April 11, 2025 • 21 mins
What does real police de-escalation look like? In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' Chief Anthony Sizemore breaks down body camera footage of a potentially deadly encounter that ended peacefully thanks to crisis intervention training and compassionate policing.
When Cape Coral officers responded to a home in which parents had been assaulted by their adult son on the autism spectrum, they faced a complex challenge. The suspect was non-verbal, armed with a knife, and had already demonstrated violence. Without proper training, this situation could have ended tragically.
The Chief walks us through the footage moment by moment, highlighting how officers maintained lethal cover while deploying less-lethal options like tasers. The tactical communication between officers, their adaptability to the suspect's unique needs, and their immediate shift to compassion once the threat was contained demonstrate how training translates to street-level success.
This episode offers rare insights into the split-second decisions officers make when lives are at stake. It underscores the department's mission of "partnering together for a safer community for all" – showing how that partnership sometimes forms in unexpected ways during crisis situations. The incident ultimately provides avenues for the family to access court-mandated mental health services that might otherwise have been unavailable.
Watch the full video on YouTube to see this remarkable example of crisis intervention in action: https://www.youtube.com/@Capecops
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome back to the Cape Cop cast chief
chat edition.
I'm one of your hosts, lisaGreenberg.
I'm also a public affairsofficer here with the Cape Coral
Police Department and, as youcan see, the chair next to me is
empty.
My partner in crime, mercedes,has officially gone on maternity
leave.
We are so happy.
Congratulations to her and herhusband.
They have a beautiful baby boy,and so it's just me and the
(00:27):
chief solo today.
We're going to rock this thingout.
How's it going?
It's going good.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Good, it's been a little busy, but I'm adjusting.
I of course miss her, but we'regetting it done.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We're just cranking it out, and I like to be busy.
Anyway, I'm used to that.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So it's good when you work here, you better be.
Yeah, right, I know today wewant to dive into a topic that
we've kind of discussed beforein other scenarios, but we
essentially had a situation inwhich there was a violent male,
that our officers used theirtactics, that they learned to
make sure that the situationdidn't end violently between the
officers and this gentleman.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Real de-escalation.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Real de-escalation exactly, so we kind of wanted to
dive into that, and so this iskind of where I would encourage
anyone who's listening to thisas a podcast to go to the
YouTube, because we are going toput the whole video in showing
this situation and kind ofwalking through it.
If you have to listen to apodcast, though, chief, let's
describe it for them a littlebit.
Just the people who arelistening, what exactly happened
(01:26):
.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Absolutely so.
Our officers were summoned to ahome in which there's parents
who live there and their adultchild lives there and something.
When you talk about people whohave autism or people on the
spectrum, the first thing thatcomes to mind are children, and
(01:48):
that's been in our society for along time now, and the thing
with children is they grow andwe now have in throughout the
country but we're no differenthere a lot of people on the
autism spectrum that are adultsand they're in a wide range of
functionality, and some of yourbe it nonverbal or other
(02:13):
challenges for those living onthe autism spectrum disorder are
now adults and a lot of themstill live with their parents
and their parents are older nowand are they are adults.
They're, they're full grown, uh, but still have some of the
challenges, uh, that they had aschildren, and when you think of
somebody, uh, in that situation.
(02:33):
So we got sent to a, a home inwhich there was a violent
encounter between an adult childand the parents, and upon
arrival, the officers discoveredthat the parents had been the
victims of a pretty significantassault and battery.
They were injured and the adultchild had left the home, but
(02:58):
the victims or parents in thiscase, communicated to the
officers that their son, anadult male, was on the autism
spectrum and is nonverbal, andthey believe he was armed with a
knife.
So now not only is itchallenging for officers to go
out and try and find this personthat had committed this crime
(03:21):
against family members, there'san additional challenge that
normal communication that youwould have verbal commands,
getting a response, is going tobe hindered because of the
spectrum disorder.
So this was in the northwestprecinct of our city, so there
was people who probably wonderedwhy there was a helicopter up.
(03:42):
We had canines out.
We were doing it.
Just because somebody's on theautism spectrum doesn't mean
that we don't do what wenormally would do, which is find
a, a suspect who committed acrime.
It just really in enhances ourneed for training or to rely on
our training.
So we fast forward and you cansee one of our canine officers,
(04:04):
uh, checks out with the mail.
We have him in the street andyou can clearly one of our
canine officers checks out withthe male.
We have him in the street andyou can clearly see that he is
armed with a knife.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Stop right there, put it down Kilo 101 on possibly
10-12.
Embers in Northwest 17th Place.
Hey, let me see your hands.
Northwest 17th Place in EmbersParkway.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
He's holding a knife.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Give me 33 traffic please.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Put the knife down now.
You're going to get bit by mydog.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Do you understand me?
Yes, sir, put the knife downright now.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Put the knife down right now.
Okay me, drop the knife.
Drop the knife.
Taser, taser, one taser.
Drop the knife drop the knifeget on the ground get on the
ground, leave him right there,sarge, sarge, leave him right
there, I got you, I got you.
Hey, wait, wait, he's goingagain.
(05:21):
Give me another taser, get onthe ground.
Get on the ground, do Get onthe ground.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Do not move.
Do you understand me?
You're going to get bit.
Do not move.
Put your hands behind your back.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You're going to get bit Now.
The fact that the parents andor victims communicated that
this individual was nonverbalwas critical.
It was absolutely criticalbecause if we didn't have that
information that can present toofficers as being resistant, or
maybe some pre-flight or fightindicators, because they're
(05:55):
formulating a plan to eitherfight or flee but having that
information, which is the firststep in activating training or
crisis intervention training, isknowing that the individual
that we have, albeit dangerous,albeit a full-grown man who
committed a violent act and isactively armed right in front of
you, he also has a nonverbalcondition.
(06:16):
So that's difficult enough tocommunicate with somebody in
blue skies, we call it.
But when you're faced with thisin real time on the street, you
don't rise to the occasion orcome up with new techniques
under high stress.
Quite the opposite, you fallback to your level of training
and fortunately we have beenutilizing crisis intervention
(06:37):
training for over a decade here.
So immediately under highstress situations, the officers
realize and you can hear themcommunicating to each other on
the radio he's non-verbal.
That way anybody coming up thatmaybe wasn't on the scene to
hear it directly from theparents the officers are
communicating to otherresponding officers be advised
this individual is non-verbal.
(06:58):
So if you become the one thattake over commands or you see me
giving commands to them and youobserve that they are not
responding, please know thatthey're nonverbal.
It is not to be mistaken forpre-flight or fight indicators,
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Absolutely yeah.
You want to make sure that theyknow, so that if they he's, you
know they come on scene.
He's not answering commands.
It's not that he's beingresistant.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Correct.
So again it.
It doesn't mean that we, youknow, wash our hands and go home
or we feel sorry that that he'sin the situation or the parents
are in this situation.
A crime was still committed.
But it's very nuanced, you know.
When we get here so you can seeon the video the officer is
giving commands.
Non-verbal doesn't mean notable to hear, he is just not
(07:49):
able to give vocal feedback ornonverbal.
So they're giving commands todrop the knife and the officer
has what we call lethal cover.
He has his firearm out because,nonverbal or not, if this turns
into an attack situation or hecharges the officers either to
(08:09):
cause harm and or try tofacilitate a suicide by cop, if
you will, you have to beprepared to protect yourself,
right?
So if it's just you andsomebody has a deadly weapon,
then you have a deadly weapon,right.
But then fortunately, we have abackup show up and then we go
into a tactical situation wherewe have lethal cover, which is
(08:31):
the firearm, and then lesslethal, which would be the taser
or beanbag shotgun or any typeof less lethal option.
And then the coordination comesin.
So you continue with verbalcommands, consistent, not get
down, stand up, right, you don'twant to confuse people so they
have to be consistent commandsdrop, drop the knife, get down
(08:53):
on the ground, drop the knife,get down on the ground.
Repetitive, repetitive andhopefully it will click.
At the same time the officerscommunicate with each other.
I'm going to deploy the taserand you say that to other
officers, because when a taseris deployed it makes a pop,
right, it makes a sound thatwhat you don't want to do is
(09:16):
initiate something calledsympathetic fire.
So if you hear a pop, sometimesit can be a psychological or
physiological response ofsympathetic fire.
I heard a pop, I pop, I pop.
We train for that, to combatthat, so that doesn't happen.
So you'll hear on the videotasers deployed.
(09:37):
I'm going to use the taser theyrepeat the word taser for the
officers to hear, so that wedon't initiate a sympathetic
fire situation.
And as you can see on the video, we did not, because that's
another element of the training.
So the individual is hit withthe taser and not everybody
reacts the same way.
There are very rare instanceswhere it doesn't work at all.
(10:01):
There are some where peoplefall immediately on the ground
and flop around or their musclestense.
Some can take it and they'regetting all the full effects,
the full ride, if you will.
But they don't necessarily falland that's what you're seeing
here.
He is affected by it.
But what that can do sometimesis if somebody is in a different
(10:21):
state of I'm not hearing you,not because they're not
communicative, but they're justlike anyone.
They're in a stressfulsituation themselves.
They're realizing what theyjust did they ran.
It's a very scary situation.
So they're in a stressfulsituation themselves.
They're realizing what theyjust did they ran.
It's a very scary situation.
So you don't always react theway you think somebody would
react.
But the taser will not only stopsomebody from advancing or
(10:42):
running or fighting.
It can also reset you to go hey, pay attention to what's going
on here and you can see thatunfold on the video.
He's hit with the taser, he hasa reset and he that unfold on
the video.
He's hit with the taser, he hasa reset and he gets down onto
the ground.
Our officers then come in.
We still have lethal cover incase something goes wrong.
We still have less lethal incase he decides nope, I'm not
(11:05):
going, we're going to do thisagain.
That doesn't happen.
The officers come in and applyhandcuffs and take him into
custody.
Now when you look at whatde-escalation you hear
de-escalation right and it's.
We've talked about it for many,many years.
It became in the nationalconversation or front of mind
around 2020, you know when whenpolice reform and the quote
(11:28):
unquote national conversationabout policing had been going on
, about de-escalation Not a newconcept, but it's a new concept
to a lot of new people that havecome in.
De-escalation in the abstractis very calm and peaceful.
In reality, de-escalation canlook scary.
It can still involve a use offorce.
(11:50):
Applying a taser or hittingsomebody with a taser is a use
of force.
Applying a taser or hittingsomebody with a taser is a use
of force.
Bringing somebody to the groundis a use of force.
Handcuffing somebody anytimeyou put hands on somebody,
that's a use of force.
So de-escalation is not devoidof using force.
De-escalation is the hopes tominimize the force needed and if
(12:12):
we're presented with somebodythat is already in the acute
demonstrated violence and isarmed with a deadly weapon, then
you're already at a deadlyforce situation potentially and
the hope is to deescalate thatto a less lethal option.
And that's exactly whathappened here.
But when you watch it withoutany context it can be scary.
(12:35):
Yeah, it's loud, there's lightsflashing, it's night, there's a
guy with a maybe you see theknife, maybe you don't.
You can clearly see it in reallife.
And then we hit somebody with ataser and if you know the end
of the movie, you know it's easyto be able to judge oh, this
individual is on the autismspectrum.
I feel bad.
(12:55):
I don't want that to happen tothem.
Nobody does.
But if you ask somebody whosefamily member was killed in a
situation like that by lawenforcement if they would trade,
I mean it's a silly thing toask, but absolutely Right.
Trade, I mean it's a sillything to ask, but absolutely so.
(13:15):
De-escalation sometimes is notthe prettiest thing, but it is
exactly what happened here,which was de-escalation from a
deadly force encounter to a lesslethal encounter, to safely
taking someone into custody.
That will A answer for thecharges, but B will have an
avenue for additionalpsychological help, because it
wasn't just the autism spectrumthat this person on there was
(13:37):
another underlying psychologicalcondition as well and we don't
know at the time what theircircumstances are as far as
insurance or for therapy or forany other type of services, but
sometimes when there's a violentencounter.
But sometimes when there's aviolent encounter, you unlock
avenues for families throughcourt-ordered or court-mandated
help.
So there's a lot of differentways for people to get help
(14:06):
after a situation like this, butfirst and foremost, you tend to
the victims ascertain as muchinformation as you can, because
you can see at the verybeginning, when we encountered
the, the victims, themcommunicating to us that he was
non-verbal, was critical to thisentire 100.
So that's what?
Um, when you look at ourmission statement partnering
together for a safer communityfor all you picture what that
(14:27):
means in your head.
It's not always what you thinkit is, but that is also what our
mission statement is.
You don't choose thepartnership.
Sometimes you know we didn'tpick to go there.
They certainly didn't wake upthat day thinking that the
police were going to come andhave this.
But, like it or not, we'repartners right now and when you
have that type of communicationand that type of partnership,
(14:47):
the second half of that mission,which is to ensure the safety
for all, it's the safety forthem and it's the safety for the
offender as well and theofficer.
So that's what the missionstatement looks like in practice
.
That's what de-escalation lookslike in practice.
It can be scary, it can be, youknow.
Quite frankly, it can look ugly, but it's a heck of a lot
(15:07):
better than what the alternativewould have been had you not had
training, had you not had theability to communicate, and not
only with the initialinformation, but to put that out
to all the other officers inreal time in a rapidly dynamic
and evolving situation.
That video that you're lookingat, or you just looked at, is
exactly what de-escalation lookslike, and it doesn't happen by
(15:29):
accident.
Right, we train for thisAbsolutely.
It's intentional.
Right, if you want to dosomething, you have to practice
it, you have to be proficient atit, and we're committed to
doing that.
And I think this highlightsexactly that.
I mean, if we didn't do that,if we didn't train, we weren't
committed to it, and thisoutcome was different, you
certainly would be seeing it alot on a much different medium
(15:54):
than our YouTube channel andtalking about it on the Cape
Copcast.
It would be on the news,certainly locally, maybe even
nationally.
But those days of not trainingand not being ready for this,
they're over.
They're over nationally, butthey're certainly over here.
I'll repeat it again Seventhlargest city and the third
biggest state in the country.
You're not prepared for bigtime stuff?
(16:16):
Then you're just not doing itright and rest assured, we are.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
The first officer on scene also was a canine officer,
correct, and at one point, oncethe gentleman was tased, he got
his canine out ready to go aswell, because the gentleman was
not responding to the taser asthey thought he would.
So just in case, and saying youknow, I'm, my dog's going to
bite you, my dog's going to biteyou.
And the guy ended up complying.
So it's just another tool thatwe have to be able to the canine
(16:44):
is actually a less lethal useof option.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Right, we track suspects and and and missing
people with the canine.
That's an application.
They do open-air sniffs fornarcotics, but they also do
apprehension.
And apprehension that leg ofthe three-legged stool of canine
is a use of force.
So if he were to be armed, notresponding to one less lethal
(17:12):
option, you go to another lesslethal option.
You use every tool in thetoolbox.
You don't just well, one lesslethal option didn't work, we go
back to lethal.
No, that's not how that works.
So we apply in real time manydifferent options to be able to
get the outcome that we got.
So I just think, if you know thecontext that we're talking
about and look at all of thedifferent layers in this onion,
(17:36):
if you will, there's a lot goingon, and a lot going on fast and
not a lot of room for error,because lives are literally at
stake, and we talked about thison a previous podcast that it's
stressful enough for the familythat they live with this every
day and then for the worstnightmare to happen, where
they're attacked, and then theycall for help.
(17:57):
The last thing they want is theperson that they call for help
to be not help.
So it's very vital that we havethe training, the ability, and
you also have to have compassionand a care for human life.
Right, right, that's the otherpart that completes that circuit
.
We provide our officers withthe training, we drill it until
(18:18):
it's an auto response and youcan see that there.
But you also have real humanbeings that really care about
other human beings in the video,and I think we talked longer
than the actual incident was,but that's everything that goes
in, and sometimes in amillisecond, to the responding
(18:41):
officers.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And one thing I did want to point out is you know,
once they had the gentlemanunder control and once you know
they got the cuffs on him, youcan see a difference and you can
see that compassion comethrough the way they're handling
him, the way they're conversingwith him, asking can see a
difference and you can see thatcompassion come through the way
they're handling him, the waythey're conversing with him,
asking him if he's okay.
You know being much more gentlebut of course, when you're in
the situation where the stakesare up here, you know the
(19:04):
response is going to be up here.
Once that danger is undercontrol, you can see that
compassion come through.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Right, and we don't have the luxury, if you will, to
picture a pot of boiling water.
It takes a while to get hot andthat's the emotion and we don't
have the luxury to be able tocool and calm down.
Slow meaning you can't be mad,and you put me in this situation
(19:30):
.
You did this to your loved ones.
No, it's immediate.
The threat is over.
You go right back down to thisis a person that thank God we
were able to have the resolutionthat we had, so now it's into
helping them and helping theentire family situation.
So I couldn't be more proud ofour officers for what we train
(19:53):
on, that they applied, butbeyond that, what they brought
to the police department.
Right, we want to hire goodpeople and have that as a base
to train and prepare.
But if you don't have that goodbase, it doesn't really hit it
on all cylinders like you want.
So just the wonderful humanbeings that they are, the
compassionate people that theyare, that value human life and
(20:14):
then are also smart enough andtalented enough to receive the
training, accept the trainingand then apply it in real life.
It's just a tremendous job bythem and by their frontline
leadership to trust in them todo that and it's saving lives
and you saw it unfold right infront of us.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Absolutely Great job to all those involved.
Incredible work Definitelymakes us proud, for sure.
Anything else you want to talkabout today, Chief?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Again.
It's been a long week.
Got a great weekend here.
It's still beautiful weather.
I know there's a lot ofcommunity events, so be safe
when you're out in the communityenjoying what may be one of the
last remaining weekends beforehumid time.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Humid hot.
Yeah, All right.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us and we will see you
next time.
Have a good one.
Hello and welcome back to the Cape Cop cast chief
chat edition.
I'm one of your hosts, lisaGreenberg.
I'm also a public affairsofficer here with the Cape Coral
Police Department and, as youcan see, the chair next to me is
empty.
My partner in crime, mercedes,has officially gone on maternity
leave.
We are so happy.
Congratulations to her and herhusband.
They have a beautiful baby boy,and so it's just me and the
(00:27):
chief solo today.
We're going to rock this thingout.
How's it going?
It's going good.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
How are you?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Good, it's been a little busy, but I'm adjusting.
I of course miss her, but we'regetting it done.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
We're just cranking it out, and I like to be busy.
Anyway, I'm used to that.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So it's good when you work here, you better be.
Yeah, right, I know today wewant to dive into a topic that
we've kind of discussed beforein other scenarios, but we
essentially had a situation inwhich there was a violent male,
that our officers used theirtactics, that they learned to
make sure that the situationdidn't end violently between the
officers and this gentleman.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Real de-escalation.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Real de-escalation exactly, so we kind of wanted to
dive into that, and so this iskind of where I would encourage
anyone who's listening to thisas a podcast to go to the
YouTube, because we are going toput the whole video in showing
this situation and kind ofwalking through it.
If you have to listen to apodcast, though, chief, let's
describe it for them a littlebit.
Just the people who arelistening, what exactly happened
(01:26):
.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Absolutely so.
Our officers were summoned to ahome in which there's parents
who live there and their adultchild lives there and something.
When you talk about people whohave autism or people on the
spectrum, the first thing thatcomes to mind are children, and
(01:48):
that's been in our society for along time now, and the thing
with children is they grow andwe now have in throughout the
country but we're no differenthere a lot of people on the
autism spectrum that are adultsand they're in a wide range of
functionality, and some of yourbe it nonverbal or other
(02:13):
challenges for those living onthe autism spectrum disorder are
now adults and a lot of themstill live with their parents
and their parents are older nowand are they are adults.
They're, they're full grown, uh, but still have some of the
challenges, uh, that they had aschildren, and when you think of
somebody, uh, in that situation.
(02:33):
So we got sent to a, a home inwhich there was a violent
encounter between an adult childand the parents, and upon
arrival, the officers discoveredthat the parents had been the
victims of a pretty significantassault and battery.
They were injured and the adultchild had left the home, but
(02:58):
the victims or parents in thiscase, communicated to the
officers that their son, anadult male, was on the autism
spectrum and is nonverbal, andthey believe he was armed with a
knife.
So now not only is itchallenging for officers to go
out and try and find this personthat had committed this crime
(03:21):
against family members, there'san additional challenge that
normal communication that youwould have verbal commands,
getting a response, is going tobe hindered because of the
spectrum disorder.
So this was in the northwestprecinct of our city, so there
was people who probably wonderedwhy there was a helicopter up.
(03:42):
We had canines out.
We were doing it.
Just because somebody's on theautism spectrum doesn't mean
that we don't do what wenormally would do, which is find
a, a suspect who committed acrime.
It just really in enhances ourneed for training or to rely on
our training.
So we fast forward and you cansee one of our canine officers,
(04:04):
uh, checks out with the mail.
We have him in the street andyou can clearly one of our
canine officers checks out withthe male.
We have him in the street andyou can clearly see that he is
armed with a knife.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Stop right there, put it down Kilo 101 on possibly
10-12.
Embers in Northwest 17th Place.
Hey, let me see your hands.
Northwest 17th Place in EmbersParkway.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
He's holding a knife.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Give me 33 traffic please.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Put the knife down now.
You're going to get bit by mydog.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Do you understand me?
Yes, sir, put the knife downright now.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Put the knife down right now.
Okay me, drop the knife.
Drop the knife.
Taser, taser, one taser.
Drop the knife drop the knifeget on the ground get on the
ground, leave him right there,sarge, sarge, leave him right
there, I got you, I got you.
Hey, wait, wait, he's goingagain.
(05:21):
Give me another taser, get onthe ground.
Get on the ground, do Get onthe ground.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Do not move.
Do you understand me?
You're going to get bit.
Do not move.
Put your hands behind your back.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
You're going to get bit Now.
The fact that the parents andor victims communicated that
this individual was nonverbalwas critical.
It was absolutely criticalbecause if we didn't have that
information that can present toofficers as being resistant, or
maybe some pre-flight or fightindicators, because they're
(05:55):
formulating a plan to eitherfight or flee but having that
information, which is the firststep in activating training or
crisis intervention training, isknowing that the individual
that we have, albeit dangerous,albeit a full-grown man who
committed a violent act and isactively armed right in front of
you, he also has a nonverbalcondition.
(06:16):
So that's difficult enough tocommunicate with somebody in
blue skies, we call it.
But when you're faced with thisin real time on the street, you
don't rise to the occasion orcome up with new techniques
under high stress.
Quite the opposite, you fallback to your level of training
and fortunately we have beenutilizing crisis intervention
(06:37):
training for over a decade here.
So immediately under highstress situations, the officers
realize and you can hear themcommunicating to each other on
the radio he's non-verbal.
That way anybody coming up thatmaybe wasn't on the scene to
hear it directly from theparents the officers are
communicating to otherresponding officers be advised
this individual is non-verbal.
(06:58):
So if you become the one thattake over commands or you see me
giving commands to them and youobserve that they are not
responding, please know thatthey're nonverbal.
It is not to be mistaken forpre-flight or fight indicators,
that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Absolutely yeah.
You want to make sure that theyknow, so that if they he's, you
know they come on scene.
He's not answering commands.
It's not that he's beingresistant.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Correct.
So again it.
It doesn't mean that we, youknow, wash our hands and go home
or we feel sorry that that he'sin the situation or the parents
are in this situation.
A crime was still committed.
But it's very nuanced, you know.
When we get here so you can seeon the video the officer is
giving commands.
Non-verbal doesn't mean notable to hear, he is just not
(07:49):
able to give vocal feedback ornonverbal.
So they're giving commands todrop the knife and the officer
has what we call lethal cover.
He has his firearm out because,nonverbal or not, if this turns
into an attack situation or hecharges the officers either to
(08:09):
cause harm and or try tofacilitate a suicide by cop, if
you will, you have to beprepared to protect yourself,
right?
So if it's just you andsomebody has a deadly weapon,
then you have a deadly weapon,right.
But then fortunately, we have abackup show up and then we go
into a tactical situation wherewe have lethal cover, which is
(08:31):
the firearm, and then lesslethal, which would be the taser
or beanbag shotgun or any typeof less lethal option.
And then the coordination comesin.
So you continue with verbalcommands, consistent, not get
down, stand up, right, you don'twant to confuse people so they
have to be consistent commandsdrop, drop the knife, get down
(08:53):
on the ground, drop the knife,get down on the ground.
Repetitive, repetitive andhopefully it will click.
At the same time the officerscommunicate with each other.
I'm going to deploy the taserand you say that to other
officers, because when a taseris deployed it makes a pop,
right, it makes a sound thatwhat you don't want to do is
(09:16):
initiate something calledsympathetic fire.
So if you hear a pop, sometimesit can be a psychological or
physiological response ofsympathetic fire.
I heard a pop, I pop, I pop.
We train for that, to combatthat, so that doesn't happen.
So you'll hear on the videotasers deployed.
(09:37):
I'm going to use the taser theyrepeat the word taser for the
officers to hear, so that wedon't initiate a sympathetic
fire situation.
And as you can see on the video, we did not, because that's
another element of the training.
So the individual is hit withthe taser and not everybody
reacts the same way.
There are very rare instanceswhere it doesn't work at all.
(10:01):
There are some where peoplefall immediately on the ground
and flop around or their musclestense.
Some can take it and they'regetting all the full effects,
the full ride, if you will.
But they don't necessarily falland that's what you're seeing
here.
He is affected by it.
But what that can do sometimesis if somebody is in a different
(10:21):
state of I'm not hearing you,not because they're not
communicative, but they're justlike anyone.
They're in a stressfulsituation themselves.
They're realizing what theyjust did they ran.
It's a very scary situation.
So they're in a stressfulsituation themselves.
They're realizing what theyjust did they ran.
It's a very scary situation.
So you don't always react theway you think somebody would
react.
But the taser will not only stopsomebody from advancing or
(10:42):
running or fighting.
It can also reset you to go hey, pay attention to what's going
on here and you can see thatunfold on the video.
He's hit with the taser, he hasa reset and he that unfold on
the video.
He's hit with the taser, he hasa reset and he gets down onto
the ground.
Our officers then come in.
We still have lethal cover incase something goes wrong.
We still have less lethal incase he decides nope, I'm not
(11:05):
going, we're going to do thisagain.
That doesn't happen.
The officers come in and applyhandcuffs and take him into
custody.
Now when you look at whatde-escalation you hear
de-escalation right and it's.
We've talked about it for many,many years.
It became in the nationalconversation or front of mind
around 2020, you know when whenpolice reform and the quote
(11:28):
unquote national conversationabout policing had been going on
, about de-escalation Not a newconcept, but it's a new concept
to a lot of new people that havecome in.
De-escalation in the abstractis very calm and peaceful.
In reality, de-escalation canlook scary.
It can still involve a use offorce.
(11:50):
Applying a taser or hittingsomebody with a taser is a use
of force.
Applying a taser or hittingsomebody with a taser is a use
of force.
Bringing somebody to the groundis a use of force.
Handcuffing somebody anytimeyou put hands on somebody,
that's a use of force.
So de-escalation is not devoidof using force.
De-escalation is the hopes tominimize the force needed and if
(12:12):
we're presented with somebodythat is already in the acute
demonstrated violence and isarmed with a deadly weapon, then
you're already at a deadlyforce situation potentially and
the hope is to deescalate thatto a less lethal option.
And that's exactly whathappened here.
But when you watch it withoutany context it can be scary.
(12:35):
Yeah, it's loud, there's lightsflashing, it's night, there's a
guy with a maybe you see theknife, maybe you don't.
You can clearly see it in reallife.
And then we hit somebody with ataser and if you know the end
of the movie, you know it's easyto be able to judge oh, this
individual is on the autismspectrum.
I feel bad.
(12:55):
I don't want that to happen tothem.
Nobody does.
But if you ask somebody whosefamily member was killed in a
situation like that by lawenforcement if they would trade,
I mean it's a silly thing toask, but absolutely Right.
Trade, I mean it's a sillything to ask, but absolutely so.
(13:15):
De-escalation sometimes is notthe prettiest thing, but it is
exactly what happened here,which was de-escalation from a
deadly force encounter to a lesslethal encounter, to safely
taking someone into custody.
That will A answer for thecharges, but B will have an
avenue for additionalpsychological help, because it
wasn't just the autism spectrumthat this person on there was
(13:37):
another underlying psychologicalcondition as well and we don't
know at the time what theircircumstances are as far as
insurance or for therapy or forany other type of services, but
sometimes when there's a violentencounter.
But sometimes when there's aviolent encounter, you unlock
avenues for families throughcourt-ordered or court-mandated
help.
So there's a lot of differentways for people to get help
(14:06):
after a situation like this, butfirst and foremost, you tend to
the victims ascertain as muchinformation as you can, because
you can see at the verybeginning, when we encountered
the, the victims, themcommunicating to us that he was
non-verbal, was critical to thisentire 100.
So that's what?
Um, when you look at ourmission statement partnering
together for a safer communityfor all you picture what that
(14:27):
means in your head.
It's not always what you thinkit is, but that is also what our
mission statement is.
You don't choose thepartnership.
Sometimes you know we didn'tpick to go there.
They certainly didn't wake upthat day thinking that the
police were going to come andhave this.
But, like it or not, we'repartners right now and when you
have that type of communicationand that type of partnership,
(14:47):
the second half of that mission,which is to ensure the safety
for all, it's the safety forthem and it's the safety for the
offender as well and theofficer.
So that's what the missionstatement looks like in practice
.
That's what de-escalation lookslike in practice.
It can be scary, it can be, youknow.
Quite frankly, it can look ugly, but it's a heck of a lot
(15:07):
better than what the alternativewould have been had you not had
training, had you not had theability to communicate, and not
only with the initialinformation, but to put that out
to all the other officers inreal time in a rapidly dynamic
and evolving situation.
That video that you're lookingat, or you just looked at, is
exactly what de-escalation lookslike, and it doesn't happen by
(15:29):
accident.
Right, we train for thisAbsolutely.
It's intentional.
Right, if you want to dosomething, you have to practice
it, you have to be proficient atit, and we're committed to
doing that.
And I think this highlightsexactly that.
I mean, if we didn't do that,if we didn't train, we weren't
committed to it, and thisoutcome was different, you
certainly would be seeing it alot on a much different medium
(15:54):
than our YouTube channel andtalking about it on the Cape
Copcast.
It would be on the news,certainly locally, maybe even
nationally.
But those days of not trainingand not being ready for this,
they're over.
They're over nationally, butthey're certainly over here.
I'll repeat it again Seventhlargest city and the third
biggest state in the country.
You're not prepared for bigtime stuff?
(16:16):
Then you're just not doing itright and rest assured, we are.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
The first officer on scene also was a canine officer,
correct, and at one point, oncethe gentleman was tased, he got
his canine out ready to go aswell, because the gentleman was
not responding to the taser asthey thought he would.
So just in case, and saying youknow, I'm, my dog's going to
bite you, my dog's going to biteyou.
And the guy ended up complying.
So it's just another tool thatwe have to be able to the canine
(16:44):
is actually a less lethal useof option.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Right, we track suspects and and and missing
people with the canine.
That's an application.
They do open-air sniffs fornarcotics, but they also do
apprehension.
And apprehension that leg ofthe three-legged stool of canine
is a use of force.
So if he were to be armed, notresponding to one less lethal
(17:12):
option, you go to another lesslethal option.
You use every tool in thetoolbox.
You don't just well, one lesslethal option didn't work, we go
back to lethal.
No, that's not how that works.
So we apply in real time manydifferent options to be able to
get the outcome that we got.
So I just think, if you know thecontext that we're talking
about and look at all of thedifferent layers in this onion,
(17:36):
if you will, there's a lot goingon, and a lot going on fast and
not a lot of room for error,because lives are literally at
stake, and we talked about thison a previous podcast that it's
stressful enough for the familythat they live with this every
day and then for the worstnightmare to happen, where
they're attacked, and then theycall for help.
(17:57):
The last thing they want is theperson that they call for help
to be not help.
So it's very vital that we havethe training, the ability, and
you also have to have compassionand a care for human life.
Right, right, that's the otherpart that completes that circuit
.
We provide our officers withthe training, we drill it until
(18:18):
it's an auto response and youcan see that there.
But you also have real humanbeings that really care about
other human beings in the video,and I think we talked longer
than the actual incident was,but that's everything that goes
in, and sometimes in amillisecond, to the responding
(18:41):
officers.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And one thing I did want to point out is you know,
once they had the gentlemanunder control and once you know
they got the cuffs on him, youcan see a difference and you can
see that compassion comethrough the way they're handling
him, the way they're conversingwith him, asking can see a
difference and you can see thatcompassion come through the way
they're handling him, the waythey're conversing with him,
asking him if he's okay.
You know being much more gentlebut of course, when you're in
the situation where the stakesare up here, you know the
(19:04):
response is going to be up here.
Once that danger is undercontrol, you can see that
compassion come through.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Right, and we don't have the luxury, if you will, to
picture a pot of boiling water.
It takes a while to get hot andthat's the emotion and we don't
have the luxury to be able tocool and calm down.
Slow meaning you can't be mad,and you put me in this situation
(19:30):
.
You did this to your loved ones.
No, it's immediate.
The threat is over.
You go right back down to thisis a person that thank God we
were able to have the resolutionthat we had, so now it's into
helping them and helping theentire family situation.
So I couldn't be more proud ofour officers for what we train
(19:53):
on, that they applied, butbeyond that, what they brought
to the police department.
Right, we want to hire goodpeople and have that as a base
to train and prepare.
But if you don't have that goodbase, it doesn't really hit it
on all cylinders like you want.
So just the wonderful humanbeings that they are, the
compassionate people that theyare, that value human life and
(20:14):
then are also smart enough andtalented enough to receive the
training, accept the trainingand then apply it in real life.
It's just a tremendous job bythem and by their frontline
leadership to trust in them todo that and it's saving lives
and you saw it unfold right infront of us.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Absolutely Great job to all those involved.
Incredible work Definitelymakes us proud, for sure.
Anything else you want to talkabout today, Chief?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Again.
It's been a long week.
Got a great weekend here.
It's still beautiful weather.
I know there's a lot ofcommunity events, so be safe
when you're out in the communityenjoying what may be one of the
last remaining weekends beforehumid time.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Humid hot.
Yeah, All right.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us and we will see you
next time.
Have a good one.
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