A good way to address this is to have objective standards and to refuse to waive them simply because the set of people who can meet those standards looks different than the population in general in terms of gender or race. If a woman possesses the requisite level of strength, physical prowess, the ability to remain calm in an emergency, etc., then fine, let her be a patrol cop. But don’t change the standards just to have more female representation.
One pattern I’ve seen in my prior career as a criminal defense attorney, and in the media reports in general, is that the cops who go overboard on force application are rarely the cops who are strong and physically imposing. There is a certain logic to this; if you feel out-muscled by a suspect, you’re probably more likely to resort to lethal force to control the situation. If Derek Chauvin had been a powerlifter with BJJ skills, would he have felt compelled to kneel on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes? I don’t know, but something tells me that answer is no.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that cops should have to be competitive powerlifters or anything of the sort. But it seems to me they should do some regular strength training, combined with regular practice in takedowns, arm bars, joint locks, etc. There are lots of ways to control a belligerent person short of lethal force.
Part of it, is that people won’t resist as much if they know there is no chance. I bet Ronnie Coleman didn’t have a lot of physical altercations as a cop, because for most people, that would be a very stupid thing to do.
Im a cop. Agree 100%. Those with little to no capabilities or confidence in their abilities tend to go overboard out of fear of failure and not necessarily malice
According to several police analysis she had the right to use deadly force. It was her reaction and admissions that got her convicted. I don’t think she deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison, but she is.
Anybody who wants to be a cop in Minnesota really needs to rethink that job. Why do a job that by it’s very nature, can land you in prison? Let the place burn itself to the ground, it’s what the people want.
I genuinely hope you live and protect a district that wants you there. If you are in some leftwing dystopia, where silence is violence and actual violence is peaceful protest, go to Florida.
I’m not sure any bjj school specifically addresses how to best pin someone who is handcuffed, but a knee pin is actually a go-to for handling practical violence and the Chauvin footage demonstrates why.
First, it achieved the pin on Floyd. Whether it was needed is another question, as is the IMO flimsy notion that the pin is what killed him.
Second, you can see how Chauvin is able to maintain the pin without using his hands or committing to the ground as you would in a side control pin, back take or full mount. A big advantage of a knee pin is that you can observe your surroundings and get back to your feet quickly if needed.
Knee pins are also a great way for smaller people to keep larger people pinned. Trying to assume full mount or side control on someone much larger than you can quickly result in losing that good position and ending up in a bad one. I’ve done that to legit black belts who just aren’t used to making a pin work on a guy my size or strength.
The best under 200 lb players I’ve sparred with keep me on my back with agile floating knee pins, crafty footwork and the knowledge to stuff my escapes before I can get one going. Knee pins are by far the most challenging for me to deal with when it comes to people who outclass me technically.
I had one visiting black belt successfully pin me for 5 minutes with a full pressure full mount. Grapevines in and he didn’t try to do anything during the round but hold mount. Didn’t even attempt a submission.
Ironically that involves even more pressure than a knee pin, as it forces you to carry 100 percent of the persons weight, mostly on your hips. Knee pins can be nasty too, but it’s not the same as getting smothered by an entire body.
Long story short, controlling and especially restraining people against their will is a real crapshoot that will forever and always be subjected to Monday morning quarterbacking by people who’ve never known violence.
Cops should still train. Knee pins should still be near the top of the list of training priorities.
Put your knee into the back of someone’s neck in bjj and see how quickly a real fight breaks out. As far as the effectiveness of the knee to keep Floyd restrained, we need to factor in other cops were holding his legs and, Floyd was on his stomach in cuffs. Once cuffed and face down, the knee was overkill. If four cops can’t keep a handcuffed, bellydown suspect from getting up and running away or attacking them, without driving his face into the pavement via a knee across the neck, they shouldn’t be considered grown men.
Did the knee kill him? Maybe not but it was unnecessary and not something you want to do with an audience holding cell phones.
LOL. Maybe at the places you trained. One place I dropped in at stopped the roll because I applied a murder choke from the inside of a guy’s guard as I had him stacked up and was working a pass. I was curious if I could murder choke him too, and I could. It was interpreted as rude and inappropriate mat behavior. Some schools are weak like that. Enjoy your tickle practice, I suppose. My instructor would wonder why you aren’t murder choking in a situation where someone will just let you do it. It ties up at least one hand, forces a reaction and opens up a lot of options in certain situations if you’re careful with extending your arms.
Where I train it’s pretty much all on the table sans striking, which simply needs to be agreed to beforehand (usually slaps and light palm strikes). If somehow a knee ended up on a neck during a scramble I can assure you that there would be no fights, the roll would continue on as usual. If you imagine a knee on the back of your neck being bad (or even rude/inappropriate), I’d encourage you to ask a blackbelt to introduce you to the concept of jaw pressure with, you guessed it, a knee across your face. Or roll with a SHW and learn what positional asphyxiation is like. All normal stuff on the mats I’ve trained on. Jaw pressure, smothers, murder chokes, knees pinning wherever you can is all totally fair game.
Besides, knee on the back of the neck isn’t particularly practical in BJJ, because why not take the back instead at that point?
That’s why I pointed out the questionable necessity of any pin at all with a handcuffed guy on the ground, but if you’re going to pin a handcuffed guy on the ground, there are many pins far more miserable than a knee across the top of the back and/or even the neck area. Handling a guy in cuffs is really more of a police procedure thing, no sophisticated grappling is needed at that point.
The point is that knee pins are a vital part of competence in applied grappling. If someone is wishing for cops to be better equipped to produce better outcomes in their work, that someone should wish for more cops with more knee pins being done on the job.
I can understand why someone might misinterpret this, so please allow me to clarify what I meant.
Obviously the eventual outcome was terrible for all parties involved, especially the dead criminal who was unfortunate enough to find himself subject to Officer Chauvin’s poor judgement that day. I don’t think this is how George Floyd expected his day to go after he decided to consume a staggering amount of drugs.
Don’t let that sour you on the knee pin.
Knee pins matter. They actually matter a lot, if competence in grappling is ever to be achieved among the broader LEO community. The negative symbolism surrounding knee pins resulting from the Chauvin trial and surrounding media spectacle is deeply problematic in my opinion.
To conclude my long-winded, multi-post reply to this question, I’m going to both agree with you and give your post a well-deserved like.
Generally fitting the bill of what you describe, I always looked for the least amount of force to get the job done under conditions I felt okay with regarding my safety. Dealing with a handcuffed guy on the ground is a police procedure issue, IMO. Like all other chippy situations, the best response will depend on the totality of the situation.
I’d like to think that if I had been there, I’d have a better idea than a knee pin and the courage to assert my will in that situation. It is all a game of “see what they do” when you’re dealing with people who are rocked out of their gourd. Maybe it all works out great if they just let him do whatever he does, thrashing about on the ground, or maybe he’s chill. Maybe they can control his legs and ride out the kicks. Maybe there are no kicks. You have to read the reactions of whoever it is that’s experiencing this state of extreme inebriation that’s usually accompanied by severe mental and emotional distress.
Then you need to decide what you’re going to do about it, and then do it. This is where IMO police procedure comes in, not BJJ.
There are very gentle ways you can control someone, but those only work when they do. When they don’t, practical grappling centers around pressure, discomfort, and limiting the other person’s movement by whatever means are safest for you.
Like a knee pin.
I just felt like knee pins needed some advocacy, I suppose.
Do you answer calls in areas where you know they have called to defund you? I am just curious. I wouldn’t. Or wouldn’t until after the fact, at least. Because if you have to act, there is a high probability you would be the one going to jail when the shit hit the fan. It’s better to just clean up the bodies.
Im on SWAT. We’re nearly 100% proactive. Rarely handle radio assignments. But we would still answer the call even for the rejects that hate us. The tide might be turning. I think enough people are starting to see how moronic the defund nonsense is.
Don’t under estimate the power of stupidity. You have seen it on full display the past 2 years. People aren’t afraid of cutting off their noses to spite their face. They happily do it. Did you see that San Fran politician who got mugged or car jacked or something like that and then came back and doubled down on the defund crap? That’s the mentality people have.
Just don’t deal with folks who are a different race than yourself. Regardless of how perfectly you handle the situation, you will be called a racist. And if the asshole happens to die, you could spend life in prison for it. I mean it just happened, we’re talking about it right now.
Regardless of what you think of this woman, the suspect was asking for deadly force to be used by being violent with the police and having a pretty spectacular criminal record. But she’s now a convicted felon for doing her job. I don’t want to see that happen to you.
I hope the tide does change, but I wouldn’t put my faith in that if I were you. You do a job where a tiny split second of time and the slightest of mistakes in the highest of stressful situations make you a sitting duck for a political hit job.
Yes. And see if you are still training in 10 years. Or rather, are able to train in 10 years. Training is for improving technique, it’s not life or death, win at all costs.
And do you do that to kids and women who train there? Or white belts you outweigh by 50 pounds or more? I could do all of those things but I don’t need to because I have technical skill and I train with people who I consider friends. All of those things will still be there if I need them. In training, I don’t need them.
These are things I’ve learned from guys who didn’t train bjj for sport. They didn’t train for mma. They go back to when it was vale tudo.