Reaction/Reflection on LEO BJJ Training Article

[bushido_man96]

https://www.policemag.com/training/article/15313058/teaching-control-tactics-with-jiu-jitsu

Thoughts and Reflections on this Article

This article is found on the Police Magazine website, and it caught my eye when I saw the title pop up in my work email. Since I’m both a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) and a life-long Martial Arts practitioner, it reeled me in. I thought there were some good points in the article, and there were some things that I didn’t quite agree with, and I thought I’d take the time to share them here. I haven’t written an article for KarateForums.com in quite some time, so I figured I’m about due, anyway. This is going to get long, so strap in and enjoy the ride, KF.

I need to start out by stating that I am not a consistent practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (henceforth in this article denoted as BJJ). I’ve had what BJJ practitioners would call limited exposure to this style, but what I’ve experienced I’ve found useful. There are no BJJ academies in my area to train at, but I have accumulated a very base knowledge of the style. I trained consistently for a couple of years with a Defensive Tactics Club at Fort Hays State University in which the instructor had experience with BJJ and provided instruction on it at the club in a no-gi format. I’ve also attended the GRACIE Defensive Tactics Course for LEO twice (originally for certification, and once for recertification), taught by Royce Gracie. The training was fantastic, and I would recommend it for anyone in law enforcement. Not that it really counts, but I also own and have read several texts on BJJ published by very respected practitioners of the style, including, but not limited to, Royce Graice, Jean Jacques Machado, and Royler and Helio Gracie.

With the preliminaries out of the way, onto the meat of this article. I’ll be pulling out various sections of the article to quote, and I’ll try to map it by paragraph number as it appears on the website.

In a culture of intense scrutiny of police control techniques and accusations of brutality based on cell phone videos, it is imperative that law enforcement trainers re-evaluate what they are teaching officers.

This has never been more true. However, I would say that many departments are pre-empting this by providing their officers with body-worn cameras, which means that not only could the general public be recording what’s going on, but the officer should be recording what’s going on as well. I work for a department that issues body-worn cameras to their patrol officers, and I have found them to be quite useful, both in investigations, and in dealing with complaints. I also find them quite useful in use-of-force training, providing a first-person view of incidents allowing for a review of the situation, and how to help officers better protect themselves, and thus better protect others. I would not use video footage to “Monday morning quarterback” what an officer did, but rather use it as a tool to try to understand what happened, what the circumstances were, and how we can get better going forward. Many times, a video of a use-of-force incident will get released to the public (which I have my own opinions on this practice) and it won’t be long before many people post and say, “the officer should have done this,” or, “I wouldn’t have done that, I’d have just done this or that,” without having any idea what the actual situation was from start to finish, or how the officer felt at the time that it happened.

I digress; that was a bit of a tangent. But hey, it’s my article…. Moving on in paragraph 1, the authors mention that while baton strikes and punches may be justified by a use-of-force policy, they don’t look good to the public, the authors describing them as “awful but lawful.” I agree that it looks much better on video to see an officer take someone to the ground and control them than it does to have to strike someone to get them to submit. As officers, we tend to want to take all resistance to the ground immediately, and there’s no denying that arts like BJJ and wrestling are very good at this. Get them down, get them cuffed, ending the struggle as quickly as possible, because the longer the struggle goes on, the more likely someone is to get hurt (officer or suspect; yeah, we get hurt, too).

Paragraph 2 goes on to talk about how BJJ has grown in popularity and has also become the basis of many defensive tactics (DT) programs. However, the authors referred to these programs as “elective” programs. The fact of the matter is that DT training isn’t always a focus for officers, and some would prefer not to attend DT training if they don’t have to. It’s human nature; I’d prefer not to attend training on computer crimes. The authors also mentioned a movement on social media called #bjjmakeitmanditory, a push to make BJJ a new standard of mandatory training for officers. I had not heard of that social media movement, but then again, I’m not on a lot of social media platforms (just a Facebook account I check infrequently). Is this a genuine push for BJJ in DT, or a marketing ploy by BJJ academies? Not sure, but I wouldn’t be opposed to more BJJ-based training for LEO DT (but it shouldn’t be the only thing trained, either).

The number one objective for officers is to go home safely at the end of their shifts. The number one objective for defensive tactics instructors is to teach officers how to accomplish that objective by using force when it is necessary and legally justified.

This is the goal, while keeping everyone involved as safe as we possibly can. I think about this all the time when putting together training sessions, and making sure I do the best job I can to prepare the officers to do this.

However, the existing style of training does not escape backlash from the media when required force is used….BJJ teaches methods to control a suspect and restrain them in various positions, rather than striking them, which reduces the risk of injury to the suspect as well as to the officer.

I think these are very sound points. Striking is not only a good way to hurt someone else, but improper striking by an inexperienced person is a good way to get themselves hurt as well. A suspect’s fractured nose or occipital bone is likely to end up being a doctor’s bill that comes out of the department budget, along with who knows what kind of civil or criminal action could be litigated on the officer depending on whether the use-of-force was justified. Even if it is justified, if a right-handed officer breaks his/her right hand in a struggle, then they’ve shut down the use of their gun-hand for the foreseeable future, thus taking them off the street until they’re healed, which presents its own host of logistical problems for the department.

Therefore, if BJJ training is made mandatory, the term “defensive tactics” could credibly be replaced with “control tactics.”

I don’t agree with the idea of changing the terminology here. I think the term “control tactics” is more limiting than the term “defensive tactics,” which could end up limiting officers to fewer options when it comes to responses to situations. Every situation is different, and as much as I think BJJ provides a lot of answers to a lot of problems, it’s important to keep options open for the use of other tactics besides grappling. I don’t mind the use of the term “control tactics,” and see it as a very valid term. I could see the combination of the terms as useful, to “defensive and control tactics.”

Our agency, the Marietta (GA) Police Department, has been teaching limited BJJ techniques in-house for more than a decade. The training is made up of a mandatory four-hour session taught annually and augmented with open mat sessions offered monthly. The department’s curriculum of in-service open mat and recruit training has morphed into mostly BJJ and less striking.

I think this is a great idea, however, this department is uniquely situated to have this kind of training available. A quick internet search of Marietta turned up no fewer than 6 options for training BJJ, and that doesn’t count what is likely also available in Atlanta, just 20 miles away.

In paragraph 5, the authors talk about some of the issues that popped up with the availability of training. They said many of their officers started to seek out BJJ training on their own time, but the open mat sessions they provided had limited success (likely due to the nature of officers’ rotating schedules). As one might conclude, they started having the same officers show up for open mat regularly (most likely the Martial Arts enthusiasts). The authors also noted that their instructors trained at a local gym and were limited to the knowledge they had received.

The certified instructors at the gym began offering law enforcement specific classes, which led to greater attendance from other MPD officers. The instructors explained that they felt sporadic and minimal (annual) training was not nearly as effective as it should be. They believed officers should train “a little a lot” throughout the year versus the existing “a lot a little” mentality.

To further this,

Most agencies train once a year on defensive tactics and then move on to the next required topic. Training on a regular basis is the key to becoming proficient.

I agree with this whole-heartedly, and I believe it is a huge issue for law enforcement as a whole. I found it surprising that some larger agencies only trained DT once a year. I’m fortunate to work in a department where the Sheriff believes this training is important and believes the frequency of the training is as important as the content of the training. I hold DT training monthly except when I’m working the night shift. I usually conduct training in two-hour blocks, which I feel allows me to keep the attention of the officers engaged throughout the training, and they don’t have to fret about spending a four hour session getting sore and beat up. This also makes it easier on the department to schedule everyone for training.

Later in paragraph 6, the authors mentioned that they made BJJ training mandatory for all recruits before, during, and after academy, requiring weekly training up until they began working the road. I like this approach, but it wouldn’t work for every agency. Most departments in the state of Kansas have to send their officers to the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center (KLETC) in Hutchinson, KS, to receive their officer certification. When new officers go to the academy, I have no control over what kind of DT training they receive. They get what they get while they’re there, and I have to wait until they complete the 14 week academy before I can get them back into my training regimen. However, most departments run a field training program upon the officer’s graduation from academy, and this would be the ideal time to set up that kind of training.

Paragraphs 8 and 9 go on to talk about how a major in their department attended one of the LEO-focused DT classes offered by a local BJJ gym, and decided it was important enough to get it integrated into department training for new officers. Getting some of the brass to experience this kind of training and get behind it is a great start for getting other brass on board. They are often busy and getting them there to begin with is part of the challenge.

The next paragraphs go into how the program got set up.

In order to convince the rest of the command staff to consider adopting the program, it was immediately clear it needed to be reasonable, sustainable, and affordable. If any of the three factors were missing, the program would fail.

Budget is a factor that department supervisors have to worry about, along with all the other issues that come with the job. Supervisors want to provide the best opportunities they can for their officers, but the budget has to be respected, too. Larger departments have larger budgets, and larger metropolitan areas also have more options available locally. The opportunities available to a department like Marietta PD aren’t always available to smaller, more rural departments.

By going outside the agency for instruction, we could train with BJJ experts at varying hours, providing flexibility without putting new additional pressure on our own instructors.

This is great, if the opportunity is available. As much as I’d like to pitch something like this to my department, the opportunity just isn’t available in my area, and many smaller departments have even fewer options available to them. In my hometown, there are 5 options available; a Taekwondo school (which I’m a member of), an Aikido club (also a member), a Boxing club, a Karate school, and a local gym that offers MMA training which includes a grappling class (no-gi). Even with these options, each school is limited in the classes they offer and the times they are available.

The school Marietta PD chose to work through offered nine classes a week, with morning, afternoon, and evening availability. They required their recruits to attend at least one class per week for 5 months. They negotiated a lower rate with the gym on their “drop-in” daily rate and provided gis for the recruits. They stated their monthly gym bill for training and gis was in the hundreds of dollars, and they average between 4 and 10 recruits at a time. DT instructor courses can be pretty costly; I’ve seen them range from $600 to over $1000 for week-long (5 day) courses over 8 hours each day.

In paragraph 15, they talk about the first group they ran through this new program, 7 recruits, three of which had prior experience in Martial Arts or Wrestling. Each recruit attended 1 class per week minimum, but they all had weeks where they attended three training sessions (unknown how long each session was). Marietta PD reported that these 7 recruits accumulated 159 hours of training with no injuries. The paragraph concludes by stating that 30% of the officers continued their training after the 5-month period was over and were willing to continue their training by paying out of pocket.

This is a step in the right direction for sure. It’d be nice to see that retention number higher, but the fact of the matter is that not every officer that is hired is going to push themselves to training outside of work. Some have other family matters they tend to, and some just don’t feel the need to do it. Others, as we know in the Martial Arts world, just aren’t interested. Those of us who take an interest in training are willing to go out and find it, pay for it, and attend regularly. Those that don’t may want some kind of incentive or stipend from the department to justify getting themselves into training. I think it would be nice if departments could offer something like that, but again, the budget must be kept in mind. And if supervisors are spending money out of the budget to offer opportunities like this to the officers, they’ll want to be assured the resource is being taken advantage of; if it isn’t, then it will be taken out of the budget, and no one would benefit.

The article finishes with how they notified media about their training program and the local media’s response to it. I think this department definitely took a step in the right direction for law enforcement in general. I hope other DT instructors can read this article and use it to promote more improved, more frequent, and more effective use-of-force training in their departments. I like the approach Marietta PD took with BJJ, but it wouldn’t have to be BJJ for every department. There are lots of good options out there, and the more consistent the training is, the more effective the officers become, and the better protected they are. More effective officers can also protect resisting, combative individuals as well. In the end, everyone benefits.

I hope everyone got something useful out of this long, rambling reaction to an article I happened to read, and I look forward to any and all comments.

[sensei8]

Solid post and article; I enjoyed them immensely!! Thanks for them both, Brian!!

[DarthPenguin]

Thanks for posting - was a very informative read!

I have noticed that a lot of police officers train bjj over here (in my current academy and also my old one) and have wondered about it before.

When thinking about it i thought that (out of the styles i am aware of) it is probably the best suited to a police officer due to it being what i would term 'analogue in nature' rather than most other arts which i would term as 'digital'.

What i mean by this is in a 'digital' art (which i would describe most striking styles as) then someone is either hit or not hit, with that hit either being hard enough to be effective or not being. If you are trying to restrain an individual then if you are mainly trained in a striking art then you either put them down or you don't. In the UK this would likely result in action being taken against the police officer. Judo and Sambo were styles i initially found hard to caregorise but i decided i would lump them in with the striking arts since the techniques they are most known for (the throws) are similar in that aspect to strikes - someone is either thrown or they are not! Then if they are thrown there is a good chance of someone being injured. While both styles do contain groundwork, it is not their major focus and if that is what you are looking for then i (personally) think you would pick up the necessary ground skills faster at bjj since that would be the main focus of the class.

For an analogue style you can choose the level of force applied in the technique with a wide range being possible. As an example you can restrain someone in a chokehold and immobilise them whilst choosing how hard the choke is. It could go from immobilising and not really choking all the way up to choking someone out quickly, with the officer able to decide how hard to go. Bjj takes a very very long time to rank up and 'master' but a lot of that time is spent learning how to beat other people who also train bjj. Someone can pick up enough to be able to apply simpler techniques to an untrained individual a lot faster.

The other style i thought that would potentially be useful/applicable and i would class as analogue for this purpose is Aikido. I admit i don't know much about it but i think from what i have seen the techniques would allow the selective application of force. The reason i don't think it would be as applicable as bjj (though this may just be my ignorance) is from what i have always heard it takes an extremely long time to become good enough at Aikido to apply it in a fight to a resisting individual. This time period is why i don't think it would suit.

Anyway, i hope i haven't taken your thread off in a tangent! Even as a non police officer i have always thought it is quite an interesting topic!

[bushido_man96]

I appreciate your thoughts and responses, DP. I see what you are getting at with your analogy of digital and analog. When you have to tangle with a person, things change quite a bit when the rules change. As cops, we have lots of rules that apply to us, which means that we can't just pop someone. There are times when striking is justified, for sure. But there is no way to change the dynamics of how that looks to others (whether they understand what is going on or not). That is one thing that I find frustrating; those who don't understand what is going on still feel they can offer up their opinions which are typically unsubstantiated. People will then get outraged, and the powers that be find the need to force changes to things to make the people that don't understand happier. It's a poor way to approach policy making.

A good example of this is the use of "chokes," or what came to be called "lateral vascular neck restraints" in the LEO circles. Due to a very unfortunate incident where some bad judgment got someone killed, "chokes" are banned from use, save for the highest levels of the force continuum. The incident that caused this didn't even have an officer using rear-naked choke, or anything else like that. Thus a valuable tool has been rendered basically unusable, when it could be a very valuable tool for preventing injury to someone.

[DarthPenguin]

Very good points - public perception makes a massive difference. Plus, just because one/small number of individuals misapply a technique that doesn't mean that everyone would. By the same logic any other means of defence that an officer has should be removed if someone once uses it incorrectly (guns in the USA; batons/tasers etc in the UK etc.) which obviously doesn't happen.

The public perception angle has also directly contributed towards things being more dangerous i think. As an example: one of my fathers friends (he is in his late 70s now i think) used to be a police officer in Glasgow and, as he is a big guy, he was in the special squad that had a job of (literally!) beating up troublemaking youths! They were meant to pull them down an alley and give them a bit of a kicking and tell them to stop bothering people etc. It actually worked quite well as most of them (in that era) were self aware enough to accept it as a cost of doing business and if they couldn't handle it they bothered people less! Then things changed with people saying these things shouldn't happen as they had rights! This directly led into a change in behaviours. From another personal example : when i was in my early 20s myself and a training partners got jumped in the city centre by a gang of 18-20yr olds (As a guess) with bottles etc. Without going into too much detail we fought them off, tried to find the police while keeping fighting them off and when we eventually did manage to find the police and asked them how they went about charging them were told that they couldn't since the folk attacking us had several injuries and needed a hospital visit. As they had enough witnesses that saw them attempting to cut us with bottles etc. they were willing to let us go but if we pressed charges we would get stronger ones for doing more damage protecting ourselves. That would never have happened in the past - i have some views of the societal changes that have led to this but that would be a complete tangent!!

Personally i don't envy you guys as it must be a constant tightrope you are walking balancing your (and the people around you including your colleagues safety) against the outcry if something goes wrong!