July 27, 2025 • 39 mins
Ayman Kafel has more than 20 years serving in the military and law enforcement. After founding Project Sapient, he has been researching the various sciences that can better help law enforcement officers deal with the stress and trauma of their profession.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
American Warrior Radio is on the air. Welcome to American
Warrior Radio. Lazy and gentlemen, this is Ben buler Garcia
American Warrior Radio broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios. If
you're thinking of getting a silencer for one or more
of your weapons, there's never been a better time to
do it. For a limited time, our friends at silencer
(00:38):
Central will pick up the cost of your tax stamp
on select suppressors. That's a two hundred dollars value. Visit
silencercentral dot com to confirm if owning a suncor is
legal in your state. They will then complete the paperwork
and ship right to your front door, making silence simple
since two thousand and five. That's Silencercentral dot Com. Three
years ago, we spoke with I'man Cafel about what it was,
(00:59):
then a relatively new initiative. He had founded the Project
Sapient podcast. I'man as an army combat veteran who became
a police officer in two thousand and seven. He co
founded Project Sapient in order to create a forum where
his brothers and sisters in law enforcement and military communities
can have conversations that need to take place. You can
learn more of visit projectsapient dot com. That's s A
p i e n t dot com. Since then, I'M
(01:22):
has developed even deeper into the various sciences that affect
and can improve the ability of our first responders to
address the stress and traumas that come from serving in uniform.
I figured out it's time to have him back on
and pick his brain a little bit. I'm and welcome
back to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Hey, I appreciate your time, Ben, thank you for having
me on.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you've grown both your business and physically. I mean,
you're you're a monster of a man, dude, based on
what I can see on your Instagram and feedback that
you talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Final five, I'm just a big teddy bear.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, fair enough. Now you may not recall this from
last time we chattered, but I was a criminal justice
major in college and that's obviously been a while and
the you know, the circumstances and our communities have changed significantly. However,
I don't recall any of my professors that whole time,
that whole course of curriculum discussing trauma, stress, moral injury.
(02:19):
I mean, yeah, we talked broken windows all day long. Now, now,
in fairness and to provide some context, I mean that
was back when a lot of police officers were still
caring revolvers. I was at a military event recently and
there was an enlisted person I won't say which branch,
but they barely could fit in their uniformvironment and it
was it was uncomfortable for me for me to watch. Now,
(02:43):
you know, I'm overweight and I'm out of shape, I
got bad knees. But it's not important. Well, it's personally
important for me to be fit, but you know, no
one's life is going to depend on my fitness as
a as a radio host to protect myself or others.
But I saw a quote on your website. You know,
fitness should be a given for military first responders, but
(03:03):
I saw quote I think it was on your website
that said officers carry more than gear. So you know,
we're taking care of the fitness side of things generally,
but what are we doing about the mental training and
preparing these officers to Because when I when I leave
the house every day. My wife doesn't worry about me
coming home safe, you know, uh, but your family every day.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Man.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean. So, the the thing with with the
training of our first responders, law enforcement firefighters e m s.
Not enough time is spent on the trauma aspect, the
stress response aspect. What happens when your body goes through
a critical incident. You know, because your your our bodies,
(03:52):
our human bodies are these extremely complex set of you know, organs,
our brain means, our nervous system. I mean, it is
extremely complex. And what I've learned, I mean I've dug
I've dug deep into the research on this, and you know,
I want to tell you guys, I'm not like a
(04:12):
neuroscientist or a doctor or anything like anything like that,
but it You know, psychology has always fascinated me, even
when I was a kid. And what I started to
notice in the in the law enforced first responders communities
is that lack of awareness of what happens to your body,
to your mind under stress when you're dealing with an
extremely critical situation. Your heart rate, you know, how is
(04:35):
that court? You know, how does is that connected to
your overall fitness, your overall health because it really does.
I mean, you you were mentioning, you know, you saw
some member, a service member who was clearly overweight could
barely fit in their uniform. On the first responder side,
especially on the policing side, that's an epidemic all on
its own. There was a study I read that forty
(04:56):
percent of police officers. Now there's close to a million
police officers throughout the en I think the exact number
like somewhere around a little over eight hundred thousand others
across the nation. Now forty percent of that eight hundred
thousand is considered obese. I mean that's a big number. Wow,
that's a very big number for a job that at
(05:18):
times it's going to kill you. You know, either you're
going to live or die depending on what's going on,
or somebody else.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So you know, you got to drag someone out of
a burning building, you know, you need to be able
to be physically fit in order to handle to do that.
You know, Like on my SWAT team, we pet we
have a PET test twice a year. We have to
make sure we are adhering to those standards. Now, I
get it that SWAT that's different, but it's still the
same to me. On the patrol division. You're the face
of the police department, and how you perform out there
(05:50):
really impacts everybody around you.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You know, my wife and I love to watch these
true crime videos or you know YouTube about you know.
Of course she's always screaming send the dogs and the
dog she likes that part. But you know, I'm amazed
at some of these rundowns where these officers and their
full kit are. I mean, they look like they played
for the Washington Redskins. I mean, you know, they're they're
breaking world records to catch this you know, thief or whatever,
(06:14):
and that makes me feel good. You don't see very
many videos of the out of shape police officer just saying, eh,
you know, let them go. We'll get them next time, right,
And that's not good for the community.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
No, you don't. You won't ever see those types of
things or those types of interactions because you know, those
don't make headlines or you know, it's it's a failure
on on on the police officers part for not taking
their physical fitness their mental health too seriously. You know,
when you're in a parasympathetic or even some you know,
a sympathetic state where you're really in a high over
(06:48):
kind of high stress type environment.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
The correlation to physical fitness and mental health is so
apparent during those incidents because you can tell the difference
between someone who trains and someone who just does the
range once or twice a year, or does one week
of training a year. And that's it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I mean, I want to delve into that a little
bit further on the show because you cited in one
of your articles, you cited a statistic that that just
shocked me. You know, I talked about how I think
you said, only sixty the Caliber Press report only sixty
percent of officers only make the range once or twice
a year. Only one percent shoot monthly.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, I dang, yeah, I mean, I mean look at
those I mean, you know, just looking at police departments
all around the country. We have different standards, right, And
here's the thing, like in the in the army, in
the in the army, Mike Mike experience. In the Army,
everybody has the same exact standards. Right. It doesn't matter
whether you're cook, infantry, field artillery. We all have the
(07:48):
same exact standards. We all have to do a PT test.
We all have to go to the range. We all
have to qualify, we all have to train and land
a we all have to be proficient in all these things.
Police officers, most I should say most, I don't want
to like blanket. Most agencies, depending on the size, will
only go to the range once or twice a year.
(08:10):
And that's it. And that one percent that do more
than just you know that monthly. Those are your swat teams.
Those are your tactical teams that really devote a lot
of time out on the range, out you know, doing
room clearing type stuff, hostage rescue training, all this type
of stuff. But patrol doesn't get exposed to any of that.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I've got to ask why. I mean, it seems to
me that that would be a simple administrative fix. You
were now required if you're going to carry a badge
and a gun, you're now required to do x amount
of supervised range time. Is it? Is it dollars? Is it?
Our people don't.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, it's mostly budgeting, it's manpower. It's it's states regulating
the training. You know, where they say you're required to
do X and Y. A lot of it has to
do with check the box that training. It's it's really
it's not helping the community nor the officer when you
do check the box training. It's it's the type of
training that is, you know, death by PowerPoint. No one
(09:04):
learns by PowerPoint only, especially this type of job. This
type of job requires you to be hands on when
you when it comes to doing things.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, and you make a good point where you talked
about you don't want your surgeon doing the check the
box training. I mean, you know, they've got to be competent,
they've got to be able to prove it on a
regular basis.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
So same thing with airline pilots, right, airline pilots is
not check the box.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, I'm going to tell you when we come back,
I want to talk more about that and some of
your proposed solutions. Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben
Bueler Garcia we're talking with I'm in Kafel. If you'd
like to learn more, visit Project sapient dot com, s
A p I e n T dot com, don't forget.
You can find this podcast and over six hundred others
at American Warrior Radio dot com, our most recent episodes,
(09:49):
or all all of the bigger platforms whatever your podcast
platform is, you can find American Warrior Radio. We'll be
right back. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Lation.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Viler Garcia. We're talking
with I'man Kafel. I'man as a combat veteran. Who is
I recall, I mean you were actually you're medically retired
from the Armed forces. So you decide you want to
continue to serve our community. So you've been a police
officer since two thousand and seven on the East Coast.
I mean I was, I guess, so I was shocked
(10:36):
to hear that see some of that data about the training,
and you would think, in particular with the lawyers out
there and the situation the environments we've got in our
communities now, you would want your police officers trained as
best as possible to you know, to be able to
(10:57):
actually when they choose to draw their weapon, to actually
hit that they're shooting at. I'll tell you I had
a friend of mine, green Beret, and he was in
town and he'd brought up a there's a local company
here called war Lizard Tactical and they do training. Now
I've shot my entire life. I thought I was pretty good,
and so I decided to go out and take their
(11:18):
just basic you know, pistol class. And it's been about
nine months since I've been to the range. Now keep
in mind, I've shot my whole life. The weapon I
was using, I've owned that for eight years. I was terrible.
I mean I couldn't even qualify for the you know,
the C c W and ladies and gentlemen. That's not
difficult to do. I mean, you're a seven feet put
(11:39):
five rounds the in the circle, you know. So so
I'm really the short answer I'm is this, this comes
down to money, and if that's the caasion, we find the.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Money, absolutely, I mean that's the thing there. I Mean
there's so much being spent on different things, you know,
for example, like police reform, right, I mean most of
us are all about police defortmace, the training standards have
to change, all these things. There's there's some real issues
going on within the law enforcement community that needs to
be addressed, and unfortunately it always gets put in the
(12:13):
back burner because in the end, it comes down to money.
Because to produce really good police officers is expensive. It's
not cheap. But at the same time, the end result
will give you a much better product, we'll call it,
you know, a much better police officer, a far more
effective police officer. If you invest in and here's here's
(12:34):
the thing I always say, I'm like here, surprise. If
you invest in your employees, guess what, they're gonna perform better.
They're gonna work better, They're gonna you know, do a
lot more for you because you're investing in your employees
versus just sending them off to these check the box trainings.
That is really not that's just covering. To me, check
(12:54):
the box training is covering the department from liability. That's
all that is, you know, that's all the Oh yeah,
we do CPR once a year, check the box. That way,
if something goes wrong, they could the city can say, well,
oh the officer did his you know, four hours of
training of CPR.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
That way, they could say, nope, that check the box.
So now they're no longer liable. The cities, cities, town, states, whatever,
is no longer liable because we got the training. But again,
to me, training and proficiency are two completely different things,
right or to qualify, I can take anybody out there
and put them on a range and get them to
qualify with a pistol. It's not rocket science, right, it's
(13:32):
a stationary target. It's not moving anywhere. You're shooting. In policing,
when we qualify it's a stationary target. We are doing
these ridiculous facing movements left, right, move, you know whatever,
and you're just shooting at the target that's not shooting
back at you. That's not training, that's not even proficiency.
(13:52):
To be proficient means you are able to engage with
a target that is moving around on you, that you're
hitting the target where it should. You are so proficient
in your weapon that you can take it apart, put
it back together, no problem. There are some officers out
there that have no idea how to take their weapons apart,
no idea, and it's it's amazing to me, and a
mind boggles me on why that is, you know. And
(14:14):
that's the thing again, you're under stressed. And you know
there's so much videos out there showing cops under stress.
They're going to shootout where they shoot the lock back right,
they're empty and they're not realizing it because they they're
amygdala is so jacked, right, they got the migdala hijack,
which we can talk about in a little bit. That
amygdala hijack gets to them and they lose all cognitive
(14:37):
functions in terms of realizing that they are you know,
out of out of ammo or there's a jam. They
got to fix it. So there's there's a lot of
things that they can't that that police departments cross country
can do to help fix that. Now, again, I don't
want to broad paint like every department's like that. Some
departments are better than others, right, Some departments really dedicate
(14:57):
time to train their officers, others not so much.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I've been I've had the opportunity at my local police
department to go in the shooting simulator, and they've got
a nice one. I mean it's not quite three hundred
and sixty degrees, but it's it's pretty high tech. And
you know, I realized that, I'm it's a simulation, but
you know, my heart rate went up a little bit
(15:21):
when it turns out, you know, it wasn't the guy
coming around the corner I need to worry about as
the dude over there in the wheelchair who happened to have,
you know, a pistol. So the shoot don't shoot scenario.
Let me ask you this in your experience I'm going
to have and I'll say that the body cameras are
a good thing, But have they put more officers at risk?
(15:41):
Because now there's also there's not only the stress of
the situation and everything else that's going on around that
you've got a track, but now somewhere in the back
of your being you're thinking about, Okay, the world is watching.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
And personally not not not that I have seen, I've
actually I've actually grown to love the body cams because
our complaints skyrocketed down because yeah, someone can complain, well,
look at the body camp like, yeah, did you see
how you were acting towards the police officer? And usually
you know they're intoxicated or something, and it wipes all
(16:14):
that out. The bodycam essentially, it becomes an extension of
you what you and I always say the bodycam never
replaces officer perception, human perception, your perception of a threat.
It never, it never h substitutes that. But what it's
good for is give you the overall, the overall you
(16:36):
know what's going on in front of the officer. I
haven't seen too many officers hesitate as a result I
think what the reason they're hesitating though, is just the
environment of law enforcement. You know, there's the you know,
Ferguson effect, there's all sorts of different things that we
call it is because officers are hesitating because they don't
want to be that next cop on TV. Right that
(16:57):
it's not so much the body cam, it's more outside influences.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I when you know that Ben gets a dumb question
every show, so you know, here we go, Here's I
don't know if I want to Let's let's hold off
on that. Well, we'll come back to Ben's dumb question.
But part of what again, I encourage people to check
out projectsapien dot com. You've got some great podcasts up
there where you are talking to other law enforcement and
(17:24):
military veterans and you're exploring some of these these challenges
because so often we didn't. When I talk about back
when I went studying criminal justice, we're talking you know,
early eighties, you didn't talk about this stuff, and if
you did, if you asked for help, you were blackballed.
And I get the sense we've gotten leadership has gotten
(17:45):
better about that. But I find it fascinating that you
were actually delving into the science of all this stuff.
When we come back on and I want to talk
about your experience. You started with the biofeedback devices. I mean,
you really jumped in with both feed and started exploring
this and you probably should be given an honorary PhD.
But we want to disclaimer there for the lawyers. Timan
(18:07):
is not a medical doctor, but just some fascinating, fascinating
stuff there and what so on Project Sapien. You've got
the podcast, you've got a video podcasts, but real quick,
you also offer training correct.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yes, correct, So the training, Yeah, so that's that's yeah,
that's uh. That training is really going out in full force.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay, let's talk more about that when we come back.
And I also want to talk about the recruiting because
you have written some very fascinating stuff that based on
your military experience, you've got some suggestions on how our
local law enforcement agencies can improve their training. Ladies and gentlemen,
there's your host, Benna bu La Garcia. We're talking with.
I'm Garfelsta Grant will be right back. We're coming to
(19:11):
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(19:32):
if you need it, making silence simple since two thousand
and five. That's slencercentral dot com we're talking with. I'man Kafell.
I'man is the co founder, I guess i'mon of a
group organization called Projectsapient dot com. I encourage you to
check it out. Lots of great stuff there, even if
you're a civilian, you will learn an awful lot. And
you know, really the mission of this program, ladies and gentlemen,
(19:55):
is to bridge that gap of understanding between those who
wear the uniform and the badge and the rest of
us in the world. And if you watch their listen
to some of these podcasts, are definitely gonna there'll be enlightening.
Trust for me. You need to do that. So, I mean,
I want to get this out of way before. I
forget I teased before Ben's dumb question of the show.
You're You've been swat, you've been patrolled, all that stuff.
(20:16):
How often have you personally got the do you know
who I am?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Question? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
All the time, all the time, officials.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Every Yeah, every once in a while I'll run into
somebody who does you know who I am? Type speech?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Okay, and that that one always makes me chuckle because
I know it's going to go bad from there.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Usually it doesn't work out too well for them after that.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That's That's one of the reasons I love body camps.
So I'm and you you spent a lot of time,
most recently looking into the the the biology, the science
of that, and you've already today you've thrown out some
words that I couldn't barely understand, much less spell. What
What is the connection between, for example, kinesiology and some
(21:00):
of the How could that help improve and keep our
officers not just safe in the moment, but also help
reduce that stress response and make sure they're not you know,
they can release this when they get home.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah. So the reason why I bring in kinesiology, neuroscience, neurophysiology,
all these different types of disciplines in these sciences into
the law enforcement world because it is very very relevant
to law enforcement. There's a study that was published by
Forced Science talking about how police officers should train like athletes,
(21:40):
which I one hundred percent agree, because an athlete not
only lifts weights whatever you know, doing wind sprints, doing
different kettlebells and different types of things to really hit
their metabolic conditioning. That way, they are able to think
on their feet when their heart rates get that high,
when they are overwhelmed, when they are going through whatever
(22:01):
they're going through. Now, I always tell people, listen, you
can never mimic a near death experience, right, that's something.
But what you can do is train yourself to be
able to think in those you know, when you're in
the red in terms of heart rate, when your heart
rate's over you know, one fifty one, sixty one seventy
approaching two hundred beats per minute. You can train that
because in this study that they cited, Formula one racers,
(22:22):
rally car races, even tennis players, their average heart rate
during a match or during a race is two hundred
beats per minute. Yet you see how they are in
their cars when they're playing in tents like they're calm, cool, collected.
They're giving you know, they're giving out instructions, especially the
rally car drivers. You hear them on their on their speakers,
it's like they're talking normal. But it's because they train
(22:44):
in that environment. They train their physio, their physio feel
physiological selves to adjust and to work through whatever they're
going through. That way, they're able to make those split
second decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Now, is that part of the train that you provide
through Project Shapient.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yes. So I use a lot of biofeedback items in
order to for me and the trainers to monitor someone's
heart rate because what I found. I've used myself as
a guinea pig for a long time because that's the
way I like to study this because I'm on the job,
I'm doing the work now, I want to see how
I personally react. And it has helped me immensely on
(23:25):
my training and how I go about doing things. And
one of the devices I use, I actually work with
them a lot is woop and whoop. Really, to me
was my answer to this problem of lack of sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Let me intro direct you woolf.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
W Yeah, whoop whoop, And that's who I work with
right at this time. Excuse me bringing this biofeedback type
device to law enforcement first responders, And because to me,
it really showed, because it gives me a holistic picture
of what's going on with me. So it shows that,
(24:04):
you know, for example, show me that during my course
of my day, if I'm dealing with some you know,
multiple crazy incidents, I like to see where I'm at,
you know, physically, mentally all that stuff, because I will
go into the whoop the device after you know, into
the app after the incident, and I'll look at all
my biomarkers. I'll look at see how I am, my
(24:26):
stress level this that, you know, there's different things I
can look at and then I can work intervention on myself,
whether it's box breathing or different types of things, or
even on my way to call. I even tested it,
like going to a gun call or really intense call
where my initial peak you know, you hear the radio
and my heart rate of skyrock is just by the
radio them telling me that, for example, somebody is trying
(24:46):
to kill their roommates using a machete, which was an
actual call, and I look at my heart rate and
it boom spiped. And then I'm driving to the location
and I'm breathing. I'm doing some things, and you see
my heart rate drop right back down. Because I'm doing
some breathing, I'm also thinking, I'm visualizing, like, all right,
this is what I need to get done once I
get to that location. I get to that location, my
heart rate's going to spike again because I know that
(25:08):
because now I'm about to face real credible threat. And
then once we deal with that threat, we arrest them,
all that good stuff, and you start to see the
heart rate go back down. That means, now, Okay, I'm
in recovery mode. I'm going through the adrenaline dump. And
that's something that I can also work on that I
can intervene and to help me out kind of come
off it.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
What are the physical repercussions of not being able to
do that? When we're doing a show for National Police Week,
someone I came west side of a statistic that your
average civilian will experience maybe four truly traumatic events in
their life, and your average law enforcement officer or maybe
a first responder you know EMTs will experience up to
(25:49):
seven hundred over a twenty year career. That's got to
add up, right, like paint on a board. So what
are the physical threats if our officers aren't able to
have this feedback and know how to address it.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
One of the things is sleep deprivation. Unable to sleep,
That's that's one big one. And and you know, there
was a study that I recently read that uh, sleep
appropriation increases the amygdala activity up to sixty percent, heightening
emotional reactions and reducing emotional control. I mean, so what
does that tell you? That tells you that you're amygdala?
(26:24):
That's that the migdala I like to call it, like
the primal that's your primal side. The amygdala is what
the fight, flight, all that stuff, it's all in that
little little thing in your head. And the amygdala is
is basically the alarm system. So it helps with emotions
like fear, anger, jealousy. So with lack of sleep, and
if it's sixty percent increased inactivity, how do you know,
(26:47):
how is that police officer going to react to a
minor thing, you know, like a stop sign violation or something, Well,
he's he or she are going to be elevated because
they have not slept, They have not recovered, and the
average human and to recover after a critical incident is
anywhere between twenty four to forty eight hours. Now, as
a first responder, we're not going to have that break.
(27:08):
We're going from call to call to call to call. So,
I mean, I remember one week, I had four or
five critical incidents I had to deal with in a
one week period. You know, whether it was a dead body,
a major accident, accident with some real severe injuries, or
a horrific crime. Certain you know, things like that where
you know sleep that preface is going to happen because
I'm so jacked up. I'm so you know, working towards
(27:32):
not working, sorry, so jacked up on the adrenaline and
everything where I'm unabable to sleep. Now i have to
go back into work, work my double whatever it is,
I'm going to be exhausted, and on top of that,
I'm going to be you know, easily irritated as a result. Now,
how is that going to help our community if we're
not addressing those things?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah? Well, and you also cited some one of the
articles I read talked about sleep deprivation and its impact
on just basic driving were to some expense, It's almost
you might as well have had two bottles of whiskey,
because your reaction time is just as bad because you're
sleep deprived. And you know, I've been you know whir
I love. It gets, you know, pretty toasty in the summer,
and it's not unusual you might pull up next to
(28:13):
someone who looks like their air conditioning is not working
and they're at a stop line and they're nodding. I
mean at the stop line. I don't know if they've
been drinking or not, but anyway, so okay, So again, folks,
visit projectsapien dot com s A p I e n
t dot com and I'm going to show the big
brain on Ben that reflects the the Latin reference to
(28:35):
the word whyse sapient does. So there you go. I've
passed my quiz for now. I'm When we come back,
I'd like to talk a little bit about your take
on recruiting. I know that's a real problem across the country,
not just right now, but it has been for several years.
You talk about the furgust In Effect show and come back,
what's said about that? Ladies and gentlemen. As your host
Bendler Garcia, we're talking like I'mon Kafell will be right back.
(29:11):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio Laser and gentlemen, there's
your host, Ben buler Garcia. We're talking with I'man Kafel.
I'man has been a law enforcement officer since twenty and
seventy served as in the military as a combat veteran
prior to that, and if you know anything about his background,
i'm in is quite a special special person. I'm in.
Before we get into recruiting, I want to ask you
this question where you talk about the physiology and all
(29:32):
this research you've been doing and some of the solutions
you're presenting to fellow law enforcement offers through your training
and their own project Shapien, please tell me you're not
the only guy that's pursuing these avenues. I mean, is
this taking hold in departments across the country?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It finally is. I think I was one of the
very first. I remember back in twenty twenty when I
start researching this. The only other company that really dove
into this is for Science. So they turned the use
of force by police officers into a science. So it's
an organization called for Science. I've taken a lot of
their classes I've taken an their eighteen week Advanced Analyst
(30:10):
course where we really dive deep into the psychological, the physiological,
the neurological things that occur during a use of force
with an officer. And so I mean I have hundreds
of white paper of just different types of neuroscience, not
just only for law enforcement, but also I look at
exercise sciences because there's so much correlation, just like I said,
(30:33):
with kinesology, human movement, the economy of movement, what's what
makes more sense? What make is faster? What is slower?
When you get up you know, when you're about to
break leather and on wholster your firearm, what's the most
economical type movement to do that? So those are the
things that you know, I really dove into and still
dive into and look into.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
And I want to clarify you yourself for on the
East Coast, but you'll provide this training anywhere in the country.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Oh yeah, I've gone as far as Bakersfield, California, Oregon,
all over New England.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
So yeah, and real quick. So in most cases I've
almost hesitate to say this, but my fear is that
the individual officers themselves generally are on the hook to
pay for this themselves or departments stepping up.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Some departments will pay, but most times it's the officers that.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well hopefully you know, ladies and gentlemen, if you're a
first responder out there hearing this, you know, look into
I know there's several foundations in my city that provides
funding to help pay for this sort of stuff. So
I'm going to want to talk a little bit about
something that is bedeviling communities across the country, and that's recruiting.
You know, you mentioned the Ferguson effect and my local
police force as an example, depending on who you ask,
(31:43):
we're anywhere from two hundred to four hundred sworn officers
short of where we should be for community our size.
That's a real risk issue. Now, what I'm also hearing
is this has started to drift away from just strictly
a compensation issue to a perception issue. You know, in
today's environment, who the heck, you know, in the right
(32:03):
mind wants to to put on a badge and go
out there, and you know, it takes a pretty special cat.
Now you're you're obviously a big training, big on training
both you know, constant advanced training, but you also propose
that one of the challenges that our departments face where
they could make some immediate improvement is with the selection process.
They graduate from the academy and there and there, you know,
their time with the FTO. But the selection process. You
(32:25):
say that it would be smart to model that after
the Special Forces Q course or their qualification course.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah. So, I mean I have a lot of close
personal friends that are either Green Berrey's former Green Brays,
and we talk about you know, training and everything, and
and to me, selecting an officer should be just as rigorous,
not I shouldn't say just as but pretty rigorous enough
that it would give us the best qualified candidate. Back
(32:52):
when I first became a cop in two thousand and seven,
tens of thousands would be signing up, you know, lining
up at the door to become a police officer. It
used to be one of those like dream jobs to get.
Now you can barely find people who want to do
the job. So that now turns into an issue, a
competency issue in reality, because now you have to hire
(33:13):
individuals that really shouldn't be cops. They have integrity issues,
they have all these different issues that are going on
and back again, when I got on, they those types
would not even be looked at. Now these individuals are
considered for the job, and there's certain states and I
know across the country they're changing even the PT standards
to be easier. You're really doing a disservice to your community,
(33:37):
to the nation, to whoever you're serving, because now you
are really downplaying the importance of the profession. And it
is a profession. People like, you know, is this a professional? Well,
we need to act like it's a profession because it
takes specific skills. You have to be able to talk
to people. Your integrity, obviously, he needs to be intact.
You know, you can't have higher individuals in New England alone.
(34:00):
I've seen turnover rates for cops who just get on
the job and they're getting fired or whatever, over all
kinds of different reasons, you know, the reasons that really
I've never really seen personally, you know, where I'm just
like wow, But that's the pool of candidates you have now.
So to me, it needs to be very rigorous and
it needs to be hold to a high standard that
(34:20):
if you are going to become a police officer, you're
going to have to have these high standards for these
brand new candidates coming in.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know, I've talked to a lot of chair one
operator seales, you know, green Brae as you mentioned at Delta,
and I ask them what is the common thing that
you look for in a teammate and to a person.
Their responses intelligence, smart enough to figure it out in
the field, and they're willingness to accept feedback and adapt.
And you know that's part of the training. So you've
(34:49):
proposed that we need to see more of that in policing.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Absolutely. I mean we've had a newer officer at MYPD.
He actually quit refused feedback and there's a brand new guy,
brand new comp and you're just like, really, man, and
you can't you can't even take feedback as a brain
you guy, You know, you need to be poachable. You
need to you know, take constructive criticism because guess what,
we are going to criticize you, right, not like to
(35:14):
the point of yelling at you whatever, but if you
made a mistake, you will know, right because again, this
job is you know, one mistake, depending on what the
situation is, could be life and death. Right. So that's
why you know, I say that if the profession is
not taking the recruiting seriously, We're going to be hurting
for the next ten or plus years as a result
(35:35):
of who we have on the job.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Now, you know, it's almost when you say that, I
come back to the check the box example that you
used before. If you know, folks are just trying to
fill their quota with anybody with a pulse, we filled
the force. That's counterproductive and frankly dangerous for our communities.
I'm an I found in reading your stuff that you
have a pension for quoting the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi,
(36:00):
and one of those is to know ten thousand things,
know one well. And then you go on to say,
be so skilled in your chosen profession that chaos spends
around your discipline. Be so prepared that uncertainty has no
room to breathe, be so practiced at instinct becomes art.
Came back to that training example. My bad experience, well
(36:20):
not a bad experience. The training was great, but the
fact that you know, I shot really worse after nine
months not being on the range as I did before that.
And and that's one of the things that these trainers
tried to hammer interest and said, look without constant training.
Your weapon might as well just be an expensive paperweight.
You've got to train constantly, constantly, constantly, and that I'd
say you advocate for that as well.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Absolutely. I mean there's some There's a thing I read
by this doctor from Australia. He was part of the
Australian SASSF guy became a doctor and really dives into
similar stuff that I do, except he has the doctor
in front of him. But he's done his researches and everything.
And there's something that he talked about which I really like.
He says, there are four stages of competence, right, model
(37:04):
of competence. There's unconscious incompetence. We don't know what we
don't know. Conscious incompetence we know about a skill but
can't do it. Conscious competence we can do a skill,
but it takes concentration. Unconscious competence we can do a
skill on autopilot. Now I'll give an example. What is
(37:25):
an unconscious competence. Well, that's us walking, right, We don't
have to think about it. We've done all our lives.
We walk, run whatever's that's a skill that we've developed
from when we were babies, right, Unconscious incompetence is the
most dangerous type because you think it's we don't know
what we don't know, yet you act as if you know, right'.
(37:47):
It's very, very, very scary to be in that role
when you refuse to take feedback, right, because now you
become a liability for everybody around you because you think
you know, but you don't, right. And that's the thing
with conscious incompetence. You know a skill but can't do it.
You know what you lack, but you know. Therefore, give
(38:07):
an example in Arizona, actually in Phoenix a few years back,
where police officers in age in a gunfight with this
guy holding a baby and all that stuff, and two
brand new rookies pull up. They had to stop forty
two yards away and they couldn't shoot back. Now, the
reason they didn't shoot back is because they knew they
were not proficient with their firearms to shoot at that distance.
(38:29):
I say kudos to them. That's conscious incompetence. They know
they lacked that skill. Two more officers showed up, who
have more time on the job, who have more skills. Whatever,
they dropped the guy at forty two yards with a rifle.
That's unconscious competence. They've worked so much they knew exactly
what needed to get done.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I'm going to tell you what we're running out run
out of time here, sir. It always happens when we
have a great guess but fake it to you make
it is definitely not a watch word that you want
to use in the police force. Lation gentlemen, please check
out Projectshapient dot com. Definitely check out the podcast there.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Also.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
I'm as a prolific writer at the Havoc Journal. He's
got over one hundred articles supposed there. You can learn
more Havoc Journal dot com Havok Journal dot com. I'm
gonna start a GoFundMe campaign to send you off to
Harvard so you can't get that PhD. How does that sound?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
I love it?
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Thank you all right, brother, Really appreciate you sharing your
thoughts and spending your time with our listeners today.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah. Absolutely, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Ladies and gentlemen, another great show in the box. Please
share these important stories until next time. All policies and
procedures are remain in place.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
You've been listening to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Archived episodes may
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Be found at americanwarriorradio dot com, or your favorite podcast
platform
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
American Warrior Radio is on the air. Welcome to American
Warrior Radio. Lazy and gentlemen, this is Ben buler Garcia
American Warrior Radio broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios. If
you're thinking of getting a silencer for one or more
of your weapons, there's never been a better time to
do it. For a limited time, our friends at silencer
(00:38):
Central will pick up the cost of your tax stamp
on select suppressors. That's a two hundred dollars value. Visit
silencercentral dot com to confirm if owning a suncor is
legal in your state. They will then complete the paperwork
and ship right to your front door, making silence simple
since two thousand and five. That's Silencercentral dot Com. Three
years ago, we spoke with I'man Cafel about what it was,
(00:59):
then a relatively new initiative. He had founded the Project
Sapient podcast. I'man as an army combat veteran who became
a police officer in two thousand and seven. He co
founded Project Sapient in order to create a forum where
his brothers and sisters in law enforcement and military communities
can have conversations that need to take place. You can
learn more of visit projectsapient dot com. That's s A
p i e n t dot com. Since then, I'M
(01:22):
has developed even deeper into the various sciences that affect
and can improve the ability of our first responders to
address the stress and traumas that come from serving in uniform.
I figured out it's time to have him back on
and pick his brain a little bit. I'm and welcome
back to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Hey, I appreciate your time, Ben, thank you for having
me on.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Well, you've grown both your business and physically. I mean,
you're you're a monster of a man, dude, based on
what I can see on your Instagram and feedback that
you talk about.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Final five, I'm just a big teddy bear.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, fair enough. Now you may not recall this from
last time we chattered, but I was a criminal justice
major in college and that's obviously been a while and
the you know, the circumstances and our communities have changed significantly. However,
I don't recall any of my professors that whole time,
that whole course of curriculum discussing trauma, stress, moral injury.
(02:19):
I mean, yeah, we talked broken windows all day long. Now, now,
in fairness and to provide some context, I mean that
was back when a lot of police officers were still
caring revolvers. I was at a military event recently and
there was an enlisted person I won't say which branch,
but they barely could fit in their uniformvironment and it
was it was uncomfortable for me for me to watch. Now,
(02:43):
you know, I'm overweight and I'm out of shape, I
got bad knees. But it's not important. Well, it's personally
important for me to be fit, but you know, no
one's life is going to depend on my fitness as
a as a radio host to protect myself or others.
But I saw a quote on your website. You know,
fitness should be a given for military first responders, but
(03:03):
I saw quote I think it was on your website
that said officers carry more than gear. So you know,
we're taking care of the fitness side of things generally,
but what are we doing about the mental training and
preparing these officers to Because when I when I leave
the house every day. My wife doesn't worry about me
coming home safe, you know, uh, but your family every day.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Man.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean. So, the the thing with with the
training of our first responders, law enforcement firefighters e m s.
Not enough time is spent on the trauma aspect, the
stress response aspect. What happens when your body goes through
a critical incident. You know, because your your our bodies,
(03:52):
our human bodies are these extremely complex set of you know, organs,
our brain means, our nervous system. I mean, it is
extremely complex. And what I've learned, I mean I've dug
I've dug deep into the research on this, and you know,
I want to tell you guys, I'm not like a
(04:12):
neuroscientist or a doctor or anything like anything like that,
but it You know, psychology has always fascinated me, even
when I was a kid. And what I started to
notice in the in the law enforced first responders communities
is that lack of awareness of what happens to your body,
to your mind under stress when you're dealing with an
extremely critical situation. Your heart rate, you know, how is
(04:35):
that court? You know, how does is that connected to
your overall fitness, your overall health because it really does.
I mean, you you were mentioning, you know, you saw
some member, a service member who was clearly overweight could
barely fit in their uniform. On the first responder side,
especially on the policing side, that's an epidemic all on
its own. There was a study I read that forty
(04:56):
percent of police officers. Now there's close to a million
police officers throughout the en I think the exact number
like somewhere around a little over eight hundred thousand others
across the nation. Now forty percent of that eight hundred
thousand is considered obese. I mean that's a big number. Wow,
that's a very big number for a job that at
(05:18):
times it's going to kill you. You know, either you're
going to live or die depending on what's going on,
or somebody else.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
So you know, you got to drag someone out of
a burning building, you know, you need to be able
to be physically fit in order to handle to do that.
You know, Like on my SWAT team, we pet we
have a PET test twice a year. We have to
make sure we are adhering to those standards. Now, I
get it that SWAT that's different, but it's still the
same to me. On the patrol division. You're the face
of the police department, and how you perform out there
(05:50):
really impacts everybody around you.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You know, my wife and I love to watch these
true crime videos or you know YouTube about you know.
Of course she's always screaming send the dogs and the
dog she likes that part. But you know, I'm amazed
at some of these rundowns where these officers and their
full kit are. I mean, they look like they played
for the Washington Redskins. I mean, you know, they're they're
breaking world records to catch this you know, thief or whatever,
(06:14):
and that makes me feel good. You don't see very
many videos of the out of shape police officer just saying, eh,
you know, let them go. We'll get them next time, right,
And that's not good for the community.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
No, you don't. You won't ever see those types of
things or those types of interactions because you know, those
don't make headlines or you know, it's it's a failure
on on on the police officers part for not taking
their physical fitness their mental health too seriously. You know,
when you're in a parasympathetic or even some you know,
a sympathetic state where you're really in a high over
(06:48):
kind of high stress type environment.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
The correlation to physical fitness and mental health is so
apparent during those incidents because you can tell the difference
between someone who trains and someone who just does the
range once or twice a year, or does one week
of training a year. And that's it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I mean, I want to delve into that a little
bit further on the show because you cited in one
of your articles, you cited a statistic that that just
shocked me. You know, I talked about how I think
you said, only sixty the Caliber Press report only sixty
percent of officers only make the range once or twice
a year. Only one percent shoot monthly.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, I dang, yeah, I mean, I mean look at
those I mean, you know, just looking at police departments
all around the country. We have different standards, right, And
here's the thing, like in the in the army, in
the in the army, Mike Mike experience. In the Army,
everybody has the same exact standards. Right. It doesn't matter
whether you're cook, infantry, field artillery. We all have the
(07:48):
same exact standards. We all have to do a PT test.
We all have to go to the range. We all
have to qualify, we all have to train and land
a we all have to be proficient in all these things.
Police officers, most I should say most, I don't want
to like blanket. Most agencies, depending on the size, will
only go to the range once or twice a year.
(08:10):
And that's it. And that one percent that do more
than just you know that monthly. Those are your swat teams.
Those are your tactical teams that really devote a lot
of time out on the range, out you know, doing
room clearing type stuff, hostage rescue training, all this type
of stuff. But patrol doesn't get exposed to any of that.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I've got to ask why. I mean, it seems to
me that that would be a simple administrative fix. You
were now required if you're going to carry a badge
and a gun, you're now required to do x amount
of supervised range time. Is it? Is it dollars? Is it?
Our people don't.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, it's mostly budgeting, it's manpower. It's it's states regulating
the training. You know, where they say you're required to
do X and Y. A lot of it has to
do with check the box that training. It's it's really
it's not helping the community nor the officer when you
do check the box training. It's it's the type of
training that is, you know, death by PowerPoint. No one
(09:04):
learns by PowerPoint only, especially this type of job. This
type of job requires you to be hands on when
you when it comes to doing things.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, and you make a good point where you talked
about you don't want your surgeon doing the check the
box training. I mean, you know, they've got to be competent,
they've got to be able to prove it on a
regular basis.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
So same thing with airline pilots, right, airline pilots is
not check the box.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, I'm going to tell you when we come back,
I want to talk more about that and some of
your proposed solutions. Ladies and gentlemen, there's your host, Ben
Bueler Garcia we're talking with I'm in Kafel. If you'd
like to learn more, visit Project sapient dot com, s
A p I e n T dot com, don't forget.
You can find this podcast and over six hundred others
at American Warrior Radio dot com, our most recent episodes,
(09:49):
or all all of the bigger platforms whatever your podcast
platform is, you can find American Warrior Radio. We'll be
right back. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Lation.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Viler Garcia. We're talking
with I'man Kafel. I'man as a combat veteran. Who is
I recall, I mean you were actually you're medically retired
from the Armed forces. So you decide you want to
continue to serve our community. So you've been a police
officer since two thousand and seven on the East Coast.
I mean I was, I guess, so I was shocked
(10:36):
to hear that see some of that data about the training,
and you would think, in particular with the lawyers out
there and the situation the environments we've got in our
communities now, you would want your police officers trained as
best as possible to you know, to be able to
(10:57):
actually when they choose to draw their weapon, to actually
hit that they're shooting at. I'll tell you I had
a friend of mine, green Beret, and he was in
town and he'd brought up a there's a local company
here called war Lizard Tactical and they do training. Now
I've shot my entire life. I thought I was pretty good,
and so I decided to go out and take their
(11:18):
just basic you know, pistol class. And it's been about
nine months since I've been to the range. Now keep
in mind, I've shot my whole life. The weapon I
was using, I've owned that for eight years. I was terrible.
I mean I couldn't even qualify for the you know,
the C c W and ladies and gentlemen. That's not
difficult to do. I mean, you're a seven feet put
(11:39):
five rounds the in the circle, you know. So so
I'm really the short answer I'm is this, this comes
down to money, and if that's the caasion, we find the.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Money, absolutely, I mean that's the thing there. I Mean
there's so much being spent on different things, you know,
for example, like police reform, right, I mean most of
us are all about police defortmace, the training standards have
to change, all these things. There's there's some real issues
going on within the law enforcement community that needs to
be addressed, and unfortunately it always gets put in the
(12:13):
back burner because in the end, it comes down to money.
Because to produce really good police officers is expensive. It's
not cheap. But at the same time, the end result
will give you a much better product, we'll call it,
you know, a much better police officer, a far more
effective police officer. If you invest in and here's here's
(12:34):
the thing I always say, I'm like here, surprise. If
you invest in your employees, guess what, they're gonna perform better.
They're gonna work better, They're gonna you know, do a
lot more for you because you're investing in your employees
versus just sending them off to these check the box trainings.
That is really not that's just covering. To me, check
(12:54):
the box training is covering the department from liability. That's
all that is, you know, that's all the Oh yeah,
we do CPR once a year, check the box. That way,
if something goes wrong, they could the city can say, well,
oh the officer did his you know, four hours of
training of CPR.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
That way, they could say, nope, that check the box.
So now they're no longer liable. The cities, cities, town, states, whatever,
is no longer liable because we got the training. But again,
to me, training and proficiency are two completely different things,
right or to qualify, I can take anybody out there
and put them on a range and get them to
qualify with a pistol. It's not rocket science, right, it's
(13:32):
a stationary target. It's not moving anywhere. You're shooting. In policing,
when we qualify it's a stationary target. We are doing
these ridiculous facing movements left, right, move, you know whatever,
and you're just shooting at the target that's not shooting
back at you. That's not training, that's not even proficiency.
(13:52):
To be proficient means you are able to engage with
a target that is moving around on you, that you're
hitting the target where it should. You are so proficient
in your weapon that you can take it apart, put
it back together, no problem. There are some officers out
there that have no idea how to take their weapons apart,
no idea, and it's it's amazing to me, and a
mind boggles me on why that is, you know. And
(14:14):
that's the thing again, you're under stressed. And you know
there's so much videos out there showing cops under stress.
They're going to shootout where they shoot the lock back right,
they're empty and they're not realizing it because they they're
amygdala is so jacked, right, they got the migdala hijack,
which we can talk about in a little bit. That
amygdala hijack gets to them and they lose all cognitive
(14:37):
functions in terms of realizing that they are you know,
out of out of ammo or there's a jam. They
got to fix it. So there's there's a lot of
things that they can't that that police departments cross country
can do to help fix that. Now, again, I don't
want to broad paint like every department's like that. Some
departments are better than others, right, Some departments really dedicate
(14:57):
time to train their officers, others not so much.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I've been I've had the opportunity at my local police
department to go in the shooting simulator, and they've got
a nice one. I mean it's not quite three hundred
and sixty degrees, but it's it's pretty high tech. And
you know, I realized that, I'm it's a simulation, but
you know, my heart rate went up a little bit
(15:21):
when it turns out, you know, it wasn't the guy
coming around the corner I need to worry about as
the dude over there in the wheelchair who happened to have,
you know, a pistol. So the shoot don't shoot scenario.
Let me ask you this in your experience I'm going
to have and I'll say that the body cameras are
a good thing, But have they put more officers at risk?
(15:41):
Because now there's also there's not only the stress of
the situation and everything else that's going on around that
you've got a track, but now somewhere in the back
of your being you're thinking about, Okay, the world is watching.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
And personally not not not that I have seen, I've
actually I've actually grown to love the body cams because
our complaints skyrocketed down because yeah, someone can complain, well,
look at the body camp like, yeah, did you see
how you were acting towards the police officer? And usually
you know they're intoxicated or something, and it wipes all
(16:14):
that out. The bodycam essentially, it becomes an extension of
you what you and I always say the bodycam never
replaces officer perception, human perception, your perception of a threat.
It never, it never h substitutes that. But what it's
good for is give you the overall, the overall you
(16:36):
know what's going on in front of the officer. I
haven't seen too many officers hesitate as a result I
think what the reason they're hesitating though, is just the
environment of law enforcement. You know, there's the you know,
Ferguson effect, there's all sorts of different things that we
call it is because officers are hesitating because they don't
want to be that next cop on TV. Right that
(16:57):
it's not so much the body cam, it's more outside influences.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I when you know that Ben gets a dumb question
every show, so you know, here we go, Here's I
don't know if I want to Let's let's hold off
on that. Well, we'll come back to Ben's dumb question.
But part of what again, I encourage people to check
out projectsapien dot com. You've got some great podcasts up
there where you are talking to other law enforcement and
(17:24):
military veterans and you're exploring some of these these challenges
because so often we didn't. When I talk about back
when I went studying criminal justice, we're talking you know,
early eighties, you didn't talk about this stuff, and if
you did, if you asked for help, you were blackballed.
And I get the sense we've gotten leadership has gotten
(17:45):
better about that. But I find it fascinating that you
were actually delving into the science of all this stuff.
When we come back on and I want to talk
about your experience. You started with the biofeedback devices. I mean,
you really jumped in with both feed and started exploring
this and you probably should be given an honorary PhD.
But we want to disclaimer there for the lawyers. Timan
(18:07):
is not a medical doctor, but just some fascinating, fascinating
stuff there and what so on Project Sapien. You've got
the podcast, you've got a video podcasts, but real quick,
you also offer training correct.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Yes, correct, So the training, Yeah, so that's that's yeah,
that's uh. That training is really going out in full force.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Okay, let's talk more about that when we come back.
And I also want to talk about the recruiting because
you have written some very fascinating stuff that based on
your military experience, you've got some suggestions on how our
local law enforcement agencies can improve their training. Ladies and gentlemen,
there's your host, Benna bu La Garcia. We're talking with.
I'm Garfelsta Grant will be right back. We're coming to
(19:11):
you from the Silencer Central Studios. Sounds or Central is
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(19:32):
if you need it, making silence simple since two thousand
and five. That's slencercentral dot com we're talking with. I'man Kafell.
I'man is the co founder, I guess i'mon of a
group organization called Projectsapient dot com. I encourage you to
check it out. Lots of great stuff there, even if
you're a civilian, you will learn an awful lot. And
you know, really the mission of this program, ladies and gentlemen,
(19:55):
is to bridge that gap of understanding between those who
wear the uniform and the badge and the rest of
us in the world. And if you watch their listen
to some of these podcasts, are definitely gonna there'll be enlightening.
Trust for me. You need to do that. So, I mean,
I want to get this out of way before. I
forget I teased before Ben's dumb question of the show.
You're You've been swat, you've been patrolled, all that stuff.
(20:16):
How often have you personally got the do you know
who I am?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Question? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
All the time, all the time, officials.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Every Yeah, every once in a while I'll run into
somebody who does you know who I am? Type speech?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Okay, and that that one always makes me chuckle because
I know it's going to go bad from there.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Usually it doesn't work out too well for them after that.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That's That's one of the reasons I love body camps.
So I'm and you you spent a lot of time,
most recently looking into the the the biology, the science
of that, and you've already today you've thrown out some
words that I couldn't barely understand, much less spell. What
What is the connection between, for example, kinesiology and some
(21:00):
of the How could that help improve and keep our
officers not just safe in the moment, but also help
reduce that stress response and make sure they're not you know,
they can release this when they get home.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Yeah. So the reason why I bring in kinesiology, neuroscience, neurophysiology,
all these different types of disciplines in these sciences into
the law enforcement world because it is very very relevant
to law enforcement. There's a study that was published by
Forced Science talking about how police officers should train like athletes,
(21:40):
which I one hundred percent agree, because an athlete not
only lifts weights whatever you know, doing wind sprints, doing
different kettlebells and different types of things to really hit
their metabolic conditioning. That way, they are able to think
on their feet when their heart rates get that high,
when they are overwhelmed, when they are going through whatever
(22:01):
they're going through. Now, I always tell people, listen, you
can never mimic a near death experience, right, that's something.
But what you can do is train yourself to be
able to think in those you know, when you're in
the red in terms of heart rate, when your heart
rate's over you know, one fifty one, sixty one seventy
approaching two hundred beats per minute. You can train that
because in this study that they cited, Formula one racers,
(22:22):
rally car races, even tennis players, their average heart rate
during a match or during a race is two hundred
beats per minute. Yet you see how they are in
their cars when they're playing in tents like they're calm, cool, collected.
They're giving you know, they're giving out instructions, especially the
rally car drivers. You hear them on their on their speakers,
it's like they're talking normal. But it's because they train
(22:44):
in that environment. They train their physio, their physio feel
physiological selves to adjust and to work through whatever they're
going through. That way, they're able to make those split
second decisions.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Now, is that part of the train that you provide
through Project Shapient.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yes. So I use a lot of biofeedback items in
order to for me and the trainers to monitor someone's
heart rate because what I found. I've used myself as
a guinea pig for a long time because that's the
way I like to study this because I'm on the job,
I'm doing the work now, I want to see how
I personally react. And it has helped me immensely on
(23:25):
my training and how I go about doing things. And
one of the devices I use, I actually work with
them a lot is woop and whoop. Really, to me
was my answer to this problem of lack of sleep.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Let me intro direct you woolf.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
W Yeah, whoop whoop, And that's who I work with
right at this time. Excuse me bringing this biofeedback type
device to law enforcement first responders, And because to me,
it really showed, because it gives me a holistic picture
of what's going on with me. So it shows that,
(24:04):
you know, for example, show me that during my course
of my day, if I'm dealing with some you know,
multiple crazy incidents, I like to see where I'm at,
you know, physically, mentally all that stuff, because I will
go into the whoop the device after you know, into
the app after the incident, and I'll look at all
my biomarkers. I'll look at see how I am, my
(24:26):
stress level this that, you know, there's different things I
can look at and then I can work intervention on myself,
whether it's box breathing or different types of things, or
even on my way to call. I even tested it,
like going to a gun call or really intense call
where my initial peak you know, you hear the radio
and my heart rate of skyrock is just by the
radio them telling me that, for example, somebody is trying
(24:46):
to kill their roommates using a machete, which was an
actual call, and I look at my heart rate and
it boom spiped. And then I'm driving to the location
and I'm breathing. I'm doing some things, and you see
my heart rate drop right back down. Because I'm doing
some breathing, I'm also thinking, I'm visualizing, like, all right,
this is what I need to get done once I
get to that location. I get to that location, my
heart rate's going to spike again because I know that
(25:08):
because now I'm about to face real credible threat. And
then once we deal with that threat, we arrest them,
all that good stuff, and you start to see the
heart rate go back down. That means, now, Okay, I'm
in recovery mode. I'm going through the adrenaline dump. And
that's something that I can also work on that I
can intervene and to help me out kind of come
off it.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
What are the physical repercussions of not being able to
do that? When we're doing a show for National Police Week,
someone I came west side of a statistic that your
average civilian will experience maybe four truly traumatic events in
their life, and your average law enforcement officer or maybe
a first responder you know EMTs will experience up to
(25:49):
seven hundred over a twenty year career. That's got to
add up, right, like paint on a board. So what
are the physical threats if our officers aren't able to
have this feedback and know how to address it.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
One of the things is sleep deprivation. Unable to sleep,
That's that's one big one. And and you know, there
was a study that I recently read that uh, sleep
appropriation increases the amygdala activity up to sixty percent, heightening
emotional reactions and reducing emotional control. I mean, so what
does that tell you? That tells you that you're amygdala?
(26:24):
That's that the migdala I like to call it, like
the primal that's your primal side. The amygdala is what
the fight, flight, all that stuff, it's all in that
little little thing in your head. And the amygdala is
is basically the alarm system. So it helps with emotions
like fear, anger, jealousy. So with lack of sleep, and
if it's sixty percent increased inactivity, how do you know,
(26:47):
how is that police officer going to react to a
minor thing, you know, like a stop sign violation or something, Well,
he's he or she are going to be elevated because
they have not slept, They have not recovered, and the
average human and to recover after a critical incident is
anywhere between twenty four to forty eight hours. Now, as
a first responder, we're not going to have that break.
(27:08):
We're going from call to call to call to call. So,
I mean, I remember one week, I had four or
five critical incidents I had to deal with in a
one week period. You know, whether it was a dead body,
a major accident, accident with some real severe injuries, or
a horrific crime. Certain you know, things like that where
you know sleep that preface is going to happen because
I'm so jacked up. I'm so you know, working towards
(27:32):
not working, sorry, so jacked up on the adrenaline and
everything where I'm unabable to sleep. Now i have to
go back into work, work my double whatever it is,
I'm going to be exhausted, and on top of that,
I'm going to be you know, easily irritated as a result. Now,
how is that going to help our community if we're
not addressing those things?
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah? Well, and you also cited some one of the
articles I read talked about sleep deprivation and its impact
on just basic driving were to some expense, It's almost
you might as well have had two bottles of whiskey,
because your reaction time is just as bad because you're
sleep deprived. And you know, I've been you know whir
I love. It gets, you know, pretty toasty in the summer,
and it's not unusual you might pull up next to
(28:13):
someone who looks like their air conditioning is not working
and they're at a stop line and they're nodding. I
mean at the stop line. I don't know if they've
been drinking or not, but anyway, so okay, So again, folks,
visit projectsapien dot com s A p I e n
t dot com and I'm going to show the big
brain on Ben that reflects the the Latin reference to
(28:35):
the word whyse sapient does. So there you go. I've
passed my quiz for now. I'm When we come back,
I'd like to talk a little bit about your take
on recruiting. I know that's a real problem across the country,
not just right now, but it has been for several years.
You talk about the furgust In Effect show and come back,
what's said about that? Ladies and gentlemen. As your host
Bendler Garcia, we're talking like I'mon Kafell will be right back.
(29:11):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio Laser and gentlemen, there's
your host, Ben buler Garcia. We're talking with I'man Kafel.
I'man has been a law enforcement officer since twenty and
seventy served as in the military as a combat veteran
prior to that, and if you know anything about his background,
i'm in is quite a special special person. I'm in.
Before we get into recruiting, I want to ask you
this question where you talk about the physiology and all
(29:32):
this research you've been doing and some of the solutions
you're presenting to fellow law enforcement offers through your training
and their own project Shapien, please tell me you're not
the only guy that's pursuing these avenues. I mean, is
this taking hold in departments across the country?
Speaker 3 (29:48):
It finally is. I think I was one of the
very first. I remember back in twenty twenty when I
start researching this. The only other company that really dove
into this is for Science. So they turned the use
of force by police officers into a science. So it's
an organization called for Science. I've taken a lot of
their classes I've taken an their eighteen week Advanced Analyst
(30:10):
course where we really dive deep into the psychological, the physiological,
the neurological things that occur during a use of force
with an officer. And so I mean I have hundreds
of white paper of just different types of neuroscience, not
just only for law enforcement, but also I look at
exercise sciences because there's so much correlation, just like I said,
(30:33):
with kinesology, human movement, the economy of movement, what's what
makes more sense? What make is faster? What is slower?
When you get up you know, when you're about to
break leather and on wholster your firearm, what's the most
economical type movement to do that? So those are the
things that you know, I really dove into and still
dive into and look into.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
And I want to clarify you yourself for on the
East Coast, but you'll provide this training anywhere in the country.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Oh yeah, I've gone as far as Bakersfield, California, Oregon,
all over New England.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
So yeah, and real quick. So in most cases I've
almost hesitate to say this, but my fear is that
the individual officers themselves generally are on the hook to
pay for this themselves or departments stepping up.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Some departments will pay, but most times it's the officers that.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well hopefully you know, ladies and gentlemen, if you're a
first responder out there hearing this, you know, look into
I know there's several foundations in my city that provides
funding to help pay for this sort of stuff. So
I'm going to want to talk a little bit about
something that is bedeviling communities across the country, and that's recruiting.
You know, you mentioned the Ferguson effect and my local
police force as an example, depending on who you ask,
(31:43):
we're anywhere from two hundred to four hundred sworn officers
short of where we should be for community our size.
That's a real risk issue. Now, what I'm also hearing
is this has started to drift away from just strictly
a compensation issue to a perception issue. You know, in
today's environment, who the heck, you know, in the right
(32:03):
mind wants to to put on a badge and go
out there, and you know, it takes a pretty special cat.
Now you're you're obviously a big training, big on training
both you know, constant advanced training, but you also propose
that one of the challenges that our departments face where
they could make some immediate improvement is with the selection process.
They graduate from the academy and there and there, you know,
their time with the FTO. But the selection process. You
(32:25):
say that it would be smart to model that after
the Special Forces Q course or their qualification course.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Yeah. So, I mean I have a lot of close
personal friends that are either Green Berrey's former Green Brays,
and we talk about you know, training and everything, and
and to me, selecting an officer should be just as rigorous,
not I shouldn't say just as but pretty rigorous enough
that it would give us the best qualified candidate. Back
(32:52):
when I first became a cop in two thousand and seven,
tens of thousands would be signing up, you know, lining
up at the door to become a police officer. It
used to be one of those like dream jobs to get.
Now you can barely find people who want to do
the job. So that now turns into an issue, a
competency issue in reality, because now you have to hire
(33:13):
individuals that really shouldn't be cops. They have integrity issues,
they have all these different issues that are going on
and back again, when I got on, they those types
would not even be looked at. Now these individuals are
considered for the job, and there's certain states and I
know across the country they're changing even the PT standards
to be easier. You're really doing a disservice to your community,
(33:37):
to the nation, to whoever you're serving, because now you
are really downplaying the importance of the profession. And it
is a profession. People like, you know, is this a professional? Well,
we need to act like it's a profession because it
takes specific skills. You have to be able to talk
to people. Your integrity, obviously, he needs to be intact.
You know, you can't have higher individuals in New England alone.
(34:00):
I've seen turnover rates for cops who just get on
the job and they're getting fired or whatever, over all
kinds of different reasons, you know, the reasons that really
I've never really seen personally, you know, where I'm just
like wow, But that's the pool of candidates you have now.
So to me, it needs to be very rigorous and
it needs to be hold to a high standard that
(34:20):
if you are going to become a police officer, you're
going to have to have these high standards for these
brand new candidates coming in.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know, I've talked to a lot of chair one
operator seales, you know, green Brae as you mentioned at Delta,
and I ask them what is the common thing that
you look for in a teammate and to a person.
Their responses intelligence, smart enough to figure it out in
the field, and they're willingness to accept feedback and adapt.
And you know that's part of the training. So you've
(34:49):
proposed that we need to see more of that in policing.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Absolutely. I mean we've had a newer officer at MYPD.
He actually quit refused feedback and there's a brand new guy,
brand new comp and you're just like, really, man, and
you can't you can't even take feedback as a brain
you guy, You know, you need to be poachable. You
need to you know, take constructive criticism because guess what,
we are going to criticize you, right, not like to
(35:14):
the point of yelling at you whatever, but if you
made a mistake, you will know, right because again, this
job is you know, one mistake, depending on what the
situation is, could be life and death. Right. So that's
why you know, I say that if the profession is
not taking the recruiting seriously, We're going to be hurting
for the next ten or plus years as a result
(35:35):
of who we have on the job.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Now, you know, it's almost when you say that, I
come back to the check the box example that you
used before. If you know, folks are just trying to
fill their quota with anybody with a pulse, we filled
the force. That's counterproductive and frankly dangerous for our communities.
I'm an I found in reading your stuff that you
have a pension for quoting the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi,
(36:00):
and one of those is to know ten thousand things,
know one well. And then you go on to say,
be so skilled in your chosen profession that chaos spends
around your discipline. Be so prepared that uncertainty has no
room to breathe, be so practiced at instinct becomes art.
Came back to that training example. My bad experience, well
(36:20):
not a bad experience. The training was great, but the
fact that you know, I shot really worse after nine
months not being on the range as I did before that.
And and that's one of the things that these trainers
tried to hammer interest and said, look without constant training.
Your weapon might as well just be an expensive paperweight.
You've got to train constantly, constantly, constantly, and that I'd
say you advocate for that as well.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Absolutely. I mean there's some There's a thing I read
by this doctor from Australia. He was part of the
Australian SASSF guy became a doctor and really dives into
similar stuff that I do, except he has the doctor
in front of him. But he's done his researches and everything.
And there's something that he talked about which I really like.
He says, there are four stages of competence, right, model
(37:04):
of competence. There's unconscious incompetence. We don't know what we
don't know. Conscious incompetence we know about a skill but
can't do it. Conscious competence we can do a skill,
but it takes concentration. Unconscious competence we can do a
skill on autopilot. Now I'll give an example. What is
(37:25):
an unconscious competence. Well, that's us walking, right, We don't
have to think about it. We've done all our lives.
We walk, run whatever's that's a skill that we've developed
from when we were babies, right, Unconscious incompetence is the
most dangerous type because you think it's we don't know
what we don't know, yet you act as if you know, right'.
(37:47):
It's very, very, very scary to be in that role
when you refuse to take feedback, right, because now you
become a liability for everybody around you because you think
you know, but you don't, right. And that's the thing
with conscious incompetence. You know a skill but can't do it.
You know what you lack, but you know. Therefore, give
(38:07):
an example in Arizona, actually in Phoenix a few years back,
where police officers in age in a gunfight with this
guy holding a baby and all that stuff, and two
brand new rookies pull up. They had to stop forty
two yards away and they couldn't shoot back. Now, the
reason they didn't shoot back is because they knew they
were not proficient with their firearms to shoot at that distance.
(38:29):
I say kudos to them. That's conscious incompetence. They know
they lacked that skill. Two more officers showed up, who
have more time on the job, who have more skills. Whatever,
they dropped the guy at forty two yards with a rifle.
That's unconscious competence. They've worked so much they knew exactly
what needed to get done.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
I'm going to tell you what we're running out run
out of time here, sir. It always happens when we
have a great guess but fake it to you make
it is definitely not a watch word that you want
to use in the police force. Lation gentlemen, please check
out Projectshapient dot com. Definitely check out the podcast there.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
Also.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
I'm as a prolific writer at the Havoc Journal. He's
got over one hundred articles supposed there. You can learn
more Havoc Journal dot com Havok Journal dot com. I'm
gonna start a GoFundMe campaign to send you off to
Harvard so you can't get that PhD. How does that sound?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
I love it?
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Thank you all right, brother, Really appreciate you sharing your
thoughts and spending your time with our listeners today.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah. Absolutely, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Ladies and gentlemen, another great show in the box. Please
share these important stories until next time. All policies and
procedures are remain in place.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
You've been listening to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Archived episodes may
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Be found at americanwarriorradio dot com, or your favorite podcast
platform
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.