If you find yourself taking up the mantle of leadership I’m going to share with you three questions that served me well during my police career as a Sergeant and later as a Lieutenant:
Where am I leading my people?
Can I, should I?
Why now?
First and foremost, am I leading my people towards Heaven or Hell? Am I leading my people towards physical life or physical death? Am I leading my people towards freedom or incarceration? Am I leading my people towards financial stability or bankruptcy? Am I leading my people towards staying in their home or having to move, and begin anew? Good leaders ought to frequently consider this question: Where am I leading my people?
When we begin striving to do the next right thing, at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way, we will find in our current culture these battlefields will seem at times to compete with one another. What battlefields? There are primarily five battlefields:
Moral Battlefield
Physical Battlefield
Legal Battlefield
Civil Battlefield
Social Battlefield
The first two battlefields are absolutely rock solid with clear underlying fundamental principles that are complementary not contradictory. In 2023 in various places in the United States of America we can observe the latter three battlefields increasingly suffer under the weight of madness, blindness, and confusion of mind (Dt 28:28). At Humilitas First students learn best practices offering the highest probability of winning on all five of the above mentioned battlegrounds. That simply means offering the very best tactics, strategies, and logistics. I don’t recall the exact quotation at this moment but great warriors have acknowledged that those who understand logistics can dominate those who only understand tactics. We need all three: tactics, strategy, and logistics.
There is a massive crisis in leadership today! A crisis in leadership soon leads to a crisis in craftsmanship! We have so few craftsmen today because we have so few good leaders today. We have a mess.
Secondly, just because I can do something doesn’t mean I ought to do that thing. Leaders ought to frequently place infinitely more weight upon the should I? Can I, should I? The should trumps the can. The mantra; Yes we can! Is a wee bit insane. Madness, blindness, and confusion of mind (Dt 28: 28).
Thirdly, leaders ought to ask themselves the question: Why now? This falls within: right time. When it comes to legitimate self-defense or defense of another we have to first acquire the knowledge base for principles like action beats reaction. There are definitely times when immediate action is the first priority of that moment! This is why it’s so important to do the work of building in a trained response as part of immediate action drills. If it needs to happen right now – then do it! However, there are strategies to avoid most of our problems. It’s common that through ego, ignorance, or complacency we tend to bring problems upon ourselves. At Humilitas First students learn how to avoid the vast majority of violent encounters. Students also learn the tactics, strategies, and logistics associated with the highest probabilities of winning when the violent confrontation cannot be avoided. Keep these three questions near the forefront of your mind. If you’re a Catholic ask your guardian angel to remind you of these questions.
Anyone can tell you how much they care about you. Talk is mighty cheap for a human being. When a test comes we all find out just how much you care. How does a test come for men sitting in leadership seats? The test comes when there’s a perceived personal cost threatening that leader’s wealth, power, honor, or pleasure. When that man perceives a risk to his wealth, power, honor, or pleasures we will all find out what he’s made of. I believe it was Saint Thomas Aquinas who provided the above listed four things we tend to elevate into false idols, fake little gods. As human beings our fallen nature tends towards extremes. We have a problem with balance. We have a problem with attachments.
At the very moment doing the next right thing could affect your position and salary your people get to observe you enter into a test. Is it about you – or is it for your people? I submit authentic leadership is for your people! Titles often mean authority. Another word for authority is power. What do you do with the power? Do you use the power for yourself or for your people? In my opinion, authority properly understood means responsibility. A responsibility for those whom you’ve been given the authority to lead. Are you seeing a pattern here? Authentic leadership is for your people! Honor has much to do with what other people think of you. Those who are overly attached to the opinions of men need to either find a way to detach from their fears or anxieties associated with honor; or step down and let someone else lead. That is not an option within the right structure of a family. If you’re the father of a family do not rest until you detach from the fear of human respect. Lay waste to the idea of instant gratification and throttle down on the idea of delayed satisfaction. Pleasure is probably the most difficult temptation to overcome.
“More Souls Go To HELL Because Of The Sins Of The Flesh Than For Any Other Reason.”
Mary, Mother of God @Fatima
When I think about this temptation as it relates to authentic leadership I can’t help but think of a certain kind of lifestyle. A lifestyle which elevates a man by means of all four of these things: wealth, power, pleasure, and honors. The temptation to rationalize or self-justify would loom large because we’ll be tempted to weigh how doing that next right hard thing could affect our wife and children – our family. A correct way of desiring a leadership position is with a wee bit of apprehension knowing that at the end of this life we’re all going to have to answer for everything we said and did and failed to say and do. In Luke chapter 12 we recall the words: Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.
One common rationalization is the idea that our silence will enable us to carry on the overall mission making a difference for those whom God sends us. I think this is true up to a point. Prudence is most definitely a good thing so long as we don’t use it as an excuse to preserve our own wealth, power, pleasure, and honors. A quote purportedly from Edmund Burke says:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Evil is a liar! Evil will tell you it merely desires a seat at the table. Once it acquires that seat then it seeks to rape and murder everyone else at the table only to end by sitting the whole house on fire.
What’s the solution? The hardest direction to lead is to lead up. Providing your house doesn’t conduct itself like a permissive parent you can lead down quite easily through discipline, actual accountability, and consequences for bad behaviors. How do we lead up? This probably should be a whole different post but the secret if there is one is all relationships are built upon trust. So the subordinate must convey to the boss that he has that bosses best interest in mind. While his suggestions on next right things may seem painful for the boss to hear, the subordinate articulates specifically how a bad choice will blow up in his bosses face. The bottom line here is the solution is to tell the truth: ‘Horse, here is some water. Water is good for you. Please drink the good water.’ You then leave the person free to go their own way. If their decision is immoral, unethical, or illegal then depending upon your duty you take that next right moral, ethical, or legal action that your position demands. You willingly accept the sufferings that duty brings with it.
If you find yourself in a leadership seat realize that when a test comes your people are going to find you out! No amount of sentimental words will ever make up for bad actions. You want the mantle of leadership? Prepare for some heavy crosses and a crown of thorns. Pray for the graces to pass the test.
Authentic leadership has many and various aspects and characteristics. There is a radical distinction between understanding all of these various aspects and characteristics and actually living those out. A good working synthesis of authentic leadership comes down to just this:
“You care whether your people live or die and you’re willing to suffer and perhaps die in many and various small and yes sometimes large ways; while constantly striving to do the next hard right thing for – your – people! ”
Humilitas First
Authentic leadership is not about you. Authentic leadership is for your people.
Don’t look for a crown of jewels in this valley of tears. In this life such a crowning is an imposter! When leadership is done correctly it looks very much like a crown of thorns. Expect many crosses and you’ll not be disappointed.
In law enforcement at my old police house our policies and procedures essentially stated if it was “feasible,” officers were to give a verbal warning for a subject to submit to their authority prior to using deadly force. In this post I’ll unpack some thoughts regarding when it’s feasible or not feasible to give warnings and offer some things for you to think about.
According to Merriam Webster’s feasible means:
Capable of being done, executed, or effected, possible of realization.
Capable of being managed, utilized, or dwelt with successfully.
Reasonable, likely.
In other words, what is possible? Can you make this thing happen while also doing whatever other thing folks want you to do for the legal and civil battlefields? Conducting an internet search it didn’t take long to find a police training video with an example of law enforcement training with a student shouting:Police don’t move!
When an apparent imminent threat of great bodily harm or death exists (ie; jeopardy) and that threat is an unjust aggressor pointing a firearm at you; IT IS NOT FEASIBLE TO OFFER A WARNING PRIOR TO STOPPING THE THREAT!
Why? Action beats reaction especially when the action of pulling, raising, and getting the first shot on target at close distances can all happen in two to four tenths of one second. There was a phrase I heard many times during my police career: Gun in hand gun in use! The reason this is a legitimate phrase goes right to the root of the principle: action beats reaction!
Lets consider a hypothetical circumstance where an unjust criminal aggressor attempts to rob you by reaching for or brandishing a firearm at a distance of two, three, or four yards. Realizing this is the close range that he needs to be able to simply use the outline of the back of the slide to align and point his firearm at the center of your chest or face at which point your chest or face literally fills the backdrop of his rudimentary alignment and sight picture. You might be wondering why an unjust criminal aggressor needs such close range? In part, it’s because his life of crime has denied him access to qualified firearms training. When an unjust aggressor is robbing you by use of a firearm in his hand it is my opinion a warning is NOT feasible.
At Humilitas First I demonstrate what I would do providing I’ve made the decision to attempt to stop the threat during a street robbery. More importantly I show you the most probable ways to avoid being in that unfortunate circumstance. Without digressing too much, I would simultaneously move left or right offline and then my movements may look a lot like a retreating Bill Drill as expanding distance works in the favor of someone trained in marksmanship. Simultaneously moving, drawing, presenting, and shooting repeatedly in efforts to stop the threat. Ceasing shooting only when the unjust criminal aggressor 1) shows a clear and convincing sign of surrender (a psychological stoppage), or 2) the unjust criminal aggressor suffers a physiological stoppage.
For a civilian compliance is an option. In videos and in course work with students I break down the four times compliance as a civilian (for me) is not an option. Compliance is not a good option for a police officer since bad guys don’t rob, rape, or kidnap officers. At least in the United States, I don’t know about every place.
CALL TO ACTION: Click on the contact page and email me today for a free phone consultation regarding training opportunities and custom tailored courses for you, your family, group, or corporation!
So under what circumstances do I believe warnings are feasible? I’ll provide one. Say officers are dispatched to deal with a subject who’s holding a firearm without making any verbal or gestured threats? Properly trained police officers will identify and go to the largest tree providing them with a balance of distance and ability to still be able to communicate with the subject. Why? Big old trees provide cover. What does the word cover mean? Cover is some object or material that has the capacity to stop inbound projectiles – bullets. When we think about the urgency to use force right now juxtaposed to sometime later a major principle that is taught at Humilitas First is the principle of Time, Distance, &Cover. When you lack time, distance, and cover the urgency goes up. When an unjust aggressor begins compressing in on your position – urgency goes up because he’s taking away your time, distance, and cover.
Early in my police career, trainers began telling us to shout clear commands to stop resistingas we fought with resisting and combative subjects in an attempt to secure them with handcuffs during an arrest. Personally, I preferred to do the things I needed to do to save what limited wind I had for the purpose of winning the fight! I have wondered if this hyper focus on the legal and civil battlefields have contributed to the goofy loops we see and hear today. A goofy loop is where an officer provides fifteen, twenty seven, or forty nine warnings.
Here’s a headline for you to ponder: Police Have No Duty To Protect You, Federal Court Affirms Yet Again. At the bottom of this article I’ll put a link to the article written by Ryan McMaken. This was following the active shooter event at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
As a retired police Lieutenant it’s my belief police do have a moral and ethical duty to protect innocents regardless of what decisions come forth from the United States Supreme Court having to do with a lack of “legal obligations” to protect innocents from unjust criminal aggressors. There is no shortage in 2022 of recorded police videos where officers should be shooting unjust criminal aggressors sooner within the window of opportunity. When an unjust criminal aggressor initiates and maintains an imminent threat of great bodily harm or death to any and all innocents around them to take a wait and see approach or worse to enter into a panicky kind of goofy loop is an abdication of a moral and ethical duty to protect innocents. This includes the innocent officers looking to do a hard and increasingly thankless job. That job is not only dangerous to the officer on the streets but now they have to worry about an unjust administrative attack coming from their own administration (via loss of employment) for doing that next hard right thing. Officers also have to worry about unjust legal attacks coming from activist prosecutors looking to remove their freedoms for doing that next hard right thing. It’s my belief this is the real culprit behind goofy loops. It is a fear of losing one’s means of supporting one’s family or worse fear of suffering an unjust prosecution and unjust incarceration for doing that next hard right thing to protect innocents including one’s own innocent life.
During my career it was made abundantly clear to me that we do not provide warnings in the case of an active shooter. One of our Academy Instructors while acting as an active shooter during paint marking simulated active shooter training used to punish new officers who would give a verbal command to him rather than shoot him to stop the threat. The active shooter was certainly always welcome of his own free will to put down his weapon and show his hands before trainee’s got line of sight on him (a clear and convincing sign of surrender). If he did that then of course he’d be taken into custody juxtaposed to being shot repeatedly. Here’s how the instructor would punish new officers. Once warned to drop the gun he’d immediately step into an adjacent room and simulate shooting five, seven, or ten more innocent people. He would then step back into the hallway and shoot the officer in his face shield. I can imagine the tactical debrief sounding something like: Because you failed to stop the imminent threat immediately you got ten more innocent killed and still got shot in the face! I’m certain he left a lasting impression in the mind of the unfortunate officer who couldn’t help himself but to offer a warning.
How did we get here? In part, we’ve been sort of conditioned by Hollywood. New police officers have to learn to disregard their knee jerk reactions to social constructs. They have to come to learn how to be odd, awkward, and comfortable in their tactical oddities (another principle taught at Humilitas First). There are a whole lot of movies and television programs that show a whole lot of unreasonable (impossible) violent confrontations where an officer of the law gives a warning despite it being exceedingly not feasible to do so.
The late Col. John Boyd gave us the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). Boyd purported the Orientation Stage was the most important stage. Many today view this stage simplistically as understanding or perceiving correctly, and/or aligning with which are a part of that decision / action making cycle. But Orientation runs much deeper. Boyd provided his own criteria but as a coach I’ll paraphrase providing my take on this critical stage. Orientation is essentially what you’ve come to believe. You could think about this like a person’s filter. A filter through which you perceive the world around you. A filter through which you understand things like violence in America. The things that go into making up your filter are things like your upbringing, religious views, the entertainment you watch (Television, movies, YouTube training videos). Your education, formal training, and especially your experiences with violence. Your ideology or world views. Orientation good, bad, or ugly has to do with the formation of what you’ve come to believe. Formation is critical.
“An error in the beginning is an error indeed!”St Thomas Aquinas
An error at the level of formation is the worst because at that level we ought to be learning fundamental first principles. Over time errors will compound! If we find errors at the level of formation then we have to provide the knowledge and rebuild new trained responses to correct formation or provide a reformation. Knowledge, time, and hard work fixes bad formations. But pride often gets in the way because it comes down to beliefs.
I digressed. I tend to do that a lot.
When a man pulls a firearm as a solution to his perceived problem and when that perceived problem is a police officer, his intent is not to rob, rape, or kidnap the police officer. That man is seeking death! The death of the officer, himself (suicide by officer), or both. It’s not really relevant which one as police officers ought not gamble with such a man. When a man reaches for a firearm, places his hand upon, or begins to pull a firearm (unjust imminent deadly threats) the innocent police officer ought to send rounds downrange into the anatomically correct parts of that man to efficiently and effectively stop the threat. It’s really that simple.
When a man pulls a firearm on a civilian it’s more often than not to rob, rape, or kidnap that civilian. However, sometimes it is to unjustly murder that civilian. Civilians have no moral, ethical, or legal obligations to gamble with that unjust criminal aggressor. Innocent people do have a right to defend their own life and the lives of those they’re responsible for. Statutory language varies from one state to another so you have to do the work of knowing and understanding the rules on your particular legal battlefield. A great resource to begin learning the underlying fundamental principles on the legal battlefield is the book The Law of Self-Defense by attorney Andrew Branca. I’m not an affiliate but I am a fan.
In conclusion, don’t imitate poor law enforcement tactics! Warning a person who’s pointing a firearm at you is a very poor tactic!
As a retired Police Lieutenant I share with my students when I would use deadly force to defend myself or my family. I don’t shy away from these questions. I make clear in my YouTube videos that there is a window of opportunity that opens and closes quickly. I talk about the importance of going early within that window of opportunity; and why. There are many and various aspects to understanding when to use deadly force against an unjust criminal aggressor and these aspects have much to do with the practical knowledge on the physical battlefield. As you come to learn the underlying fundamental principles on the physical battlefield or how to actually win deadly force confrontations you learn what’s feasible or what is possible. In this post I’m going to share with you how you can find relative peace when it comes to knowing when you should pull the trigger to stop an unjust criminal aggressor. This post has much to do with the legal battlefield.
How many battlefields are there? At Humilitas First I teach essentially five battlefields. I’ll list them in there order of importance:
Moral Battlefield – doing the right things according to God’s Divine Revelation.
Physical Battlefield – the fundamental principles that hold sway regarding winning or losing the fight.
Legal Battlefield – the fundamental legal principles that determine your freedom or incarceration in your particular state.
Civil Battlefield – the civil principles and protections that determine your financial stability or perhaps bankruptcy.
Social Battlefield – we live in strange times is the best way I can sum this up for now.
From the beginning of my police career I understood and gave much attention to how to win on the physical battlefield as well as the legal battlefield. Yes, the legal battlefield is a future battle for another day and the most pressing battlefield is the present physical battlefield but that legal battlefield day is still coming. We don’t want to neglect the legal battlefield. I used to keep a cheat sheet in my report book with the three prong test from Graham V Connor (1989) to be sure to document in my police report the following information:
The severity of the crime at issue (ie; forcible felony?)
Whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others?
Whether he was actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight?
Why am I sharing this with you? Through study we can come to learn common pitfalls or legal errors that can and will land us in prison so that we can avoid those errors. We can acquire the legal fundamentals we need to give us the highest probability of doing well on this future legal battlefield. We need to learn and do the thinking on how to stack the odds regardless of what battlefield we find ourselves upon. I absolutely did the thinking on the legal battlefield during my police career though increasingly that’s not enough as we see our criminal justice system under attack from the left.
In many liberal counties we see activist prosecutors receiving Political Action Committee (PAC) funding for their campaigns. We see activist prosecutors being elected to sit in District Attorney seats who then willingly turn a blind eye to many and various crimes and criminals. These same activist prosecutors simultaneously target innocent people of good will (like police officers) due to the prosecutor’s political agenda or world view. The Bible gives us a very accurate picture of what’s going on today in Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 28 The LORD will smite you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind; An activist prosecutor who suffers this fate does not limit their madness to stop at the feet of police officers but likewise begins to affect innocent citizens of good will. I share this so that you understand as these conditions worsen you’ll have to be willing to make greater and greater exchanges in risks from one battlefield to the other. To do the right ethical and moral thing (moral battlefield) you’ll have to be willing to take larger risks with the activist District Attorney (legal battlefield). To win the deadly force physical confrontation (physical battlefield) you’ll have to be willing to take larger risks with the local activist District Attorney (legal battlefield). In 2022, we’re living in a world that increasingly has begun calling good – evil and evil – good.
There is no way in a short article, a video, or even a week long class that I can make you a craftsman on the legal battlefield. There are many subtleties on the legal battlefield that have the power to change a justified use of deadly force into an unjustified use of deadly force. There is just no way around the necessity of your willingness to commit your time and effort towards the goal of learning the underlying fundamental legal principles and then perhaps putting out and doing the extended work to become a craftsman on the legal battlefield. A consistent and disciplined work ethic and time are all that is required for craftsmanship.
Some would say: Look man, I’ve taken the concealed carry course in my state and I know the legal principles. Well, I’m a certified firearms instructor and I’m telling you it is highly improbable that in your one or two day course for concealed carry (which includes various other topics) that you have acquired a solid knowledge base regarding the underlying fundamental legal principles.
Anytime I’m learning a new subject I often have questions that go to the heart of the subject matter. I tend to sparingly ask some questions during a class but tend to save some of the more controversial harder questions for a one-on-one during a break. After the course I’ll think of other questions that I forgot to ask. That can be kind of frustrating.
There’s an old adage that says “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”
As human beings we tend towards laziness. In my experience grace most definitely can overcome the inertia needed to change that default state but then pride often tricks us into thinking we got this.
So how do we know when we should use deadly force to stop an unjust criminal aggressor? You have to do the work of learning the underlying fundamental legal principles!
After retiring from law enforcement the first thing I did in an attempt learn the subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences that exist between using force as a police officer to potentially using force as part of legitimate self-defense as a retired civilian was to look to Illinois case law. I systematically studied three dozen Illinois cases. Reading, re-reading, highlighting, annotating, and thinking about the lessons that could be gleaned from a claim of self-defense by a private citizen in the state of Illinois. That took time and that took effort. I sought to learn the underlying fundamental principles in my home state.
The next thing I did was to look for a craftsman who had written about or discussed the underlying fundamental legal principles on a larger scale. This added the work of vetting the purported expert in order to find an actual craftsman. Provided you have found a way to acquire some fundamental principles you then have to read or listen to that purported craftsman with an ear for discordant notes. In other words errors, drips, or runs as one instructor used to say. I found a craftsman in attorney Andrew Branca. Mr. Branca has a book: The Law of Self Defense. He notes in his book there are five areas a prosecutor will attack in an attempt to convict you and send you to prison. If a prosecutor is able to show any one of the following five you end up in prison for an unjustified use of deadly force. What are they?
Innocence: showing that you were not legally innocent but rather you engaged in what’s called mutual combat.
Imminence:showing the purported unjust aggressor’s threat lacked imminence. In Illinois we look for apparent threat (jeopardy) as well as the present ability and present opportunity for imminence.
Proportionality: your use of force was not in proportion to the threat you were facing. An example would be you’re facing a threat that a reasonable person in your situation would believe is not lethal and yet you resort to a lethal level of force.
Avoidance: even in a stand your ground state this principle is a great principle for both the legal battlefield as well as the physical battlefield.*
Reasonableness: both subjective and objective.
*Reach out today and schedule training with Humilitas First and I’ll teach you how and why being able to show avoidance is a winning strategy on both the physical and legal battlefields.
In my courses I recommend students buy the book The Law of Self Defense by Andrew Branca. Reading and comprehending this book is a great first step at acquiring the underlying fundamental legal principles. You may still be able to obtain a free copy (I think you have to pay shipping) of his book on his website at https://lawofselfdefense.com/. I recommend subscribing to any email notification lists Mr. Branca may have as well as any of his YouTube channels. Never before in the history of our nation has it been as important as it is today to do the work necessary to come to a solid understanding of the underlying fundamental legal principles. Get started today!
