Not Going to Save You

Drew Terril​

In our society we often hear talk of a "thin blue line," the implication being that police officers (and to a lesser extent firefighters and EMTs) are a bulwark against calamity in our day to day lives. In recent years, it's grown into what can best be described as hero worship. While there are many in the public safety sector who are doing good work and have a servant's spirit looking out for others, this idea that ‘they're coming to save us’ when disaster strikes is at best misguided, and at worst can make us vulnerable to the predation of the so called bad apples that tend to populate any large group of people. In the latter category, public safety is no different than any other workplace dynamic. There are going to be those who, at best, simply act in their own self preservation or don't have the training to adequately respond. At worst, some go after the vulnerable. In both instances this is done under the full protection of the law. Many of us are asked why we bother with an everyday carry (EDC) weapon. "Why do you feel the need to carry a weapon to protect yourself?" Here, I would like to explore those reasons.

I'd like to first mention some court proceedings that have removed any obligation from LEOs to put themselves into harm’s way. The bulk of this precedent has its roots in a 1989 case that ultimately went before the US Supreme Court. Deshaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services was a case of child abuse where social services was aware of the abuse, but did not remove the child from the father prior to the child entering a vegetative state. The mother ultimately sued, only for the court to rule that the state has no special obligation to protect a citizen against harms that it did not create. In doing so, the ruling built on a 1981 case (Warren v. District of Columbia), which held that police do not owe a specific duty to provide services to individual citizens. This precedent was affirmed more recently after the Parkland High School shooting in 2018, where suits against the Broward County Sheriff's office were dropped, citing prior case law affirming that there was no duty for officers to protect people from the acts of a shooter. 

With all that said, there are obviously exceptions in play here. Last year, in Nashville, TN, local cops stormed into a school in order to take down an active shooter. Even then, it was fairly obvious watching the body cam videos that they were not extensively trained on any kind of room clearing. In spite of that, they were still able to eliminate the threat and, in their case, decisiveness and overwhelming force won out over any sloppiness in technique or tactics. But that is the exception, not the norm. Situations like what happened in Uvalde, TX in 2022, where responding officers stood by waiting on additional backup as a shooter killed several students and faculty, are unfortunately more common.

There are a number of factors at play here that I'd like to walk through. First and foremost, the level of training (or lack thereof) that the average police officer or sheriff's deputy receives. For the vast majority of cops, they only fire their duty weapons during qualifications. For most, this is a yearly occurrence, with little to no training in the interim. For long guns, that interval can be even longer, again with no training in between qualifications. Unless a cop is in a specialized unit (SWAT, Marksman, etc.), any firearms training outside of qualification is usually done on their dime, with their own weapons. One cop that I spoke with recently on the subject mentioned that his agency doesn't provide any compensation or ammo for training outside of those quals. For him, pistol qualification is yearly, and biannual for long guns. Any additional training is done on his own time, on his own dime. He does put in a lot of his own time in that area, but I would consider him an exception to the rule on the subject. He did note that they're seeing more active shooter training, and there's also a fair amount of non-firearm related training that they have to complete annually, particularly dealing with domestic violence, mental health, and use of force. 

Second, there is a liability factor that applies to agencies / municipalities, and to a lesser extent, individual officers. There is still a good deal of what the courts refer to as "qualified immunity," that prevents individual cops from being sued, but the threat of lawsuits, especially in today's hyper-litigious society, plays a large role in crafting agency policy. It also results in an agency being less hesitant to throw an individual under the bus, by letting them go "for cause," in which case the cop has no backing for any subsequent civil suits that will likely follow, all this in an effort to keep the agency, or the municipality / state from being embroiled in a lawsuit. According to the cop I mentioned earlier, this has resulted in cops being less proactive and more reactive in fear of being hung out to dry. This has also resulted in a significant drop in morale in the profession as a whole. 

A third factor that in all fairness is not applicable in all localities is priorities that come down from the government (whether state or local) that a particular agency is affiliated with. Revenue from traffic citations and civil asset forfeiture have provided a carrot that many areas find it difficult to resist. In my home state of Oklahoma, a small town along US-69 was stripped of their authority in 2014 to write traffic citations along the highway, after the state found that the town had generated 76% of their income through traffic fines. Other small towns along the heavily trafficked highway have had their authority stripped in similar manners in years past. With the amount of money that can be generated through citation revenue, some localities will prioritize traffic enforcement over response times to other crimes.

Civil asset forfeiture offers a similar incentive. In this practice, authorities can seize personal assets (vehicles, cash, etc), that they suspect are connected to a crime, and there's often no requirement for a conviction for the seizure to occur. This really took off during the "war on drugs" and, in many of these cases, the burden of proof is on the property owner to prove it wasn't connected in order for them to get their property back. Getting their property back is a lengthy and expensive process that many can't afford to go through. Fortunately, in this case, the US Supreme Court is planning to hear a case that has the possibility of at least curtailing the practice. Four states (Maine, Nebraska, North Carolina, and New Mexico), have abolished the practice entirely, and others have curtailed it. Both of these practices, though, provide an incentive that they can prioritize over other aspects of policing. 

With all that said, there are many instances where the above factors aren't at play, and it comes down to response times and the limitations that arise. I've lived a large portion of my life in rural areas where there's simply a lot of distance to cover. At my grandparents' farm, even today, response time is rarely quicker than 20 minutes for anyone. Police, fire, or EMS. It took right at 20 minutes for EMS to arrive the final time my grandfather fell before he entered hospice care prior to his passing. This is nothing against the personnel involved, or any priorities (or lack thereof) of the nearest town. It's just a simple fact that they live off a winding road several miles from where the nearest EMS / FD is based. At my grandmother's ranch in Texas, it's even farther out of town where a good response time is a half hour or longer. In any kind of emergency, whether it be a wildfire, a medical emergency, or an intruder, that is a long time to have to wait for any kind of help. Even in town, a lot can happen in the average 8 - 10 minutes that it takes from the 911 call to an officer, firefighter, or paramedic actually showing up.

At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own safety and that of our families. Whether it be due to inadequate training, department policy / priorities, or even the simple limitations of how quickly one can get somewhere, we can't run under the assumption that someone is going to be there to save us when things go awry. While public safety in many cases has become reactive, we need to be proactive in our preparations for a variety of scenarios that may arise, regardless of the level of emergency that arises.