Context Appropriate Training

Violence is contextual. I find myself saying this repeatedly. Because of this, our training needs to be contextual. On a frequent/regular basis, I’m contacted by individuals who want military or law-enforcement training, but are not involved in military or law-enforcement work. Why? If you are not performing the duties, and/or have the responsibilities, that law-enforcement and military have, why do you require this type of training? As a civilian you shouldn’t need to be taught how to apprehend and cuff and restrain somebody, you should be primarily looking to disengage, and exit the situation. If you’re not military personnel, why do you need to practice bayonet charges? Also, in most situations, when you are working in a professional capacity, you’re part of a team – or have a team/support system who are ready to back you up and come to your assistance. This is probably not going to be the case when you are walking home from the pub late at night on your own. You’re probably also not going to be wearing a duty-belt, which has on it pieces of essential equipment such as a radio which you can use to call for back-up, etc. Military and Law-Enforcement members need specialist training because they deal with unique and special scenarios that civilians aren’t expected to find themselves in. If you are a civilian, dealing with civilian situations, that’s the type of training you require i.e. you don’t need to be taught how to operate as part of a four-man team storming a room to rescue a hostage, etc., and whilst such scenarios may be extremely high-stakes, it doesn’t make them more or less complicated than dealing with a group of aggressive drunks in a bar – it just makes them different.

I remember being on a close-protection course, where one of the members was working in law-enforcement. He couldn’t get out of the habit of not wanting to disengage from potentially violent confrontations, because all of his previous training and experiences had taught him to engage and confront a threat, rather than move away from it. The goals of the two professions are by and large mutually exclusive. If you are upholding the law, you aren’t usually required to back away, and leave the threat in place, you are tasked with dealing with it. In Close Protection, you don’t have a responsibility to the larger society, your job is to protect and ensure the safety of the person you are looking after i.e. the principal. The context of your work is different, and this is extremely important – it may go against every instinct you have as law enforcement to “ignore” and not confront a danger, but if you are charged with protecting one individual, you may be better extracting them from the situation than dealing with a threat. The “pull” of doing what one profession requires versus another, was confirmed to me several years ago, when in a training session, those involved in various branches of law enforcement felt it necessary to secure a weapon in the environment, rather than exit it. When they defined the context, they were right to access and retrieve the weapon, however in the context within which they were working this was not appropriate – or safe. The lesson: the training methods and requirements of one agency may not be directly transferrable to another.

It should also be noted that the tactics employed by one agency against a particular threat, aren’t replicable to other agencies, or to civilians, etc. In Northern Ireland, it soon became apparent that the most effective solution to a shooter who targeted a patrol was not to look for cover, and spend time trying to identify the shooter, but was instead to break in to the nearest houses in an attempt to identify and deal with them in a close proximity, rather than to give them the luxury of time, identifying and picking off targets as they attempted to identify – and return fire – in the direction of the shooting. In an active shooter incident in a public-setting where civilians are the target, I wouldn’t be suggesting a similar tactic be employed; usually better to find cover and concealment, rather than engage with the shooter. This tactic – though politically and socially divisive – was relevant in a very specific context, and to deal with a very singular type of threat and danger: a civilian/terrorist shooter targeting military personnel has a very different goal(s) and agenda, to an active killer targeting civilians. You can’t simply take the solutions that are applicable to one context and transfer them to another; something I often see regarding weapon disarming.

I know a lot of Krav Maga instructors who received training in long-barrel weapon disarms struggled to make such training applicable to civilian training – the main reason being because it’s rarely directly transferable. However, as Active Shooter training for businesses and educational facilities started to see more of a demand, there were several who thought that this was where such training could be applied i.e. long-barrel weapon disarms could now be translated, referred and made relevant to civilian active shooter scenarios, etc. This ignored several, significant factors. Firstly, in most active shooter/killer scenarios those involved are using short-barrel weapons (don’t get caught up in media presentations where the weapon of choice is an AR-15), and secondly, in almost all active shooter incidents where a long-barrel weapon is involved, the killer has a second weapon – whilst you try to disarm them of their long-barrel weapon/rifle, which may be attached by a sling or harness, they’re reaching for a second weapon, be it a knife or gun, to attack you with. Just because an assailant has a rifle or shotgun, it doesn’t mean that you should be applying a “universal” solution such as a disarm. It’s not that disarming isn’t relevant or doesn’t have its place, but rather it’s contextual – and to choose when it’s an effective solution you need to understand the context.

I’ve heard numerous stories of ex-military personnel incorrectly trying to apply military tactics and responses when working as law-enforcement, as well as those with a history in law enforcement trying to replicate what was necessary and effective in one field, in another. Your training needs to be applicable to the context(s) within which you experience certain types of violence. This is not to say that those who have served in one field can’t transfer their skills and knowledge to another e.g. there are many good ex-military/law enforcement personnel have translated their experience, who can take what it is like to burst through a door, as part of a team, and pull out the relevant/constituent parts that are applicable to dealing with a group of aggressive drunks in a bar, etc., however to simply believe that everything learnt, developed and experienced in one field is directly transferrable to another is both naive and dangerous.