In that case, there are more efficient methods than this one. Marked police cars are magnets for all sorts of questions from people or well wishes from citizens for our safety and opportunities for criminals to make statements by attempting to hurt us. We must constantly be aware of what is happening around us rather than burying our faces in our laptops. At least dayshift officers, who are paying attention around them, have the tactical advantage of daylight.
Ambushes, like the one we saw over the weekend in Los Angeles, are not new to law enforcement. On November 13, 1990, Broward Sheriff Deputy Patrick Behan was shot and killed by 2 juveniles who were out riding bikes on a dare while Deputy Behan wrote a police report in the parking lot of a Circle K regarding a retail theft.
Although ambushes are nothing new, they seem to be happening more frequently over the past several years. In a USA Today newspaper article titled Ambush -style killings of police were up 167% in 2016. (Hjelmgaard, 2016). “On average, one law enforcement officer is killed in the line of duty in the U.S. every 61 hours, and more than 20,000 police officers have lost their lives in the line of duty since the first known line-of-duty death in 1791, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.”
People have free will to do what they want. Opportunities for an ambush can occur when an officer has his or her car parked in front of a business to deter crime. These moments are where we can be most vulnerable (also car-to-car conversations.) Most of the time, we use our technology through smartphones, computers, or other technical means. Remember that you should maintain your situation awareness by focusing on what is on your social media timeline while ignoring the real-life occurring around you.
The attempted murder of the 2 L.A. Sheriff’s Deputies and the murder of BSO Deputy Behan should be wake-up calls for us to heighten our awareness of who and what is going on around us. You can do this by being technically safe during technical times. You may very well save your own life.
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