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At this writing, almost a month after DeKalb County, Georgia police officers Ricky Bryant, Jr. and Eric Barker were shot to death, details are still lacking. Given the gravity of the case and an understandable need to control information leaks and speculation with three suspects in custody, it may be a while before we have enough information for a complete analysis and training assessment. In the interim, we must do what we can to remind our own troops of some grim realities of policing.
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Here’s What We Know
The officers were in uniform, working an off-duty security assignment at a break-in plagued 176-unit apartment complex in a troubled suburb of Atlanta. It was late, past midnight when the first “shots fired” calls came in. There was some information indicating the officers were checking out a single “suspicious person” when they were shot, and DeKalb County Police Chief Terrell Bolton said the shooting “Looked like an ambush. It just appeared they were gunned down without a chance.”
There are indicators two or more shooters were involved, with no confirmation the “suspicious person” being checked was one of them. In fact, he could have been uninvolved, a principal, or a lure; a “Judas goat.” We don’t know if either officer returned fire or had any opportunity to do so.
We do know conditions at the complex were serious enough to warrant hiring off-duty cops for security; at least one resident who heard the shots didn’t call police because she “…didn’t think anything of it because it’s a high-crime area with a lot of drug activity and prostitution.”
From Chief Bolton’s statement, one might conclude this was in fact a textbook “ambush.” Whether hastily set up or planned well in advance, it was executed decisively and perhaps from cover and/or concealment. The fatal shots may have been fired before the officers knew there was anyone else present.
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Presume Nothing — Consider Everything
We don’t know if the officers were standing in a pool of light amidst darkness, or illuminated by their own flashlights; if their duties were divided between them, with one maintaining “perimeter awareness,” or if both were focused on their subject. There are just too many unknowns and variables to presume anything, and we certainly can’t presume they did anything wrong. If you’ve been in this business long enough, you know sometimes officers can do every single thing right “by the book,” take every action reasonable and appropriate for the situation and still die. It’s a simple, grim, gray truth.
One thing we can and must do is consider everything we know about every lethal or near-lethal incident and use those scenarios to engage our own officers in self-assessments of tactics and techniques; the manner in which they move, observe, engage possible suspects and react to emerging threats. To do any less is to dishonor the sacrifices of officers Bryant and Barker, and to deny anything may be learned from their loss.
Just consider this: Suppose you were to sit down with a small group of your own officers and give them a a bare-bones brief of this incident, then ask some simple questions, like: Let’s say this was a pre-planned ambush, based on a grudge against one or both officers. How do you think a small group of `bangers might plan it? What would they do? Observe the officers? What would they look for? Routines in their movements? If they were selecting a “kill zone” in which to carry it out, what factors do you think they’d consider?
Or, we’re in and out of those Oakwood Apartments off Baseline Road all the time, and some bad shit has gone down there. If something like this happened at the Oakwood, where and how do you think it might happen? Holland, those 7th Street `bangers threatened to pop you and Willis the next time you rolled up on `em, right? Let’s talk about how they might try it. How do you measure up? |
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Mourn, Learn, Live – And WIN
From long experience, I know these two things: First, few officers, especially over-confident ones, ever pause to seriously consider the likely scenes and situations in which they might die. They’re too busy, mentally and physically, taking positive actions, to purposely stop and reflect on hypotheticals. Others are simply in denial; they will not consider it could happen to them, and believe any officer killed in line of duty must have made some mistake they would never make — it’s human nature.
Second, in almost every instance in which you gather officers in a controlled environment and pose such hypotheticals to them, you — and they — can be amazed at the results. Ask cops to put themselves in a crook’s head, planning the ambush of an officer, and they’ll cover every angle from routine movement to light discipline, use of cover and concealment, capitalizing on an officer’s known positioning behaviors and more, in vivid imaginative detail. Listen closely, and you’ll hear them critiquing — and criticizing — their own bad habits and lapses of alertness from a detached and emotionally safe third-party perspective.
Those who don’t live this life, who don’t wear badges and guns, may not understand. They may even find it callous and cruel. But the best time to discuss an officer’s death — and learn from it — is hard on the heels of that loss, while the wound still stings and the inner eyes are unveiled. We mourn, we learn, we live and go on to win. That’s who and what we are. Bryant and Barker would understand.
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John Morrison served in combat as a Marine sergeant, and retired as a senior lieutenant from the San Diego Police Department, having served there as Director of Training, Commanding Officer of SWAT and division executive officer. He has taught, written and lectured widely on training, tactics and leadership. Contact him at StreetLevelOne@yahoo.com.
First published in the July/August 2008 issue of American COP. |
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