On the evening of February 10th, 2016, Senior Deputy Patrick Dailey of the Harford County Sheriff's Office, MD, responded to a call for a wanted person inside of a restaurant. He approached a man fitting the description, he sat down next to him and before he could finish one sentence he was shot in the head and killed instantly. The wanted man exchanged gunfire with several responding Deputies, including Senior Deputy Mark Logsdon who was killed during the gunfight that also resulting in the wanted man's justified homicide.
Around 6PM on Februrary 24th, 2016, Police Officer Michael Edwards was on his beat in Philadelphia, PA and a man walked up to his vehicle, surprising him and telling him "I should blow your fucking head off." The officer attempted to exit his vehicle but the offender stopped him, keeping his hands in his pockets. The offender would put his hands into his pants/pockets several times and produce them quickly from his waistband in the same manner of having deploying a firearm, acting as though he was trying to shoot the officer. All the while the police officer was a few yards away and holding fire. The officer held his fire and another came to the scene, which the male acted aggressively towards, resulting in that officer deploying his taser. No firearm was recovered and the male was determined to be high during this incident.
The term "tactical de-escalation" is also used improperly in modern policing. Its more of defusing a situation, which should not apply to deadly force situations. The true meaning of the term would be seen from the position of the feeder, "going to 100% in your mind, having already made the desicion to shoot and then making a conscious decision to not because it is not be required." - Tuhon Tom Kier
The term "tactical de-escalation" is also used improperly in modern policing. Its more of defusing a situation, which should not apply to deadly force situations. The true meaning of the term would be seen from the position of the feeder, "going to 100% in your mind, having already made the desicion to shoot and then making a conscious decision to not because it is not be required." - Tuhon Tom Kier
The above video shows how US policing is trying to justify a failed concept here in the US through completely different styles of policing that will put officers in harms way. The simple fact is, when you do not have duty firearms to begin with (like most officers do not have in Scotland, in fact only less than 2 percent of Scotland's 17,000 officer's are armed) so the whole comparison is very flawed from the very beginning.
The above video shows a Cleveland police officer walk up a flight of stairs, after responding to a radio call for a domestic dispute where one party has weapons but did not brandish/display/use any of them. As the officer walks up the stairs he is shot right away. Thankfully it was in the vest and the officer was not seriously injured. What happens next? They do not shoot the male, right away, they start to talk to him, they try to de-escalate an already violent situation that could have been deadly.
The most deadly issue of tactical de-escalation (using wrong definition)is that you are playing a guessing game with your life and I do not know about you, but the casino sure does win a little too often for my liking. Rigging the game in your favor is the only way you are going to win, feeding the situation in order to guarantee such an outcome is the best course of action. To do this you have to understand what reactionary gap means and how it applies to people using weapons, especially firearms.
What is the reactionary gap for firearms?
Think about it for a second, it is suggested that 21 feet is the reactionary gap for edged weapons, but for firearms? How about line of sight? If I can see you, and you can see me, we are in each others reactionary gaps for deployment of firearms. All things being equal, if two people are standing old west, cowboy showdown style, and one of them begins the draw stroke, how quickly will the other party be able to respond in kind? The average is somewhere between .25 and .30 seconds.
The above is Gabe White running a FAST drill. When you get to the end you will see that from the buzzer his reaction time was from buzzer to first shot from concealment (AIWB) was 1.03 seconds. Split was .25, reload of 2.02 and then splits of .19, .21, and .20 seconds. That is pretty FAST if you do not know what fast shooting looks like.
So if a person has a firearm concealed and they begin a draw stroke to throw lead your way, you will be behind the curve if you are not on target and on trigger. Even if you are on target on trigger, in a high ready position, you will need to be deadly accurate with the first shot.
Kyle Defoor demonstrates a count drill to get faster at shooting, what you see is that even from high ready his reaction is under a second or just under a second.
In a perfect world, you will not hesitate, you will not be distracted, nothing will interfere with your static stance and smooth trigger press overcoming your adversary, while implementing the least amount of force required, as they present a firearm which you instantly recognized and had a simultaneous instant reaction, lacking any type of hesitation to slow you down, flawlessly ending the situation.
In a perfect world, you will not hesitate, you will not be distracted, nothing will interfere with your static stance and smooth trigger press overcoming your adversary, while implementing the least amount of force required, as they present a firearm which you instantly recognized and had a simultaneous instant reaction, lacking any type of hesitation to slow you down, flawlessly ending the situation.
Except we all know that what happens in real life, at the speed of life while peaking on adrenaline, a thousand thoughts or no thoughts running through your head, and every single time you did not do a rep or hit the range because of some BS reason quickly comes crashing down into a real world, no bullshit, shootout. The probability of a person surviving this type of situation is equal to the other person's probability of survival, as there are so many factors to this that I intentionally left out because to name them would take a PHD level thesis paper.
If you do anything other than feed the situation, create the reaction you want, lead the situation to its final phase and end it first, you will have created a situation through your inaction which does not need to be created and is in your worst interest.
Tactical De-escalation (using the wrong definition) is the epitome of allowing the situation to play out, it is tantamount to inaction and allowing the person who wants to potentially cause you serious bodily harm and/or death to dictate at what speed you potentially get killed. It rewards those who hesitate, those who cannot feed a situation but to receive the worst case scenario, allowing it to happen, and for what purpose? Saving life?
What about your life?