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.
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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!
Do tactics change? Yes. Depending upon things like terrain, circumstances, and our adversary’s ability to adapt his Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP). You have to watch your adversary so that you can figure him out. What’s typical in an unjust aggressors robbery, vehicular hijacking, or home invasion? As an unjust criminal aggressor adapts his TTP’s you then must improvise, adapt, and overcome these by tweaking your own TTP’s.
In a recent tactical breakdown I did on YouTube we see and hear a common sight today – police officers stuck in a Goofy Loop; ‘Put the knife down. Put the knife down. Put the knife down. Put the knife down. Put the knife down!’ That’s a Goofy Loop. Goofy loops are abdications of one’s decision to protect over to the unjust aggressor to permit him to decide potentially who lives and who dies. There are many and various reasons for this today but a big one is politics.
Criminals observe example after example of Goofy Loops on the nightly news. It is so common today that bad guys have become conditioned to expect this. Thinking in terms of the late John Boyd’s OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) a criminal’s orientation becomes formed to the idea they’ll receive a lot of warnings. They develop a kind of entitlement mindset expecting to have police point firearms at them and to receive endless warnings in the same way a permissive parent speaks to a badly behaved child. Permissive parents likewise provide numerous warnings that if the bad behavior doesn’t immediately cease then that child will suffer the consequences. However the consequences and accountability never actually happen.
Here’s a short clip from the video where I’ll show you the unjust criminal aggressor’s lack of reaction to having the police point a firearm at him. The expectation is there will be more warnings. Two seconds is plenty of time for a defender (in this video the police) to stop the threat. I also draw a line from where I believe the officer’s dominant eye-line is and this shows the officer looking over his sights at the high ready position. Why is that important? In my opinion it shows the officer’s decision is to continue to monitor while giving warnings (which is precisely what he does) rather than begin actually defending the grandfather by shooting the unjust aggressor to stop his already escalated imminent threat of great bodily harm or death.
Typically an unjust criminal aggressor who has come to expect numerous warnings doesn’t expect a defender to immediately begin shooting. Where this expectation exists the defender has an advantage.
What’s the advantage? The unjust aggressor’s expectation (more warnings) means the defender has the element of surprise. Surprise, speed, andviolence of action are underlying fundamental principles as it relates to tactics. Action beats reaction is another underlying fundamental principle. Underlying fundamental principles don’t change; they are like the bed of a river. Think of a river bed like a solid rock bed which lies beneath the river. That solid rock bed remains the same – no change. We know over time the appearance at the surface level or the shape of a river or stream does change due to things like erosion, deposition, and transport of sediment.1 You could think of this like the flow of a river. The level and speed of that flow can vary depending upon rains or drought. When it comes to tactics they will change frequently as the enemy reacts to and adapts especially to losses. In other words your enemies watch how you solve violent problems and eventually they’ll figure you out. Unjust criminal aggressors adapt and then innocent people of good will must improvise, adapt, and overcome. Back and forth adversaries go in effort to dominate and secure victory.
Below is a short excerpt from an older video of retired USMC General James “Mad Dog” Mattis where he synthesizes three things he’s learned over thirty five years with the United States Marine Corps:
View whole video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk7GkKmXOGg
“Why, then, do you fear to take up the cross when through it you can win a kingdom? In the cross is salvation, in the cross is life, in the cross is protection from enemies, in the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness, in the cross is strength of mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross is highest virtue, in the cross is perfect holiness. There is no salvation of soul nor hope of everlasting life but in the cross.”
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas À Kempis
I wish someone would have told me as a young sheep dog; In everything you do; strive to remain calm and think your way through the combat. Learn to detach from all the fears that will swirl about that big ugly head of yours.
We have an untold number of opportunities every single day to practice detachment from this, that, and the other fear. As Thomas Kempis taught; in the Cross is strength of mind.
