The execution of Victor Perez

The shooting and death of Victor Perez in Pocatello is a horrible tragedy. 😔 I can only imagine the grief and anger of his family. My deepest sympathies go out to them. There is a GoFundMe page to help his family. If you are so inclined, please do consider donating to help them weather this difficult time.

A lot of people are talking about the officers not using de-escalation techniques to defuse the situation. I teach de-escalation and have taught it to hundreds of people. In a couple weeks I will be teaching it again. The men and women who take my classes give it high marks. I've even had retired police officers pull me aside to tell me that what I taught was exactly what should happen in the field. 

While I cannot conduct a complete forensic investigation of the event, I can answer with some expertise these calls for de-escalation and how it relates to this case. 

The OODA loop

The first step in de-escalation is to observe - to understand based on your own assessment what is happening. The second step is to orient - to align yourself with what you have observed, either prepare to face it or flee. The third step is to decide - to choose an appropriate action based on what you have observed and what you are oriented to. The fourth step is to act - to use your training and experience to fulfill what you have decided to do. This is known as the OODA loop - Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, repeat.

The OODA loop is not my creation. It was developed by a fighter pilot who used it with great success in combat. It works. It can be done in a split second. However, it ONLY works if you follow each step in order. Skip one step and disaster awaits. In combat, if you don't observe properly you might not see the enemy or you might mistake a friendly for the enemy. 

It's my belief that that is what happened - the officers failed to properly observe and assess the situation upon arrival. I've watched the video numerous times [edit: and now the Pocatello Police Department body cam video] and it seems clear to me that observation was lacking as the officers arrived on the scene. Decisions about what the situation was were likely already made before the officers left their cars.

Training

They were responding to a call of a "man with a knife", just as they were trained to do. When facing a "man with a knife" they presented their service weapons, just as they were trained to do. When they saw a "man with a knife" they shouted at him to drop the weapon, just as they were trained to do. The "man with a knife" stood up and advanced. When one officer fired, they all fired and retreated to open the space between them and "the threat", just as they had trained to do. In 20 seconds the world changed.

I believe that you sink to the level of your training. If every shoot/no-shoot scenario you have ever gone through involving a "man with a knife" never has a barrier to shelter behind, then you won't notice the chain link fence protecting you from harm. If all your training tells you that the only way to confront someone with a knife is to present your firearm, then that's all you will ever do.  All that training seems right. It fits the case studies. It's worked countless times. It did not take into account someone like Victor Perez.

Is that an excuse for the officers shooting Victor? No, but it is an explanation and it's an explanation that is psychologically sound. It is almost certainly what the subsequent investigation will determine - that the officers conducted themselves according to the policies and training of the Pocatello Police Department. Therein lies the problem. The policies and training were not sufficient to allow for the edge case of a teen with autism and cerebral palsy rolling on the grass while wielding a large kitchen knife.

Again, that's an explanation, not an excuse. 

The power to kill

Carrying a firearm is a grave responsibility. Putting on a uniform and a badge is an act of submission to the public trust. Being a police officer requires the greatest responsibility and care because the officer becomes "the arm of the law" - empowered with the awesome authority to kill without a trial; to "shoot" or "no-shoot" in a split second based solely on the judgment of the officer; to legally execute another human being on behalf of the state.

Moreover, once you fire a bullet, you still own it. Everything that bullet does is your responsibility. The bullet doesn't care about your reasons or your intentions. It is a destructive object launched by you into the world. What happens when that object meets the flesh and blood of another human being falls on your head. If your observation was incomplete or faulty that is your fault.

That is an awe-inspiring responsibility, but it is the responsibility every officer must accept. When that power is used the officer cannot expect that he is "innocent until proven guilty". As an individual he has that right, but not as a police officer. He is open to the same level of scrutiny and criticism as a mayor, a city councilmember, a senator, or the President. The first amendment allows the population to pick apart the officer's actions just as they might the actions of any person in any other branch of government.

Interrogating the environment

Every person who carries a firearm and puts on a badge needs to understand the OODA loop and to use it constantly.  I teach it also as the "what if game". What if the knife isn't real? What if the fence is enough to protect me? What if the caller didn't have all the information? What if the man leaning against the fence can explain better what the situation is? What if the person with the knife advances? What if he retreats? What if he's actively stabbing someone? 

Observation requires constantly interrogating the environment. Seeing things as they are, not as we expect them to be. That's a tall order, but again it comes with the decision to pick up and carry a badge and a gun. 

What was missed?

I believe this incident will long be used to modify and inform training for police. It's a clear example of reverting to training when the training insufficiently prepared the officers for a situation like Victor's. Training will be updated to ask, "What if a call of a 'man with a knife' turns out to not be a 'man with a knife', but a mentally and physically disabled man with a knife? How can we account for that in our responses?" After all, not everyone is as fast and as well trained as Dan Inosanto.

The answer begins with observation - assessing the scene properly, not as we expect it to be, nor as we are told it will be, but as it truly is. 

So, what was missed? In hindsight we can make a clear list of important items:

• • Victor was autistic and had cerebral palsy.

  • Victor was clumsy and could barely walk.

  • Victor had the mind of a 10-year-old (maybe not even that).

  • Victor could only understand simple Spanish and no English.

  • Victor was not a drunk man.

However, hindsight does not give us a clear view of what happened. The officers arriving on the scene did not and could not know any of those things. At least not at first. 

So, what could have been seen by the officers prior to the shooting?

• A man was standing next to the fence, leaning on it, and appeared only mildly concerned about the situation as he waved the police over.

• Victor was initially on the ground, rolling around, not threatening anyone with the knife (he had threatened one of the women with it, but that was prior to the officers' arrival).

• Victor had difficulty standing up.

• Victor's movements were clumsy and uncoordinated.

• There was a fence between the officers and Victor.

In short, something was just not quite "right" about the situation. It was odd. With the fence between them and Victor, the police had a barrier they could use to ensure adequate separation between them and the suspect. Unfortunately, their training and their preconceived ideas (garnered from the 911 call) blinded the officers to the oddness of the situation.

The most important asset

Had they recognized the oddness of the situation and their relative safety behind the fence they could have used the most important asset they had - time. Time to question the man leaning on the fence. Time to take a second look at Victor. Time to consider that Victor was not a "man with a knife", but a disabled boy with a dangerous plaything. Time to learn that Victor could not understand English. They would have had more than 20 seconds.

De-escalation

What about de-escalation? How would it have worked in this instance? When dealing with someone with a mental disability the process of de-escalation is different than when dealing with a normal adult.

The first step is to clear other people out of the way. This protects them, but it also reduces the sensory environment that the escalated person is experiencing. 

Next, assess the person's position in the escalation cycle. Are they angry? Are they playing inappropriately? Are they in crisis? Are they a danger to themselves? 

In this case, Victor was apparently playing inappropriately (waving around a knife) or was angry and was a danger to himself (he could accidentally cut or stab himself). In such a situation, quiet verbal commands are the first action. Notably,  yelling and shouting will only cause the person to escalate more.

If quiet verbal commands are helpful then slowly moving towards the subject is appropriate. Rushing forward to grab the subject or the knife would be counterproductive.

If the quiet commands are not helpful then physical intervention is needed. This should only be done by people who know how to firmly immobilize someone without causing pain or damage. This is not the time to use a Jiu Jitsu armbar. A police officer is not likely to have this training so moving to a less than lethal tool might be appropriate (like a taser or baton). 

Once the danger is removed, the officers would move a few steps away from the subject to allow him to further calm down. 

Note that this might cycle more than once. The subject might pick up a shovel or some other dangerous object. The subject may proceed to start hitting someone. If that happens, the process begins again.

De-escalating someone with profound mental challenges can be a long and difficult process. Whether it is someone like Victor, or a bipolar individual in a manic state, or a senior citizen with Alzheimer's de-escalation is the first step in getting them help. 

That is the most important point. Our police are trained to face threats. They are not trained to handle people with profound mental challenges. Either the police department needs to teach that set of skills or the city needs to establish another agency to address those situations. If this does not happen what happened to Victor could very well happen again.

Conclusion

While the Internet hordes have already decided the police officers are "murderers", the men who responded to that call were simply humans who made a horrible mistake. They followed their training, but their training was insufficient for a situation like Victor's. It was a perfect storm and those four officers stumbled right into it. The only thing that could have saved them from their fate, and Victor from his, was taking a few brief seconds to more completely observe and understand the scene.

While I can pick apart those brief 20 seconds from the safety of my keyboard, they will be reliving those 20 seconds for the rest of their lives while thinking, "But I did what my training told me to do. How did everything go so bad so fast?" It's likely that even with a favorable investigation their careers are over. 

Again, the officers involved are in no way absolved by the psychology of the events in question. Nor is their training an excuse for shooting Victor. Police officers are not machines, they have the ability to choose, to go beyond their training. Unfortunately, tragically, that did not happen. De-escalation was never given a chance. Victor is gone.