Blog 23 - Exit Interview Prep

For any high risk crime there must be an inner and outer perimeter around the scene. 

Content:

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers? What is your best answer and why?

• My essential question is, "How can a Police Officer make safe and ethical calls in high pressure situations?". My three answers to my essential question are: training, experience and character. My best answer is training and that is because the more training a Police Officer has the better they will get at handling calls for service or staying calm in a high pressure situation. Police Officer with more training make better decisions that will lead to a positive outcome. 

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

• Through all my research, ridealongs, and attending my Explorer meetings I came to the conclusion that training in fact is an important factor to the life of a Police Officer. The more they train the better they get at assisting with calls for service and the easier it will be to solve situations. During my ridealongs I would see a difference between a Field Training Officer and their trainee. Both would react to the situation differently but the trainee would have a difficult time at proceeding forward with the situation. As for the Field Training Officer who would be able to make a judgement call much faster. The reason being is due to the exposure and training he's had for some years now. As the trainee keeps learning and training in different tactics and ways to approach a situation he or she will soon discover that training makes perfect and everybody has their own way of solving a situation. In my Explorer meetings,we are constantly training and the way we put our training to the test is by participating in different explorer competitions that have a simulation of real world situations that a Police Officer may deal with. Such situations may be as simple as a traffic stop violation or as difficult as an active shooter. We train under pressure but in order to make good decisions we must know the basics of each situation and the tactics that may be used to properly execute a decision and make a move. 

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

• When doing research I would find articles that would repeat the same information as the ones that I had previously read. So, most of the information would repeat itself in different articles. That was a big problem because I was always trying to find some different information that I had not know about. It was suggested to me that I should not only rely on articles for research but also use other sources. I then started to read other sources such as journals, online magazines, books, and blogs. Another problem that I bumped into was the different Police Officers that I rode with. I always tried to ride with different Police Officers but the problem was my schedule and the timing of the ridealong. I only do full shifts which varies from 10-12 hours. I knew I had to ride with different Police Officer so I can see a different perspective. The way I solved this issue was by carefully planning my whole schedule for the week and adjusting it if needed. That way I could make some time for my ridealongs and actually be able to ride with other Police Officers. 

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

• The one significant source that I used to answer my essential question was the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking written by Malcolm Gladwell. The book blink was a recommended source by my teacher. The reason why it is such a significant source is due to the story of an individual having contact with the Police and the poor decision making made by Law enforcement. In the book every single step made is explained fairly well and the reason behind why those Police Officers made those decisions that were improperly executed. Another important source that helped me answering my essential question is the article, Performing under pressure: Gaze control, decision making and shooting performance of elite and rookie police officers written by Joan N. Vickers and William Lewinski. The article itself explained fairly well how the mind tends to react to high pressure situation and the decision making involved. There are also different examples of scenarios that a Police Officer was involved as well as different research on the performance of Police Officers under high pressure situations. 

The SWAT Team are the ones who constantly train and are exposed to the most dangerous crimes such as high risk search warrants, hostage situations, barricaded subjects, and other high risk situations. 

Be prepared with evidence and specific examples to support any response. It is also significant to cite sources as you explain.