Deadly Error #10: Apathy

I began this blog last year by talking about the 10 Deadly Errors as listed by the great Pierce Brooks in his book, "Officer Down, Code Three!"  I want to remind all the officers or police trainers out there to get this book.  A lot of the police survival training movement got it's start with this very book.  If you can find it, buy it.  I purchased mine from Amazon.  I just saw one for sale on Amazon Prime for $9.98 which is far less than what paid for mine.


In his book, Brooks listed what he found was the 10 most deadly errors that police officers make.  This wasn't some collection of thoughts out of thin air.  These errors were what he personally saw as a homicide detective for Los Angeles Police Department when he investigated the murders of LAPD officers.  To remind everyone, here they are:


1) Failure to maintain proficiency and care of weapon, vehicle, and equipment

2) Improper search and use of handcuffs

3) Sleepy or asleep

4) Relaxing too soon

5) Missing the danger signs

6) Taking a bad position

7) Failure to watch their hands

8) Tombstone courage

9) Preoccupation

10) Apathy


I have covered the first 9 in prior postings.  Today, I want to finish up with the #10, Apathy.  Based on my experience, there are two motivating factors driving Apathy.  One is denial.  I have seen denial in officers at all levels of experience.  They use it as an excuse to not wear their bulletproof vests.  They use it as an excuse to check an open door by themselves.  They use it as an excuse to do many things unsafely.  For officers like me, from smaller cities, I think apathy comes from an attitude of, "It will never happen here."  They think police officer murders only occur in "the big cities" and will have happen in our town.  This is why whenever I see a report of an officer murdered, wounded, or seriously attacked I look at the size of the community where it happened. 


One can look at the murder of Chief Chloe Francis "Frankie" Stanton on August 28, 1998 in Bradshaw, WV to debunk this.  This town of under 400 people saw her get murdered by a man she had already taken a gun off of.  He later pulled out a 2nd gun and shot her in the head.  What else other than apathy could this be?  Small towns and communities are not immune.


The other kind of apathy is usually the senior officer who has lost their spark.  Often, it's life that has knocked them down.  Divorce, financial problems, problems at work, one or all the above, or a host of other problems can lead to this.  Simply, they just cease to care about the job.  This is a recipe for disaster.  Even if they don't have some officer safety issue, apathy can manifest itself in other ways.  If they are a supervisor, they can fail to lead others properly.  They fail to check a subordinate's reports.  This allows junior officers to get in to trouble.  Instead of leading by example or intervening early on in a situation, they stand idly by.  They justify this by saying, "They need to learn on their own.  I did."  To digress a bit, I know the millennial officer can be hard at times.   No matter how hard it seems to be to get through to them, we can't cease to try.


The bottom line is, apathy is dangerous.  Police work is serious business in a town of 400 or 4 million.  My city has a population of around 11,000 people.  In the areas near the city sharing the same zip code, there is a population of about 15,000 more people.  We have needs as a police department.  While we can't justify the purchase of a $1 million mobile command post, but we do need things like bullet proof vests, quality sidearms, quality long-guns, and quality training.  Luckily, our city council hasn't bucked our requests for these basic safety items.  This isn't always true in other cities in my area or across the nation.


The apathetic officer is an undependable officer.  Sometimes you need someone to go that extra mile.  Good enough, sometimes isn't good enough.


Regardless of the equipment you are given, the ultimate piece of safety equipment is your brain.  It controls your attitude and your approach to a given situation.  You control YOU!  Make a conscious effort to CARE about your safety, that of your fellow officers, and that of the community!