Taming the Serpent E-Book

Michael G. Malpass

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 433

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Law enforcement has been increasingly under fire in the media for what we believe is unnecessary police violence. But few have suggestions as to what we can do about it.

There is a noticeable gap between the way officers are trained and how the brain processes information in the stressful and risky situations which police work. Training arguably no longer prepares our officers for how to effectively deal with these situations.

But with advancements in neuroscience, we could finally have the answer. We can guide modern training for better decision-making and performance under life-threatening stress and pressure – for the good of police officers and the public.

Taming the Serpent brings the research about neuroscience and law enforcement together, showing how we can revolutionise modern law enforcement.

Leseprobe

Taming the Serpent

How Neuroscience Can Revolutionize Modern Law Enforcement Training

Michael G. Malpass

Copyright © 2018 Michael G. Malpass

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

Published by Ockham Publishing in the United Kingdom in 2019

ISBN 978-1-912701-34-6

Cover by Claire Wood

www.ockham-publishing.com

Dedication

To Jack Malpass, my dad, who taught me to always question, to seek the truth, fight for what you believe in, and who taught me how to teach and love doing it. I miss you every day and still can’t find the words to express how much you mean to me.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – Wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark or even eagle flew –

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

– John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Table of Contents

Prologue1

Introduction4

How Did We Get Here?6

Chapter One15

An Introduction to the Science

The Split Processed Brain15

A Quick Review18

The Peak Performance State20

The Amygdala Hijack20

Why Do We Need A Split Processing System?25

The Brain Systems28

Mental Models and Emotional Bookmarks29

Cognitive Appraisal30

Left of Bang32

Chapter Two37

De-escalation: Strategies to Stay Left of Bang

Use of Force and Race39

Implicit Bias40

Lawful but Awful45

Working Memory: The Chalkboard of the Mind46

Working Memory and the Lawful but Awful47

The De-Escalation Program52

Communication Strategies52

The ABCs of Strategy58

The A Plan59

The B Plan63

The C Plan66

Chapter Three71

Graham v. Connor; The Objective Reasonableness Standard

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)72

Martinez v. County of Los Angeles, 47 Cal. App 4th84

Thompson v. Hubbard 257 F, 3d 896 (2001)85

Plakas v. Drinski, 19 F .3D 1143 (7th Cir. 1994)88

Glenn v. Washington County, 661 F. 3d 460 (9th Cir. 2011)90

Brooks v. City of Seattle, (9th Cir. 2011)92

City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989)93

Zuchel v. City of Denver, 997 F. 2d 730 (10th Cir. 1993)94

Chapter Four96

The Elements of A Use-of-Force Incident

Ability98

Opportunity99

Jeopardy104

Preclusion107

Chapter Five111

Excited Delirium, The Mentally Ill, and Exigency

Criminal Behavior Versus Mental Illness119

Chapter Six125

The Science of The Fight or Flight Response

The Brain Science125

Implicit and Explicit Systems127

The Cognitive System132

The Emotional System135

The 5% and Peak Performance140

Revisiting the Amygdala Hijack144

Hunches: Gut Instincts146

Chapter Seven152

The Memory Systems

Short-Term Memory System152

Working Memory152

Long-Term Memory System155

Declarative Memory155

Procedural Memory156

Emotional Intelligence169

Chapter Eight171

Stress, Pressure, and the Difference Between the Two

Stress and Pressure171

Factors Affecting Performance Under Pressure174

Choking Under Pressure176

Chapter Nine180

Cognitive Appraisal Skills: The Secret

Cognitive Appraisal; The Rookie and The Veteran182

Patterns183

Anomalies184

The Big Picture: Situational Awareness185

The Way Things Work186

Opportunities and Improvisations188

The Past and The Future190

Fine Discriminations193

Managing Our Own Limitations194

Chapter Ten196

Decision-Making

The Quiet Eye203

Chapter Eleven210

The Biohacks

Square Breathing214

Burst Breathing215

Labeling217

Understanding What Causes Choking Under Pressure218

Mission Focus219

Pain Shared Is Pain Divided220

Reframe Your Perspective221

Chapter Twelve224

Training the System

Firearms Training235

Projectile or Laser Training237

Training Tips243

Low Light or Dark Environments243

Ambush Training243

Officer Grounded by Suspect Drills244

Use of Cover245

Shooting While Moving245

Vehicle Stops245

Individual Firearms Skills and Training246

Dry-Fire246

Movement Work249

Laser Dry-Fire Systems250

Defensive Tactics and Subject Control250

The Four Physiological Factors and Strategy for the Fight250

1. Breath250

2. Structure251

3. Continuous Movement252

4. Referenced Relaxation252

Subject Control253

Zones, Levels, and Positions254

Pattern Recognition257

Reference Points260

Chapter Thirteen270

A Landmark Neuroscience Study

Chapter Fourteen275

Recovering From Violence

Before the Violence—Preventative Care277

During the Stress or Pressure277

After the Violence or Extreme Emotional Incident278

Profiles of Courage and Resilience280

Officer Jason Schechterle280

Officer Rob Sitek282

Officer Julie Werhnyak283

Bibliography287

Prologue

Emotion has taught mankind to reason.

– Marquis de Vauvenargues

Emotions exist to map memories of things that lead us away from excessive risk and toward possible rewards. These memories are indexed in the emotional system to create biases and hunches that steer human behavior. For example, I can’t stand the smell of a grill at the start of the burn. I used to love it. While on the SWAT team, I responded with other personnel to an active shooter situation at a house. Upon initial entry, I could smell what I thought was the burn from the grill. Our thought was a family cookout gone bad. We were wrong. It was an honor killing. Once we got into the backyard, we found the family had been shot and set on fire. Now that smell of the initial burn from the grill kills my appetite.

Seeing the name Campbell, whether on a can of soup or driving anywhere near Campbell Avenue in Phoenix reminds me of a schizophrenic man, armed with a handgun, who wouldn’t stop pointing it at me and another SWAT officer. While that officer was doing an amazing job of trying to negotiate with a man whose brain wasn’t processing reality, the man raised his gun toward the officer and I was forced to take that man’s life.

A friend of mine had a twin brother that was killed by a drunk driver who crossed the center line striking the vehicle driven by my friend with his twin brother in the passenger seat. After the accident he would experience severe anxiety and would have a hard time breathing while driving. Through some intense psychotherapy, it was found that the Beach Boy’s song, “Surfing USA,” was the trigger for the anxiety. Why, you ask? They were big fans of the Beach Boys and that song was playing on the car’s sound system when the crash occurred. He consciously did not associate the song with the crash but his emotional system indexed it for future reference. Only after some serious therapy was he able to again listen to the song and enjoy it for the much fonder memories before the crash.

Recently, I made repeated trips from my home in Chandler, Arizona to Tucson. The cognitive part of my brain registers it is roughly ninety-two miles with an average posted speed limit of 75 mph. It will take around ninety minutes to make the trip. But you see, the emotional side of my brain had a different way of marking the miles and letting me know I was getting closer to Tucson. Why? Because my father was in the University of Arizona Banner hospital fighting for his life. Instead of marking the miles and assessing the amount of time the trip would take, the emotions associated with the trip indexed reference points along the way that let me “feel” closer to Dad and not have to keep running calculations in my head. My trip to Tucson from Chandler was indexed by a road that runs in a valley between two mountains on the Gila River Indian Reservation. Then, an empty campground with over 1,300 acres for sale marking the entrance to the freeway and the 75-mph speed limit. Looming over the horizon, a mountain called Picacho Peak that looks like the silhouette of Batman with his cape extended to the sides. Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Farm is off the right side of the freeway. Getting closer. Next, a sign for the Veteran’s cemetery. Almost there. The town of Marana passes and on to Tucson. I don’t recall consciously thinking about these landmarks, I only recall the “feeling” they gave me as I made repeated trips to see my father at the hospital.

I have been studying the brain and how peak performance is affected by either our ability or inability to control the balance between the cognitive brain and the emotional brain. Emotions exist to map memories of things geared toward reward and away from excessive risk. Many of the skills learned by police officers and military personnel will be ingrained into the emotional system which gives hunches to the thinking brain about risk and reward. Those skills are like the landmarks on the way to Tucson in that the emotional brain, an unconscious system, is always learning and indexing memories for future reference. The emotional side of the brain carries the power to initiate an immediate survival response without involvement from the conscious “you.” With an understanding of how the emotional side of the brain indexes information, we are better equipped to teach people in fields that require technical skill under life-threatening stress and pressure. We can then train them how to deal with violence more effectively by making better decisions in compressed time frames and practicing skill sets that are accessible when the decisions matter the most and not only in a sterile training environment.

Introduction

The devil is a gentleman who never goes where he is not welcome.

– John A. Lincoln

Throughout history, the images of dragons and serpents have been used to represent both man’s fight against the forces of evil, as well as his fight against his own overly emotional and sometimes evil self. In the works of Edmund Spenser, the hero Redcrosse battles a dragon representing the hazards of being overconfident and over assessing one’s skill set. In Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon poem, our hero battles the dragon Grendel, which scholars say represents greed. Norse mythology, as well as myths and stories from around the world, include images of the dragon or serpents with meanings ranging from representing the devil, the seven deadly sins, evil and on the other end of the spectrum, good luck. From the Bible comes one of the oldest stories known to mankind:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”1

If you are a believer in the Good Book or a fan of Denzel Washington in the movie The Book of Eli, we now come to one of my favorite verses discussing the punishment for letting that tricky little serpent fool Adam and Eve:

Cursed is the ground for your sake;

In toil you shall eat of it

All the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.

And you shall eat the herb of the field.

In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.

Till you return to the ground.

For out of it you were taken;

For dust you are,

And to dust you shall return.2

Whether you believe the Bible as it reads or think it’s a nice old story about the battle between good and evil, these quotes from Genesis highlight problems that have plagued human existence since the dawn of humankind. You may be asking, “What does this have to do with policing in America and current issues involving use of force?” The answer is quite simple: the serpent lives in all of us.

Use of force is a term we’ll use throughout the book so for those not directly involved in law enforcement, here is a quick definition:

Use of force is any attempt by law enforcement to gain control of a resisting suspect through physical actions like control holds, less than lethal instruments like the taser and pepper spray, and lethal force.

Within our brains is a dual processing system: the emotional and the cognitive. The serpent lives in the emotional system. The purpose of this book is to highlight the performance benefits when we tame the serpent to work for us, as police officers. This provides the opportunity for a controlled, educated, legally defensible response to violent situations, instead of an extreme, uncontrolled, fight or flight response. In law enforcement we use terms like, “when you see the dragon,” or “when you are facing the dragon,” to represent those situations that occur less than one percent of the time. This is when the violence is sudden, real, and must be dealt with effectively.

Because, if the police can’t solve the problem then who will?

How Did We Get Here?

In August 2015, the plan was to develop a brand-new defensive tactics program for the Phoenix Police Department. The program included tactical planning, communications, and principle-based concepts for dealing with resistance ranging from passive to extreme violence. Prior to adopting the program, the executive staff of the department requested a presentation on it and why we felt the need to adopt it. During that presentation, the de-escalation strategies included in the program were introduced. The de-escalation strategies were based on the science presented in this book.

De-escalation describes the tactics and strategies used by law enforcement which attempt to make the conclusion of the event safe for all parties involved, including the suspect. With the understanding that the suspect has a say in how the situation is concluded regardless of law enforcement’s attempts to conclude the event without a use of force.

By the end of the presentation the executive staff requested an immediate department-wide roll out on de-escalation strategies. With the help of Officer Tyler Winget, we developed a four-hour training on the de-escalation tactics and strategies that every member of the Phoenix Police Department received. The program was reviewed by the US Attorney General's Office when Loretta Lynch came to Phoenix. In a news brief after her visit, she complemented the program and the neuroscience which aided in its development. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office then reviewed it and introduced the training to county attorneys that respond to police officer use of force incidents.

The goal of this book is to present the science behind de-escalation, the de-escalation program itself, biohacks for better performance, and new ideas for using neuroscience to enhance law enforcement training for peak performance under extreme pressure. Long ago, my father told me the goal of a career should be to leave a legacy; to leave the place better than you found it. This book is my attempt to do so.

Of course, when dealing with law enforcement officers and the idea of introducing new ways of doing things, we must address the question, “What’s in it for me?” Here are just a few of the benefits I believe come from understanding the brain under stress and how to apply that knowledge:

Understanding the brain under stress can help you learn to biohack your own brain to achieve peak performance. (Because in law enforcement, performing under stressful conditions is a job requirement.)

Understanding your own brain in conflict will help you understand the brain of the person you are dealing with, and aid in forming effective strategies for a safe resolution for all parties involved.

Understanding the brain and what happens when the balance between emotional and cognitive control is lost can aid officers and supervisors in awareness of anxiety, poor performance, depression, and PTSD issues.

Understanding the brain in conflict aids in comprehending how problems can occur, and aid in developing strategies to prevent issues such as: lawful but awful incidents (police incidents that are lawful but look horrible to the public and media), mistake-of-fact shootings (a suspect reaching for an object that the officer believes is a weapon, but it turns out not to be), and excessive force.

Understanding the brain’s memory systems to develop better training that focuses on the brain and central nervous system for the best possible performance under stressful conditions.

This is not an all-inclusive list, but just some of the easily recognizable benefits of brain research. Keep in mind, in twenty-five years of law enforcement work, I have never attended training that focused on the brain’s performance under stress. Instead, the training has always focused on skill work or scenario training. At the time, the belief was that the more skill work and scenario training you do, the better your performance under stress will be. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. In my career, I have been around officers who handle stress well and make good decisions under pressure and many who do not. Our best understanding at the time was that, after enough experience, an officer would learn to manage their stress and make good decisions. What we have seen is that people who start their careers managing it well continue to do so and eventually get even better at performing under stress. Those that do not start their careers with that ability usually don't develop it or get there by accident.

My name is Michael Malpass and I have been in law enforcement for over twenty-four years as a beat cop, a tactical training officer, and a SWAT officer. I am currently an advanced training officer for my department. During my entire career, I have been teaching defensive tactics for law enforcement. For over thirty-five years, I have been studying fighting systems. The law enforcement training programs I have designed include: ground survival, weapon retention, de-escalation, the optimized brain, compassionate restraint, close quarter crisis, and SWAT entry defensive tactics. I am recognized by the Federal Courts as a subject matter expert on police use of force.

Recently, I designed a brand-new defensive tactics system for my agency with the partnership of Kevin Secours of The International Combat Systema Association, Montreal, QC, Canada. This system has been taught in the basic academy setting, in advanced officer training, and now, portions of that program are being adopted into the state of Arizona’s basic defensive tactics program. On three occasions, I have been awarded my department’s Medal of Valor and have used every element of force available to officers, and on numerous occasions lethal force, which were all legally and morally justified. However, I am most proud of the many people that I helped to bring in safe and sound using some of the strategies mentioned in this book. Does all this make me an expert? Not at all. I am a student of tactics, strategies, brain science, and human behavior. It is my belief that the job description of the average police officer currently coming on to the job is more complex, requires more thought, skill sets, tactical strategies, and personal perseverance than at any other time in the history of law enforcement.

That serpent can be trained to work for us, because the serpent that lives within us does not have to be our enemy. The one within us is designed to steer us toward reward and away from risk. It does so by mapping memories which are indexed to create biases and hunches. Those biases and hunches are best guesses for behavior because the serpent lives in the portions of the brain that do not require conscious thought. Because they are just best guesses, they are sometimes wrong, and for a cop, can lead to tragic consequences. The following is a discussion of how to train and tame that serpent to work for you when facing a battle within yourself or against those serpents driving the behaviors of another.

Professional skydiver, Luke Aikens, in July of 2016, jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 25,000 feet of altitude. No big deal. But wait, I failed to mention that he jumped out of the airplane with no parachute, only a plan to save his life by landing perfectly in a 100 x 100-foot net waiting for him suspended above the ground. For reference, the net could not be seen by the naked eye from the airplane. He would rely on his free fall skills, and his ability to orientate himself to certain markers while trying not to contemplate smashing into the ground at the speed of gravity. If that wasn't hard enough, at the last minute, to avoid falling straight through the net, Aikens was required to flip over and seek the net traveling backwards. Amazingly enough, he did it! Look it up on the internet, it’s fun to watch.

To complete a feat of this magnitude, Aikens was required to maintain the perfect balance between emotions and cognition (reason) to work his way through this event. That could only be accomplished through training the brain for just the right amount of emotions to spur the system on but not enough to deteriorate performance. His cognitive systems would be in standby, waiting for unexpected things to happen and for problems to solve. But too much cognition brings too many choices and without experienced problem solving related to the situation, you risk paralysis by analysis. Too many options and not enough time.

Again, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with law enforcement. The very same processes going on in the brain of a peak performer in any extreme sport, where severe injury or death are at stake, are the very same processes a law enforcement officer needs in the one percent of their overall job. This is where the violence is real and critically important, life-changing decisions must be made under intense pressure.

The precise decisions are different between extreme sports athletes and police officers. The thought processing, emotional control with the cognitive ability to overrule quick decisions made by the unconscious systems, and training of the long-term memory systems and how they are accessed are entirely the same. The key element of comparison is that life and limb are on the line, that they understand and accept this, and are willing to rise to the occasion.

Neuroscientists have been studying the brains of peak performers using advanced technology which upgraded the average EEG (an electroencephalograph which records the electrical activity of the brain). These devices study which portions of the brain are firing when decisions are being made and tasks performed. This has given a clearer understanding of the difference between the beginner, the intermediate, and the peak performers. A lot of the initial work was performed on extreme sports athletes and some of that research accounts for the leaps and bounds advancements in extreme sports such as Luke Aikens’s jump.

Neuroscientists who started by studying the brains of extreme sports athletes were later tasked with research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a governmental agency whose tasks include making better soldiers for the US military. That research compared the peak performance brain states of US Special Forces personnel with the brain states of extreme sports athletes.

Now consider a police officer on their way to a call of an active shooter at a shopping mall. The officer is three blocks away and knows they are going to be the first officer at the scene. Multiple victims are injured, and the suspect is armed with a rifle and a lot of ammunition. Our officer in question has a handgun, three magazines of ammunition, and knows that they are about to get into a gunfight. How do the thought processes of a rookie officer differ from the thought processes of senior officers, officers with prior military experience, or officers with tactical experience? Is there a way to better prepare our young officers by letting them borrow from the experience of more seasoned officers? Is there a way to train the brains of officers to help them find that right balance to the emotional and cognitive brain and could that be the answer to the many issues plaguing modern law enforcement? The answers, I believe are “Yes,” and “Yes, we can.” All it will take is a paradigm shift in how we look at law enforcement training by applying modern neuroscience. We have learned more about the brain, the memory systems, and how good decisions are made in the last five years than all of history before it. What we have learned can place us on a clear path for better training and performance in the future.

Before becoming a cop, I was a fighter. What I learned from all the instructors in boxing, Bando kickboxing, combat grappling, and mixed martial arts was that you need to manage your stress to perform at a higher level. The problem was, how do you that? How do you teach that? How do you know when you have achieved the nirvana that is peak performance? It's one thing to have achieved some experience and some competency under stress but how do you pass that information on to people new to the game? These are all questions, which in the past, had few answers. With my level of experience, I know what I know. What is difficult is teaching what makes the difference between the beginner and the expert in any field of endeavor.

The answers came within the last five years from research in the field of neuroscience, showing that the brains of military Special Forces operators and extreme sports athletes work the same when performing under extremely stressful situations. Is there a comparison with the professional athlete such as an NFL or NBA player? Yes and no. The decision-making process is similar, but professional athletes get paid whether they win or lose and usually their lives are not on the line when they fail. If extreme sports athletes or Special Forces operators make a mistake, someone usually dies or is severely injured. The balance in the brain systems required for extreme sports athletes and special forces operators are the same for law enforcement, or anyone else for that matter, attempting to perform at their best under stressful, life-threatening circumstances.

Until now, this information has been restricted to these environments. The answers are enlightening. To the experienced cops with established track records of performing under stress, the answers provide a framework, an explanation of how you learn to be better at what you do and how to perform consistently under stress. It may be that you already know what to do but you don't know how to express it or teach it to others. This book will aid you in that endeavor. Or it may be that you are new to law enforcement and would like some help “borrowing” experience to quicken your pace on the road to better performance under stress. This book is for you. Maybe you've been in law enforcement for a while but still haven't managed to figure out how to control your emotions under stress. Yes, this book is still for you. You may not be in law enforcement and are wondering how the system works. You may have opinions about how police work is done and how you think it should be done. Maybe you write about or report on police incidents, are a lawyer, a politician, an activist, or just interested by nature. This book is also for you.

We are all guilty of forming biases in our beliefs. As you will see, it is exactly what the emotional brain is designed to do. Some concepts stir the emotions and beliefs more than others, and we need look no further than social media to see the extreme responses to police use of force on both sides of the issue. I am not here to defend either side of the issue. The goal is to explain how the brain systems process information under life-threatening pressure and why training methods from the past are not producing the results under pressure we have been looking for. In the end, you must decide if this information is helpful or relevant.

While reading, attempt to suspend your biases, which I will tell you is not an easy thing to do. But if you disagree with something at an emotional level, pause for a moment and consider the possibility that your emotional system is hijacking your cognitive system. Our cognitive system will tell us that seeking the truth is right, while our emotional system will tell us reinforcing our pre-established beliefs is right. By the time you finish this book you should understand why the systems work this way. With that in mind, let’s start this journey together and see if, in the end, we can form the closest thing to a win/win situation for all interested parties.

Chapter One

An Introduction to the Science

Science is nothing but developed perception, integrated intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

– George Santayana

The Split Processed Brain

Imagine your brain and central nervous system as a split processing system made up of various sections geared toward cognitive thought, to emotions, and the making of emotional memories. In the early days of our human ancestors, the brain favored the emotional system which is geared toward survival. For instance, our early ancestors may have walked for days in search of food and water. Exhausted, suffering from thirst and hunger, they happen upon an oasis of lush trees and plentiful water. Chemicals were released from the emotional components of the brain. Those chemicals gave them feelings of joy and relief because they had found a chance to survive another day. While the emotional system created these chemical changes, the same chemicals gave information to other parts of the emotional system. It told the system to remember not only the location of the water, edible plants, and fruits but also the associated emotions of relief from hunger and starvation to stress the importance to the “system.” The same ancestors in their travels may have encountered wild animals, other humans hell bent on taking any goods they had accumulated, or any of the natural hazards found in whatever environment they traveled in.

The emotional system would respond to these incidents by releasing chemicals like adrenaline, to drive survival behavior like fleeing, fighting, freezing in place, posturing or submission. With the release of certain chemicals, the emotional system indexes the memory of the event to aid in future decisions. When the violence was over and immediate survival was not threatened, the emotional system would release chemicals that would drive the mechanism (that’s you) to promulgate the species by mating. Each of these incidents would spark the creation of memories all geared toward driving our ancestors away from risk, toward reward, and the balance of the two for survival. This constant state of pure survival mode would make life difficult as every day would be a struggle to find food, shelter, and a means to deal with extreme heat or cold, as well as protecting the group from animals and enemies.

At some point in time, our early ancestors began a heavier engagement of the cognitive portions of the brain, which was probably sparked by the survival systems to make life easier. Somehow, humans found out how to make fire, tools, and weapons, all things that surpassed other animals’ development. Cognitive thought, intuitive thinking and problem solving aided our early ancestors and us. Once cognition was brought into the mix, anyone without those abilities would either die or rely heavily on someone who possessed cognitive abilities. Those who survived, passed on the stronger genes.

Each system, whether emotional or cognitive, has a memory system associated with it. On the emotional side there is procedural memory and on the cognitive side is declarative memory and working memory. Declarative memory and working memory aid you in running mental simulations, thinking your way through problems, and troubleshooting. Procedural memories, spurred by the emotional side, are unconscious physical actions geared toward survival. Procedural memory contains responses that are ingrained in the system from birth like the flinch and grasp reflexes. Procedural memory can also be trained with what Laurence Gonzalez, in Deep Survival, calls “secondary emotional bookmarks,”3as the unconscious system is always learning, regardless of whether we want it to.

Twenty years ago, the training to become a law enforcement officer was very similar to the training twenty years before that. Not a lot has changed between then and now either. Academies and agencies are very good at teaching the “theory” of law enforcement, the idea of the law, what happens when you break it, the need to be civil in your discourse, educating on race and social and economic disparity. In other words, they are very good at filling your declarative memory systems with information. Declarative memory is part of the long-term memory systems and it requires the conscious “you” to access the information contained within. Declarative memory will take you far in your law enforcement career until the violence starts. Declarative memory is filled with facts, ideas, and concepts that you can consciously describe. Procedural memory is an unconscious system that doesn't rely on the conscious “you” to access information in its data bank, making it faster to access than declarative memory. If the situation calls for a survival response or a heavier emotional response for that matter, your central nervous system favors defaulting to procedural memory which is where survival responses like defensive tactics, movement under fire, and shooting skills need to be ingrained.

Something law enforcement trainers need to understand is that the procedural memory system is always learning whether you want it to or not. Meaning, certain things we do in training may be preparing the procedural system to do the wrong thing in a real-life encounter. A prime example of this is if the officer spends most of their range time shooting from a stationary position. In a real life and death encounter the procedural memory system may default to this same response, even though movement is required when acting against the sudden movement of a suspect. Remember, that turning target on the range represents a suspect with a gun already pointed at you. Does it make sense to train an unconscious system to possibly default to standing your ground against a gun already pointed at you?

What modern trainers of law enforcement, investigators of police use of force, or those who report on use of force need to understand is that, in the past, we have trained police officers in the best way we knew how at the time. Those times have changed. Modern neuroscience is giving us a look at how the brain operates under extreme pressure and why brain training is essential.

A Quick Review

I refer to science in my presentations whether in defensive tactics training, training on de-escalation, or training on the tactical brain. Without the science this book is just a story or a best guess. With the science, the reader can use their own experiences or the experiences of others to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of training for these one percent of incidents like lethal force encounters, active shooter situations, hostage situations, ambushes, multiple opponent fights, and downed officer or civilian rescues.

Earlier, the concept of the brain as a split processing center was introduced. Before delving deeper into this concept, I'll provide you with an analogy from the ancient Greeks on the balance required between reason (cognitive) and emotion. As it turns out, all the great thinkers and warriors throughout history have known that you must balance reason and emotion to be at your best in any field of endeavor. We now have the science to not only back these thoughts but to train and accelerate the process of finding that balance daily.

According to the ancient Greeks, “the conscious you” drives a chariot pulled by two large horses. One horse represents your emotions (to include gut instincts) and is trying to pull the chariot off to one side of the road. The other horse represents reason (the cognitive side of the house) and that horse is trying to pull the chariot off to the other side of the road. Your job as the charioteer is to maintain firm control on the reigns and maintain a straight, balanced path of travel.

Understanding the cognitive and emotional systems, how they work along with the memory systems and how they are accessed, provides the individual with a firm grip on the reigns. This gives control over the chariot that is on your path in life, at any given time, including under stressful, potentially life-changing situations. This concept of how to train by balancing emotion and reason is the foundation of this book. This is crucial in every aspect of planning, communicating, training, and tactical preparation. It is the secret that has been hiding in plain sight.

The Peak Performance State

Peak performance is possible when our skill levels match the perceived demands of the situation. When skill levels are high, and the perceived demands are low, as in most police training, you get boredom. When the demands of the situation exceed the skill level of the officer, you get anxiety and as the demands increase, panic. Peak performance is possible only when the individual’s cognitive system is in balance with emotions. The balance is possible due to the officer’s skill set meeting the perceived demands of the situation. This is where mindset is also important. Any situation can be an opportunity for growth (challenge) or an overwhelming obstacle. Mindset is a byproduct of the skill set training, experience with decisions made before the violence starts, and performance under pressure in training and real-life experience. Mindset and true appraisal of the situation gives the officer the opportunity to avoid an over-emotional response or even worse, an amygdala hijack.

The Amygdala Hijack

Using the analogy of the chariot and the horses named Emotion and Reason, the amygdala hijack describes what happens when the horse named Emotion runs the chariot off the road with its deviation from the straight path. The amygdala's primary role is to interpret incoming data, map emotional memories, and drive the mechanism toward reward and away from excessive risk. The amygdala accomplishes this by creating emotional memories which are prioritized for future use. We will discuss the amygdala and the emotional system in more detail in a later chapter.

The term “amygdala hijack” was first used in the book Emotional Intelligence written by Daniel Goleman in 1996. His terminology was based on research done by Joseph LeDoux. To keep it simple, as I hope to do throughout the book, the amygdala hijack is what happens when your emotional response to a situation is out of context with the situation and you later realize your reasoning skills had been hindered or shut off. If you are driving in a car and are late and under stress, another driver cutting you off can elicit a response out of context with your normal behavior and you may find it hard to calm down after the event. You have experienced an amygdala hijack.

When dealing with the brain and the split processing system, it's important to note that blood flows where the action is. Too much of an emotional reaction eliciting an extreme fight or flight response and you risk the hijack. The hijack can be useful when unthinking brute force is required as in the story of an elderly grandmother lifting a car off her trapped grandson. When you hear the terms fight, flight, freeze, posture, and submit, you are talking about extreme emotional responses. The fastest pathway for sensory input in the brain is to the amygdala, which then allows a secondary pathway of nerve signals to travel to the conscious portions of the brain. When the amygdala is hijacked, extreme levels of cortisol are released in the fight or flight response. It is believed the release of cortisol acts as a barrier to cut off the high road, the road to conscious thought, thinking through consequences, formulation of tactical strategies, and emotional control. The longer the pathway to the conscious response is blocked by the amygdala hijack, the greater the problems for a law enforcement officer. The block delays a conscious response where formulating plans, tactical thinking, and evaluating consequences of actions occurs. The extreme fight or flight response releases a series of chemicals into the system which inhibit fine motor control and cause extreme tunnel vision. When uncontrolled, a negative feedback circuit ensues which will further excite the emotional side while rational thought is effectively shut off.

Some officers who shoot very well during their qualifications, do not perform anywhere near as well in real-life, lethal use-of-force situations. It is my belief that the amygdala hijack (or at least an overwhelming emotional response) affects performance, diminishes cognitive thought, and can cause procedural skills ingrained into the procedural memory system to falter due to the excessive emotional response. An officer who allows the emotional response to get out of control will most likely lose the cognitive observations that aid in decision-making and prevent the emotional systems from becoming overwhelmed.

On the personal side, the amygdala hijack also accounts for why we sometimes say and do things under stress that later don't make sense to us. Remember, the emotional system is designed for survival, but it is the cognitive side of the house that determines the difference between an argument and a real fight. To the emotional side of the house, the two are the same and an emotional response to a verbal argument can be extreme. Have you ever said something vile and nasty to someone you love in the middle of a verbal argument and later regretted it? You experienced the amygdala dump. Have you ever wondered why a 100-mph car chase with the police is more likely to end with an excessive force complaint? The brain in a car pursuit is attempting to take in data at the speed of the car which it is not designed to do. The brain is in pure fight or flight mode. For the officer, that has morphed into prey runs and predator chases. When the suspect crashes, the car fails, runs out of gas, or the suspect just pulls over to give up, officers untrained in the brain sciences are still in fight or flight mode and the amygdala response indicates fight. In no way do I mean to make light of the situation, but it is easy to assume the officers are evil, racist, or uncaring. However, the simple explanation might be that they have lost control of their emotional system. When they may or may not be in immediate danger at that point, their emotional system is screaming at them to fight for their lives.

Imagine a rookie officer who finished his field training process and has been riding solo on the streets of a wealthy suburb outside of Columbus, Ohio for about a month. This officer was dispatched to a traffic obstruction at a major intersection during rush hour traffic. He was hoping for a call with a little more action attached but a call is better than no call. The officer gets out of his patrol car, squares away his uniform making sure he looks sharp and in command. He looks in the intersection and notices a long line of cars in all four directions moving slowly through the four-way stop and moving around … a large goose, intent on owning the middle of the intersection.

Never having dealt with a goose before, he's trying to think of a way to move the goose from the intersection. The answer seems simple enough; shoo the goose away from the intersection. After all, how hard could that be? The officer approaches the goose and finds the animal is not willing to give ground and, in fact, tries to nip the officer with his beak. The well-trained officer sensed trouble and jumped out of the way before getting nipped. Then, he looks up to see if anyone saw him jump out of the way with a complete lack of coordination. (Google cats and cucumbers and you will get the picture.)

Still looking sharp, the officer is now embarrassed by the number of people laughing in their cars at the spectacle. He realizes this is not something covered in the academy but doesn't want to be one of those guys who can't solve problems and is always calling for other units. Using declarative and working memory, the officer figures this situation to be no different than a non-compliant subject under arrest. The officer pulls his pepper spray from his belt, shakes the canister, and prepares to re-engage. A nearby truck driver rolls down his window to advise the officer (while laughing hysterically) that a goose does not have tear ducts and pepper spray isn't going to work.

Now, the officer is incredibly embarrassed, confused, and running out of ideas. His working memory accesses declarative knowledge and he draws his expandable baton and prepares to solve the problem. As the officer approaches, the goose becomes agitated and goes after him while he is attempting to use his baton to gently move it along. This time, the heavy beak of the goose finds its mark and nips the officer in the ass. Now he realizes there is some power to those beaks and the nip hurt. The emotional system is now fully engaged as the officer looks up and sees numerous people amused at his discomfort. The officer (who looked a lot like me) was in pain and not liking at all how the situation escalated so quickly. The officer's emotional system was now in overdrive and because of the heavier emotional response, the cognitive system was diminished, and clear thinking was out the window.

I confess, it was me. I'm not going to lie, I was angry and embarrassed. I figured this was my best chance at showing that damn goose, and all the people in traffic, that I could handle this situation. As I approached the goose to move it with the expandable baton (now, with way too much emotion involved), the goose, the evil little bastard that it was, attempted to bite me again. At the time, I couldn't tell you what the hell went wrong in any detail, but I can now tell you that the emotional response with the emotional memory of the first nip in the butt, and the pain and embarrassment associated with it caused an extreme fight or flight response.

As I moved out of the path of the pecking beak, I flicked the baton at a downward angle striking the goose just above where the meat of the chest meets the long graceful neck. If the angry goose at first had a head and neck in the shape of a question mark, it now looked … well, it looked dead. In fact, it was. I looked up and saw an elderly woman in her car and it occurred to me she looked like Aunt Bee from the Andy Griffith show. (Google it, if you are too young to have seen the show.) I expected a little sympathy from old Aunt Bee, but instead I clearly saw her mouthing the words, “You mother-fucker!” The truck driver, who was nice enough to tell me pepper spray wasn't going to work, was laughing as I dragged the carcass off the road and waved traffic through. Ten minutes later, I was meeting with my sergeant for my very first citizen complaint. It seems that Aunt Bee was not in fact Aunt Bee and was instead, a wealthy animal rights activist.

I had experienced what neuroscientists call an amygdala dump, which is what happens when your performance falls apart under stress. Remember, the amygdala is part of the emotional system. It drives risk/reward to make strong emotional memories. An amygdala dump occurs when the response to a stressor is out of measure with the stress itself. In my case, a violent, survival response was initiated out of proportion to the threat. I love animals, and while I can look at this experience and now get a laugh (and I hope you do too), the fact is I lost control of my response and killed a goose. It did however teach me a valuable lesson. With power comes responsibility. It was my job to make sure I was using the powers granted to me, by the law and the city I worked for, responsibly. In that case, I had not.

Why Do We Need A Split Processing System?

Please understand, when I use the term split processing brain, I in no way mean to say the brain is this simple. Instead, I use the term as neuroscientist David Eagleman does, to simplify concepts for easier understanding.

The split processing system that is our brain and central nervous system exists to separate humans from every other form of life on our planet. Without the higher learning cognitive system, each struggle to survive would pit our emotional brain against the emotional brain of things looking to eat us or kill us. With only the emotional brain, it is survival of the fittest. The strongest men kill off the weaker, take their stuff, and then mate with their women. Without the ability to make weapons (a cognitive function), humans would be no better off than a gazelle being hunted by a pack of lions. We are where we are as human beings because of the cognitive system, although the emotional side of the brain plays an extremely important role in our day-to-day lives.

The emotional side drives us away from things that can hurt or kill us and toward things that make us feel good. It does so by using unconscious learning to map emotional memories about risk and reward. The emotional system then provides “gut instincts,” hunches or best guesses which are fast but not necessarily accurate. Science shows that the more experience you have relevant to the subject at hand, the more accurate the hunches. The beauty of the system is that as you gather experience, at say law enforcement defensive tactics, the skills become burned into the subconscious procedural memory associated with the emotional parts of the brain. This frees up the mind from consciously thinking about how to fight and allows the cognitive mind to prepare for what neuroscientists call “violations of expectations.”