Good vs Bad Liars

Earlier this year the nation was transfixed by the trial of Casey Anthony, a young woman accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter Caylee. During the course of the investigation Casey was interviewed on several occasions and she told many confirmed lies. The recorded interviews showed an apparently distraught but credible woman who revealed no specific cues of deception while fabricating explanations to account for her missing daughter. She explained away incriminating circumstantial evidence and blatantly lied to specific questions concerning her daughter’s disappearance with ease and confidence.

Casey was described by experts as being “comfortable” lying. While her detached affect, inappropriate attitudes and uncorroborated explanations accounting for Caylee’s disappearance certainly raised suspicions, she exhibited minimal nonverbal or paralinguistic symptoms of anxiety, fear, guilt or decreased confidence normally observed when a person tells a significant lie. In detection of deception jargon, Casey would be described as a “good” liar.

The average person is not a good liar. Typically when someone tells an important lie they will reveal symptoms such as averting eye contact or altering their posture. They may engage in grooming gestures like dusting imaginary lint from their clothing or fidgeting with an article of jewelry. A person guilty of wrong-doing usually displays particular attitudes like being unconcerned (“This is not important to me), unhelpful (“I have no idea what happened and have no information to help you”), unrealistic (“I don’t think that fire was intentionally started”) or guarded: (Q: “Tell me everything you did last Friday night.” R: “Nothing at all.”). The bad liar may qualify his response (“to the best of my knowledge”) or delay his response when answering a direct question.

To understand why some individuals are able to fabricate convincing stories and tell lies seemingly at will without revealing any observable symptoms of fear, guilt or decreased confidence it is first necessary to understand what causes the various “behavior symptoms” normally associated with lying. It is important to realize that these behavior symptoms are not caused by lying.

Actors who read scripted lies such as, “I’m a doctor, you must not move him!” do not display any behavior symptoms of deception. To the contrary, on the big screen they look absolutely credible. Even a lay person, relying on common sense and instincts, is able to make many false statements without revealing any signs of deception, e.g., “Johnny, you really played well today.” (Johnny played awful;) “Honey, that dress makes you look so young.” (The wife still does not look “so young”;) “I did not steal that money.” (The student, participating in a laboratory study, was instructed to lie when asked if he stole any money from the professor’s desk.)

The observable behaviors associated with lying result from the liar experiencing some internal emotional or cognitive state caused by the lie. These fall into three categories:

• Fear from having to face the consequences they are trying to avoid by telling the lie;
• Guilt or shame experienced from violating social mores or disappointing others, and
• Affected cognitive processes such as having “mental blocks” or inconsistent recollections, offering irrational explanations for evidence, etc.

In short, a “good liar” does not experience these internal changes when they lie (or does so in a diminished capacity). Listed below are common factors that may decrease behavior symptoms of deception when a person lies:

1. The suspect’s level of social responsibility. Suspects with low levels of social responsibility may not exhibit typical symptoms of deception when they lie. Individuals who fall within this category include drug, alcohol or gambling addicts, suspects who are homeless or individuals who are largely dependent on social services, parents or others to provide food, shelter, health care and basic survival. The absence of social commitment or responsibility to others causes these individuals to essentially live in their own world where they act impulsively and only for their own needs.

Individuals with low social responsibility tend to live in the immediate “here and now”; they have learned that it is not necessary to plan for the future because their future will be taken care of (or they simply don’t care about their future). This explains why such individuals sometimes get caught telling lies that are easily proven to be untrue. As an example, a suspect while under the influence of cocaine, threw his children off a balcony of his apartment resulting in their death. Upon initial questioning the suspect told the police that he had no children. After the investigator pointed to a photograph depicting the suspect with his children, the suspect confessed. Blatant, obvious lies of this nature are typical of suspects with diminished social responsibility and yet, when the lie is being told, specific symptoms of deception may be absent.

2. The suspect’s intelligence. Individuals with a lower IQ (below 65) often do not appreciate potential consequences of committing a crime, e.g., what life is like in prison; how a false allegation affects the accused, etc. As a result, when they lie, their fear of detection is decreased. Very simply, they are not highly motivated to avoid detection, and therefore, may not display symptoms of deception when they lie. For the same reason, they do not develop typical attitudes associated with deceptive suspects, e.g., being unhelpful, unconcerned or unrealistic.

3. Immaturity. This factor includes both youthful suspects (under the age of 9) and older suspects with an arrested social development. These individuals have little awareness or concern of serious consequences of wrong-doing and intellectually operate only in the here and now. In their minds they believe that the worst thing that could happen to them is having some restriction placed on their life (being sent to their room, being placed on probation) or other minor inconvenience (a verbal reprimand, paying a fine) when in truth, they could be facing life in prison. As a result, these suspects often lie impulsively and they may not display specific behavior symptoms of deception. Fortunately, with a little investigation, these lies are frequently detected through contradictory evidence.

4. Success at lying. A suspect who has experienced prior success at telling a lie may experience greater confidence and less fear of detection when repeating the same lie. After a lie is initially told and has been accepted as the truth, the liar not only has greater confidence of being able to get away with the lie a second time, but also has had practice at presenting the lie in a convincing manner. With each re-telling of the lie, the liar experiences greater confidence in their ability to fool others.1

6. Interview environment and format. It is not an uncommon occurrence for a person to address an audience, at a media press release for example, and tell blatant lies without exhibiting any symptoms of deception. There are two reasons for this. First, the liar is in total control of their statements. Under this circumstance the liar can carefully craft statements that are comfortable and can be delivered in a convincing manner. It is a one-way communication which the liar totally controls – they experience no fear of having statements challenged, expanded upon or otherwise scrutinized – in other words, the liar feels comfortable, confident and in control.

Second, psychologically lying to a group of reporters or millions of viewers on camera generates much less fear of detection than having to lie to a single person, sitting four or five feet in front of the subject, in a private environment. In this private environment the liar recognizes that the investigator is actively assessing his credibility, has control of the content of the interview through the questions being asked and, most importantly, has the ability to ask follow-up questions. Each of these factors increases the liar’s fear of detection.

7. Mental illness. There is a wide spectrum of diagnoses involving mental illness ranging from personality disorders through anxiety and affect disorders and finally disorders that cause loss of touch with reality such as bi-polar or schizophrenia. Within personality disorders, the histrionic and anti-social personalities tend not to experience significant guilt or fear when they lie and, therefore, may come across as good liars. The intermediate anxiety and affect disorders are much more likely to cause false positive errors (not believing a truthful person). Finally, suspects who have delusions or experience hallucinations will not exhibit meaningful behavior symptoms because their mind has created a new reality, and they have accepted what they are saying as the truth.

In summary, behavior symptom analysis involves making inferences about another person’s credibility and will never be a perfect science. Because of this, opinions of truth or deception should never be based solely upon a person’s behavior. Behavior symptoms should be considered along with evidence and other investigative findings. Finally, training in behavior symptom analysis should include not only information regarding truthful or deceptive behavior symptoms but also emphasize the factors that may lead to a mis-diagnosis of a person’s credibility – both false positive and false negative errors. This tip has focused on factors that may cause a liar to appear as credible. While some of these factors can be controlled by the investigator, e.g., interviewing a person in a private environment using a structured interview format, many of them are intrinsic within the suspect. Suffice it to say that before rendering any opinion of another person’s credibility it is important to evaluate factors that may affect the validity of that assessment and, whenever possible, attempt to verify a suspect’s verbal statements through standard investigative procedures.

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Credit and Permission Statement: This Investigator Tip was developed by John E. Reid and Associates Inc. Permission is hereby granted to those who wish to share or copy the article. For additional 'tips' visit www.reid.com; select 'Educational Information' and 'Investigator Tip'. Inquiries regarding Investigator Tips should be directed to Janet Finnerty johnreid@htc.net. For more information regarding Reid seminars and training products, contact John E. Reid and Associates, Inc. at 800-255-5747 or www.reid.com.

Sound Situational Awareness Plays A Vital Role In Law Enforcement

BY KEVIN CALDER, PRESIDENT, K CALDER & ASSOCIATES

Reprinted from the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation

IN TODAY’S COMPLICATED WORLD, it is critical that public-safety professionals recognize that a wide range of factors impact how they handle both mundane and critical situations in the field. Recognition of the risk of violence and situational awareness allow officers to choose appropriate strategies that enhance their safety, as well as that of co-workers, protectees, and the public. Usually in law enforcement when we hear the term “situational awareness” we often think of the concept within a tactical application or context. However, having sound situational awareness is vital in every law-enforcement role. Situational awareness is the ongoing recognition of internal and external factors and influences that form the foundation of an officer’s decision making. It is a comprehensive thought process that ultimately leads to effective decisions resulting in minimized risk and liability.

As a Deputy Sheriff, I was regularly challenged to articulate and in some cases defend my tactical and operational decisions. As a young officer, I would focus on the external information available to me: individuals involved, factors related to the scene and environment, and my goals and objectives. As my operational experience grew, I realized that my decisions were increasingly influenced by personal and organizational influences. By practicing situational awareness I believe officers can enhance safety, make more defensible decisions, and in the long run reduce personal and organizational liability. Take the following scenario, for example.

One cold blustery morning in December, my partner and I were dispatched at 4:00 a.m. to a maximum-security institution to transport a prisoner to court. The normally one-hour drive from our local courthouse, took over three hours due to a heavy snowstorm that dropped over 9 inches of snow. Many roads were impassable but our supervisor was adamant that we make our way there. The potential for violence was always high when picking up prisoners from this prison but the potential was escalated on this day as the prisoner was refusing to leave his cell and attend court. A cell extraction team had to be called to bring the prisoner to us in the admissions and discharge area.

As we waited, I mentally ran through the variety of scenarios that might play out. A combination of situational awareness and training would form the basis for my subsequent decision making. My situational awareness was not limited to tactical issues or just to the prisoner and task at hand. On that snowy morning, I ran through the four facets of an officer’s situational awareness: informational, environmental, personal, and organizational.

Informational factors available to me included the name of the prisoner, his history of violence, physical description, and reason for not wanting to attend court. In this case, he claimed he was concerned with being transported in the snowstorm. He had a history of institutional violence, and was very muscular and fit.

Environmental factors included working in a controlled environment with additional back up, a small area in which to conduct the required prisoner search, the physical layout of the admissions and discharge area, and the lack of proximity to other prisoners.

Personal factors that I considered included my previous experience dealing with violent prisoners, my concern that I may be injured during an altercation, my personal expectations related to managing the situation effectively, and my fatigue from the three-hour drive through the snowstorm.

Organizational factors included the expectations of the department to meet my operational objective of maintaining safe and secure custody of the prisoner and transporting him to court, the effectiveness of current procedures for dealing with violent prisoners, the level of support from my peers as well as the correctional staff with whom I had not previously worked, and the chance of a formal complaint from the prisoner along with the accompanying stress related to such an investigation.

Thirty minutes after we arrived, the prisoner was brought down in restraints to the admissions and discharge area. He had been extracted forcibly from his cell and was extremely angry and non-compliant with our instructions. In hope of avoiding violence, we articulated the legal requirements for attending court and followed with a cooling-off period. We were able to achieve our goal of searching, securing, and transporting the prisoner to court without incident. This is just one example demonstrating the “background noise” that public-safety professionals encounter on a daily basis. Situational awareness provides a platform to recognize and adapt an approach to not only what law enforcement “sees” but also what other factors are playing out in the background, allowing for informed decision making with minimal risk and liability, leading to a positive outcome. Have you encountered a scenario where improved situational awareness would have changed the outcome?

In your role as an officer, supervisor or command staff, do you see a benefit to situational awareness training? Please contact VCPI’s Training Manager, Sheila Gunderman at sgunderman@vcpionline.org to schedule Rapid Kevin Calder is one of North America’s most knowledgeable and well-respected workplace violence prevention and threat management specialists. His practical approach to violence prevention, conflict resolution and threat assessment is founded on 20 years of comprehensive experience in law enforcement, security management, and performance-based training.

Kevin was a founding member of the British Columbia Sheriff Services Integrated Threat Assessment Unit. In his position as lead threat analyst, he was responsible for assessing violence risk and developing violence prevention strategies to mitigate threats posed from a variety of sources. He also played a key role in the development of the Threat Management Centre of Excellence at the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

Kevin holds an Associate Certificate in Leadership and Conflict Resolution from the Justice Institute of British Columbia and is Board Certified in security management from ASIS. He has trained law enforcement, public and private sector managers and investigators, safety and security professionals, victim service workers and others involved in violence risk reduction. Kevin currently serves as President of the North West chapter of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals.

The Foundation and Structure of Learning (Revised)

Years ago I sat in the audience at a brown belt test for a friend's dojo. It was towards the end and the guy going up for his brown belt had done all of his kata and one step sparring and all that stuff. Now it was time for the actual sparring. As they bowed and began to spar it became painfully clear this kid had no idea what he was doing. A much lower belt rank was just picking him off at will and he seemed to be just looking for a spinning backfist because he couldn't think of anything else. He had done all of his kata correctly and his one step spars and demonstrations went fine. So what happened?

          This is something that is all too common that we will revisit later in the article. For those that haven't read my other articles I've been involved in martial arts since I was 4 years old back in 1977. For the last several years I've developed programs for Law Enforcement here in the United States. This gave me a greatly different perspective as a teacher and really changed the way I look at curriculums and structure. You see with law enforcement I don't get the luxury of giving long term training. I have to teach in a way that they can learn and retain in a very short time span. If I can't break things down to a strong foundation within a couple days then I've honestly wasted their time. I think being forced into doing this made me a much better teacher and gave me so much more of an understanding of what I need to do. As I visited departments over the years and seen other programs out there I've noticed some striking similarities between defensive tactics training and martial arts that was both disturbing and enlightening at the same time. The problems I found in the short two day programs seemed to be a microcosm for the problems that plague martial arts programs everywhere. I was asked to develop a specific outline for a department that wanted to fully adopt our program and had difficulty doing it. It was at this time that I figured out the problem and I want to share with you all what I learned.

          You see in these courses alot of time there's alot of material to get through. So the instructors come in with an outline and work straight down it like a checklist. If they get behind they may even speed up a little to make sure all the material gets covered.

This causes a very specific problem. The students memorize the techniques but they never learn them and that's a big difference. This is what happened to our brown belt at the beginning of the article. He got in a hurry and he memorized the belt requirements but never actually learned how to apply them under real conditions. This is a bad curriculum. I'm not going to get into certain techniques being better or worse than others long term that isn't the point of the article.  The point is that student lacked a proper foundation and the curriculum didn't have a structure that was conducive to learning. When the minimum time in grade came around the instructor was too worried about the student's feelings and wanted to give him a sense of accomplishment so he rushed the test. However it goes much deeper than that. This student had been let down by this instructor the whole time. These errors didn't just start with this belt test it had been ongoing since white belt and it was obvious. Now the type of martial art being practiced doesn't matter in this case because with a proper foundation and structure you can produce high quality students in any art form so it isn't really about tossing or bashing an art so let's look at some solutions to these problems.

          The first thing is concepts over techniques. For the purpose of this article a concept is basically a general principle such as breaking balance that anyone can perform in one way or another. A technique is a specific task that must be performed a specific way. Now we all come in all shapes and sizes. The simple fact is that not every technique is going to work for everyone. When dealing with a beginner you should never force them to perform techniques that you know are going to be problematic. They often get frustrated and leave then never come back and it reflect badly on you and your dojo because now these people are going to go around and tell people your stuff doesn't work or even worse blame themselves and damage their own self confidence. In the beginning concepts should be the part that matters most. Not everyone can do the exact same technique but they can execute the same concept. I'll give you an example. Let's say you want the student to begin learning how to break a person's balance. Now a big guy might be able to grab someone's head and control it breaking the balance that way. A smaller person may not be able to reach the head but they can attack the legs with knees, kicks,etc. Both break the balance by upsetting the person's structure. Both are correct in the big scheme of things. Later on in their development because of this the student will be able to adapt new techniques easier and make them work for themselves at a faster rate. Now of course a technique is the execution of the concepts so of course there's techniques but the concepts must be fully understood before learning a bunch of techniques. There's a program here in the U.S. where police officers learn 165 techniques in 5 days. Under stress very few of them work and they can't even remember most of them when they leave. There will be plenty of time for teaching your student techniques but they will be understood much better when they are taught as an extension of a concept. People retain things better when they can relate to them. Sure you may want them to try to different techniques to find out which ones work for them and which ones don't. After that however don't force a technique on someone when it's useless to them it will only bog them down and confuse them as well as hurt their development.

          I'm going to skip over the techniques in the middle for now and go to strategy. Strategy is a part of a good foundation and is what keeps you from basically being hung out on a island like our poor brown belt. Direction would be another way of saying it. There's nothing worse than being in the middle of something and having no idea what your supposed to be doing. This goes right into learning instead of memorizing. It's about being goal focused. If your a judo guy your goal  is to put that attacker on the ground. If someone is choking you then you don't just grab there thumbs and jerk their hands away and stop. You follow up and put them on the ground. This is an idea that needs to be established from the beginning. If your just memorizing techniques you will stop after you've gotten the hands pulled away and that is bad training and bad structure. When your working on executing a strategy from the beginning it teaches the student how to think and adapt. It also teaches efficiency. It teaches you how to deal with problems instead of just symptoms and is a great metaphor for leadership in daily life. In the beginning you never want to teach a technique that isn't moving towards executing your ultimate goal. An example of this in law enforcement courses would be that the ultimate goal is to get the guy in cuffs and in the car. Well if you have to do a takedown and don't have some control over the guy beforehand then you lose contact. Now you have to get on the ground and fight with his hands to get control, but if you hand an arm control and maintained it then it would be much easier to get them in cuffs. When your dealing with your beginners they will appreciate this. It instills confidence in them because they are able to accomplish something that's real and substantial right away instead of something hollow.

          When you do this it establishes a great foundation and your students are already learning something useful. Now you can plug in techniques. Since your students have a full understand of what they are ultimately trying to accomplish and good sound concepts to always fall back on they can now adapt and deal with random changes. They understand the purpose of the techniques they are learning and they learn them faster. You never have students that don't know what to do. I've seen students invent techniques out of nowhere and make them work because when something failed they understood the concept so they made something else work. It's a great thing to see. They can take techniques and modify them to their needs. At this point it starts to become a real art because they are now expressing themselves. My only caution would be when teaching new techniques you must protect the foundation. People have a tendency when learning something new of tossing out the old and you can't let them crack the foundation. Even if they are going up for black belt make sure they focus on the core techniques that they learned in the beginning. Everyone likes the new cool thing just make sure their foundation doesn't crack while they are playing with it.

           In developing these ideas about structure we also developed a new program for the public called KONBATTO. In this program you not only learn some very simple,direct, and vicious combatives you will also learn how to implement this structure into your curriculum at your school that we discussed in this article as part of that two day course. We are happily launching this program in England and Ireland this summer. If you like these ideas and find them useful I'd be more than happy to show each of you how to apply them to your martial art in person. I thank you for your time and remember. Learn don't memorize.

A Rant on Haters and Trolling

    If your on facebook for any given amount of time you'll already know these terms. Now to start I can honestly say I've never really had a problem with people trolling my stuff. I've pretty pretty lucky in that aspect most of my friends are pretty supportive. However, I see alot of things that they post as well and frankly some of it dives me nuts. Some don't even know they are doing it. Some do and don't care. Yes we are talking about being a troll. A troll is a hater but a specific kinda of hater. A troll actually goes out of their way to look for things to be pissed off about and then ruins everyone else's day by sharing it. I'm going to give a couple examples of what a troll is and how they operate.
    A light example of this will be when someone posts a video of some martial arts program they are trying to sell. Now I'll tell you straight off it takes roughly 100 martial art instructors to screw in a light bulb. It takes 1 to do it and 99 to sit around and claim they could've done it much better. I see videos all the time that I think are terrible but then I ask myself some questions. Since it's clips am I looking at every technique in it's proper context. Why are they doing their technique that way. Do I understand the purpose or their technique or system. If I answer no to any of these questions then I'm honestly not qualified to comment on their video so I don't. Videos like that are put together to get people interested in that system they aren't designed to inform or educate in anyway. They are teasers put together that leave out stuff on purpose otherwise they are just giving it away for free and they'd be out of business. I know in the past when I've done videos I'll shoot them at an angle or leave something out on purpose to keep people from stealing my stuff(it happens). This is common sense to most people but not a troll. They are going to attack something they know nothing about because it makes them feel superior and all high and mighty even though to the educated they just look like fools. I recently saw some friends of mine bashing some guys combatives video because they felt it had too much Wing Chun in it. Now I've seen their videos and well and they weren't that impressive but I didn't say anything because I'm not a troll. I do however know the guy they were bashing as well and know in a fight he could beat the piss out of them with his eyes shut. They'll never find that out though because frankly, they are trolls.
  Another magnet for trolls is politics. Now I want to make an obvious statement before I continue. All  governments are corrupt. All politicians are corrupt. No politician is any better than another regardless of party affiliation. Their are just some politicians who get caught and some that don't. I see things on my newsreel of people who go out of their way to find the craziest shit who can imagine to rant about. Some of it is completely made up. Some has some truth but not very much. They actually go out of their way to find time in the day to look for this crap. I would never post anything about politics it's stupid. All it does is tear people apart and does damage it can never help anything. Here's a simple fact for you. If you get up off your ass and focus on what you need to do to get where you want to be then it doesn't matter who is in the white house. A politician is never going to fix your broken life that's your responsibility.  You can spend your entire life blaming someone else for your problems or you can be an adult and grow up just a little bit and take control of your own life. Why post that stuff anyway no one in Washington cares what you think. Most people don't care what you think they are only concerned with themselves. In reality all your doing is wasting time that you could've been doing something productive. The world is full of self centered people who only care about themselves and their own personal biases and preconceptions. Even if they agree with your post they aren't going to do anything about it. You should just stop intellectually masturbating and find something better to do with your time.
  This next one could've been part of the politics but I wanted to make it separate. It's a special troll known as the facebook revolutionary. A facebook revolutionary will look for any and everything they can find to be pissed off about. Some legit and some not. It could be politics, health care, science, and anything else they can find. They by nature are delusional and get in their head that they are the leader of some revolution and the public is waiting on their next post because their movement is going to change the world.Now for  the reality check. No one gives a shit. The fact is your a very small minority and everyone has their own opinion they don't need yours. Oh but the revolutionary will have studies to back what they say. The problem is all studies tend to be biased based on what the researcher was trying to prove when they started. 20  years ago eggs were bad for you and no one should ever eat them for any reason. Today eggs are good for you and you should eat them. It's the same eggs just the study changed. in 20 years they'll be bad again. If someone decides global warming exists they'll spend the money and come up with studies to prove they are right. If someone doesn't believe in global warming they'll spend the money and come up with studies to prove they are right. See where this is going? For every study you can find to prove your point another study will prove it false. In truth it isn't really about saving the world it's simply about your ego and the romanticized vision you have of yourself. Sure you and your hater circle jerk will always have each other but that's about it. As an alternative try making someone smile. Squash the bullshit propaganda your embarrassing yourself and misleading others. Everyone should make up their own minds you can all be leaders don't follow anyone make your own path.
  A thousand years ago their was bad things going on in the world. There's definitely bad things now. In a thousand years there'll be more bad stuff. Posting a blurb that may or may not be accurate isn't going to change anything just get over yourself. If you want to change the world start with changing yourself and let your example change the people around you. If you can do that you can accomplish so much more instead of being some angry troll all the time. This is the best advice I can give on that I try everyday to be the best person I can be and help at least one person with something a day. If everyone done this the world would be a much better place instead of arguing over something irrelevant. I may lose some friends for writing this article but if I do that's alright because......they are trolls.

Militant Beliefs Are the Enemy of Logic

The title says it all, we've really gotten into a bind in this country. There are just way too many close minded people with an agenda. I've always said if you look at the right then the left and you can define them then look in the middle where the truth is and ignore both. Militant beliefs are unreasonable and have no place in an intelligent society. I know I'm going to lose facebook friends because of this article but to that I say don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Being open minded is how you learn and progress. We are way too divided on alot of issues. Let's look at some recent militant behavior and how harmful it can be.

Occupy vs The Police

Now most of this of course is internet trolls and the like that have been the biggest pain in the ass but lets look at bad examples on both sides. Now on both sides of this issue and believe me this could be a series of articles just on it's own. Both sides have intelligent people but those people aren't the problem. Now anyone who has a credit card knows how crooked Bank of America and Chase have become. They are disgusting and something needs to be done. So in the beginning Occupy was a great idea. The problem is they went about most things the wrong way. To a recap in New York they took a wheelchair bound lady hostage because she spoke out against them. In Washington they openly supported terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Al Quaeda even waving their flags in the streets. At UC Davis they had members attack police then blocked public roads and threatened police. When they were sprayed for doing so they edited videos to post on youtube and facebook to make it look like police attacked peaceful protestors. They defecated in public on police cars and assaults on each other a cases of rape were rampant. The fact is there were almost 500 separate incidents of violence committed by Occupy members in a very short time and they continue to do so. But anytime one of these videos gets posted you can't tell an internet troll that Occupy isn't peaceful. These trolls are gonna bash the police no matter what you say and they don't care about facts. You give them facts and they still deny them. The fact is Occupy had no structure so they couldn't police themselves. Some of these protestors were really good and intelligent people that had legitimate things to say but alot of that will be buried by idiots. On the other end of the spectrum to say there was no police brutality at occupy encampments is naive and delusional. Sometimes it was police brutality and some it wasn't. As a DT instructor I work hand in hand with police on training issues. I know that when the crappy training they get fails they revert back to thug tactics and that's were brutality soon followed by litigation comes in. I went on a police site recently and was watching a video where it looked like a cop in Oakland shot someone at an Occupy thing with a rubber bullet for no apparent reason. Now he may have had a reason but you couldn't tell it by the video and neither could anyone else on that site. Several officers were on a tirade on the site talking about how the guy deserved to get shot and how more should be shot like that. Even how all the protestors should be shot. Ummm this is the attitude they use to bash you. If you go out on the street with this you have become the very thing internet trolls say that you are. Don't be that the only thing you have to do is your job correctly. You have to remember to not personalize everything when you put on that uniform you disappear and instead your the face of your department and how the public views police. You can't allow yourself to be baited and suckered in to giving these people what they want don't be that way. Just do your job correctly and realize it isn't about you.

The Gay Marriage Issue

Honestly this isn't one of my issues I could care less but more and more when I turn on the tv I have to see something about it. It's getting run into the ground by the media and so I feel compelled to speak on it. I'll start with the militants against it that raise total hell about it. Now I'm not addressing the intelligent people who have a problem with it I'm only talking to the militants who are going over the line. First of all marriage is not a religious ceremony. It can be if you make it but in function it isn't generally. If it were it would have to be done in a church by a minister but a justice of the peace can do it. Even a ship captain can do it. If an atheist can do it( which they can) then it has nothing to actually do with religion in practice. So that argument doesn't really fly.  Outside of love it's about tax breaks and joint accounts, etc. Another point is that it's illegal in the US to pass a law giving any kind of preference to a specific religion. When you have a country passing laws solely based on their religious belief then somewhere your going to have the Taliban waving a finger saying," See I told you they were no different than us they're hypocrites." No one wants that I hate the Taliban. Yet here comes another point. Now me I'm heterosexual but the only difference between me and some gay guy is he prefers to do something different with his junk than what I do with mine. Since I'm not gay I don't do gay things and never really think about it. Now you have militants going around spending all their free time worried about what some man does with his own penis. My question is why are you sitting around thinking about some guy's penis? My inclination with common sense would be to say if your sitting around with your free time and doing this....your gay. So grab a sign and run right out there and protest against yourself. Now on the other side of the issue you have gays setting themselves back about a hundred years. I'm going to use something else as an example to prove my point. Now me myself I don't like sour cream. When I go into a restaurant if I order a baked potato or something like that I make sure to tell them not to put sour cream on it because I don't really like sour cream. Now I know people that really like sour cream and they can eat it if they want to but I don't like it so I'm not going to eat it. I don't have a problem with them eating it. Now what if I went to someone's house and they were wearing a shirt saying sour cream is the dream and flipped out screaming at me about how they got sour cream in the fridge and they were going to eat it and I couldn't stop them. I should accept the sour cream and deal with it. They were gonna put it on my plate and make me look at it no matter if I liked it or not. Well.. that would piss me off. It sounds silly but this is what alot in the gay community do and it damages gay people over all. In the United States we are a defiant people as it is if you push us we are going to push you back harder. This is the nature of our society. When gays do this stuff they become the very stereotype the others are fighting against. To me the person that has helped gay people the most in this country in Ellen Degeneres. Yes she's gay but everyone likes her. Why is she accepted and others aren't? Because she appears normal she isn't the stereotype she isn't trying to bash your head in with her gayness. She's just trying to live her life. Now Hollywood is very liberal in the media it will always appear as if the nation supports it but in the southeast and middle america we know that the majority doesn't support homosexuality. The best way for gay people to help themselves and their issues is to not be the stereotype. People in these parts of the country have to see that you aren't different from them. If you can accomplish that then you will progress miles and miles instead of small steps. Follow the example of Ellen Degeneres.

The Abortion Issue

I want to say a couple things first. Roe vs Wade will never be overturned. It was passed for very good reason. Back a long time ago when doctors weren't doing abortions girls were using coat hangers in back alleys to do it themselves and were dying. So the abortions were getting done regardless. Now some militants would say the girls got what they deserved. Well there's a flaw in that argument. Your pro life right? Then why do you care about the unborn but apparently don't give a damn about the born? When they come out of the womb it doesn't matter if they die? That's pretty inconsistent. You shouldn't call people murderers simply because they belief life begins at a different time than you believe. It just makes you look like a wing nut. I'm not saying they are right but they do have reasons they believe it. I'll give you a couple. Years ago a doctor named Bruce Lipton was doing experiments on cells at Standford. He basically proved we are a community of organisms not just an organism ourselves. Basically every cell in our body feels pain and possibly even has emotions. They react to stimulus. Just like a fetus. In other words, technically every time you get a hair cut by pro life standards you are committing murder. Every cell in your hair feels the same pain as a fetus. So this is why they consider a fetus a part of a woman's body and think she has a choice not because they like to kill babies. So you need to understand that. I mean you can only go so far with that propaganda where do you end it? Is masturbation murder too? It kills the seed of life. How about arresting everyone for murder during last call at a bar? Sure they aren't killing anyone yet but they have the intent. You see how silly this can get? If nothing more stop throwing around the word murderer like a frisbee. Now on the other end I think partial birth abortions are over the line that is disgusting. That is a fully formed human by then and to me yes it's murder. The pro choice militants to me have gone too far in that area and crossed a line. Pro choice militants also need to understand not every pro lifer is a religious fanatic it's an insulting stereotype. One of the best proponents of the pro life movement is Ron Paul. He's actually good for alot of things I like Ron Paul alot but he had a great take on it. As a doctor if a pregnant woman came into his office and he did something wrong and that baby died then he's responsible. He'll be sued for that. However if she just goes down the road and gets it done then it's ok. When Scott Peterson killed Lacy Peterson he went down for a double murder because he also stabbed the unborn baby. Now if Lacy Peterson just went down the road to a clinic and had an abortion she wouldn't bee charged with murder. He's got a great point there's a huge inconsistency with the laws in this regard. You may not agree with him but you have to respect what he's saying because it's not a militant perspective it's logical and intelligent.

In conclusion, militant speech is pointless speech that does nothing but serve the ego of the speaker and inflame the ignorant. It's only through intelligent and informed discussion that we can learn, grow, and progress as a society. An intelligent person will have a mutual respect for someone with a different belief that presents themselves in an intelligent way. Two militants on opposite ends have no reason to speak to each other because nothing will come of it. If people aren't communicating then things will only get worse. This is why militant beliefs are the enemy of logic.

A Lesson From The Past

    I was thinking the other day about the importance of feedback and listening to it if nothing more. Sometimes feedback can be crap and sometimes it's legitimate and can help your programs. Sometimes we get tunnel vision on something and an outside eye can bring new light. A good program is always developing and adapting. Being humble and dropping the ego will help alot too. This led to alot of other things to think about as well. It got me thinking about an incident years ago that I want to recount with you.
    Several years ago I was the Special Projects Director for the International Combatives Self Defense Association. I worked with the board and mainly the Director of Operations. I was teaching at a conference in Chicago I can't remember if it was Tinley Park  or Oak Forest (yeah I'm having a senior moment). Alot of the board and state reps were there as well alot of them heavy hitters  in their field. Hell we even had guys from Spain there.  My friend Fernan Vargas who was the Director of Operations told me hang around at lunch there was this guy that wanted to test to be an instructor with the organization he had this system he wanted to demonstrate.  I'd actually met the guy the night before and he was really cocky but he seemed like he knew what he was talking about. We all sat down at lunch and watched him do his thing. He was so sure of himself he basically phoned it in and thought we would be dazzled. When it came to the interview portion he found out otherwise. His program was basically someone attacks and you move in penetrating then cause injury. Alot of it depended on pressure points which he referred to as an electrical knockout. He was VERY arrogant and dismissive and disrespectful during the interview. He actually thought his ideas were innovative.
    First of all when asked to explain an electric knockout it was obvious he didn't really know what he was talking about it. For those that don't completely understand a pressure point is where at least two nerves intersect in the body and striking them sends the stimulus to the brain along more than one nerve channel hence it's more painful. How they are hit affects the outcome it has to be a specific way. Some have to be a certain time of day. When on drugs some never feel them and some never feel them regardless or only in certain areas. In other words a successful outcome is marginal at best and it takes alot of training to pull it off therefore it isn't a good fit for combatives.
    Second of all it was one of these systems that's overly simplistic. You move in and do something to a guy and he reacts a specific way that he's told to react to your attack so it works every time. Ummm...no. Different people react differently to different stimulus. You have to be able to adapt this is why overly simplistic courses don't work. Just because you kicked a guy in the nuts doesn't mean he's always going to bend forward. I've seen people fall backwards. I've seen people fall down. I've even seen some become even more pissed off and fight harder. This guy saw a video of a silly system then went and trained in it and thought he could be an instructor and we were just a bunch of goobers. You need experience to do that. You need to know how to put together an adaptive system and to do that you need research. Even experience though you need to have it isn't enough because you can't experience something for someone else. So this guy got brutalized by us and if he wasn't so arrogant  I'd have felt bad about it.  This guy wrote something later acting as if we didn't get it. Oh we got it! Then he GOT it!  My point is this guy's system will never improve it will always suck. He was too arrogant to think he could actually be wrong about something. If your training under someone and they don't listen to you my advise is to get the hell out of there because if their system isn't outdated then it will be shortly. You've got to listen to your people and drop the ego or pay the price for it.

The Structure of Learning

   As a training officer often when I speak with administrators on the phone I get asked similar questions. The main question I get asked in talking about our programs is how is my program different from others. It's definitely a legitimate question and needs to be addressed. Often in looking at what's available out there it all looks the same in one way or another so I can definitely understand why one of these officers would just say screw it they are all the same. I've already addressed problems with tactics in other articles I want to talk about a different issue today. I want to talk about learning and retention of knowledge. Though I'm still relatively young at age 38 I've actually been teaching for 17 years. I've ran public Dojos. I've taught at various conferences all over the United States and will soon be headed to Europe. This isn't about my bio my point is with teaching at all these conferences I've gotten to see alot of programs and with these administrators I've seen alot of the same problems.
    People sometimes think our programs don't have a structure yet nothing could be further from the truth. It's just a different structure than what they are used to seeing. You see the way most programs are set up you may start it at 8 am in the morning and work a module til 10 am. Then your going to take a short break and come back and work on something else until lunch. By 5 pm you've pretty much forgotten half of what you learned at 8 am. Your on to the next thing. You get your certificate and the end of class and the instructor hops on the next bus out and your left with a piece of paper and nothing more. This is all too common. It's important that everything flow together. When we start a program in the morning even when we move onto another section we'll come back to what we learned that morning to show how it flows with the rest of the course. This is important not only for just muscle memory but people need to see how everything works together. They need to see how everything is relevant to everything. Otherwise all you have is a bunch of random tactics you'll never be able to remember under stress. There's police programs out there that teach 160 tactics in 5 days. Some of those tactics may be good but it doesn't matter because the program is useless. The officer is never going to remember all 160 and they certainly will not be able to recall each individual tactic to use under stress when the frontal lobe of the brain shuts down during an adrenaline dump. The more options you have to make a single choice the longer it will take you to make that choice. That's just common sense.
     Another problem is going to be static training. Anything can work on a compliant subject walking through something. This is caused due to a lack of pressure testing.  Pressure testing is basically when you test something to see how it works under pressure. It would be one thing for me to tell you how to get to the store and demonstrated it. It's a different thing when you walk to the store a bunch of times and see for yourself. My directions could be wrong. You might find a shorter way to get there. There might be construction I didn't know about. This is a research problem. Most DT courses are martial arts based. This means there was an agenda to promote a specific ideal when the program was put together. That means it was tested just enough for the developer to prove in his or her own mind that it worked without properly testing it under actual circumstances. What happens during static training your memorizing tactics you aren't learning them and that is a huge difference. This leads me to another problem related to lack of pressure testing and learning. You see the fact is everything works sometimes and nothing is going to work everytime.
When you do static training you miss alot of angles. What if something goes wrong or the guys just get the jump on you. No situation is perfect. A person would have to be pretty arrogant and dumb to think they have tactics in a program that will work 100% of the time. It ain't happening. The students need to know this and they need to hear it from the instructor. Follow ups and failsafes need to be taught. The officers need to see these things from every angle and practice them dynamically so they are actually learning and not memorizing. Get in those positions now so you know your next move so it doesn't happen on the street or if it does then you at least know what needs to be done.
    Another thing that gets done at alot of these things is there's a test at the end. I went through this whole thing in martial arts as well. I understand the whole right of passage thing and that's fine but it most instances it's just another way of getting extra money out of the students. I mean if you see these people training everyday you know if they have it down or not. If you don't then you aren't paying enough attention. In a shorter version this is problematic for police courses as well for one of the same reasons I mentioned above. It basically forces the officer to memorize instead of learn. They get so wrapped up in not flunking that test and have to go back and tell the boss they flunked and cost the department money for nothing that they go into memorize mode and the learning stops.
    As educators this is our responsibility. The way things have been in the past can't continue and departments need to wake of and be aware of this and stop supporting these programs. The officers need to come first and you need to be aware of the environment that supports learning. It doesn't matter if the tactics are good if the officer can't retain them when they leave the course. If your a civilian it's the same thing this structure applies to you as well. Just memorizing muscular techniques isn't going to help you and it isn't going to be engrained when you need them. This is something I felt needed to be brought to light. Time changes and we need to change with it and if we can offer something differently in a way to make the public safer we need to do everything in our power to make that happen. For the ones that don't make these changes they are destined to become a museum piece serving no purpose but their own