Tactical Communication: The Difference Between Fiction and Reality

By Micki Browning

Law enforcement officers receive a tremendous amount of training throughout their careers–my police academy alone was 852 hours. But if popular culture is to be believed, the only training cops use consists of driving (fast), shooting (weapons that never needed reloading), defensive tactics (often outnumbered and sustaining nary a scrape), and how to drink coffee and eat certain deep-fried dough products (without spilling or getting powdered sugar on our uniforms).

What’s often overlooked is the amount of communication training officers receive. The truth is cops spend the majority of their time talking to people—and the better officers are at communicating, the more effective they are in their job. 

It’s no surprise that there are people who don’t want to talk to the police and on any given call, the level of danger an officer faces can quickly escalate. Officers are trained to react to resistance and redirect it when it’s encountered. Writers and films are quick to portray officers jumping to a physical confrontation, but while that makes for great entertainment, it’s not the appropriate response when the resistance is merely verbal—at least not at first. But cops are human—and I speak from personal experience, here—we tend to be a sarcastic lot. Again, great for on-the-page banter, but rarely appreciated by someone who is in genuine crisis.

I know the importance of words. I retired as a police commander after serving twenty-two years as a municipal cop. Twelve of those years, I held an ancillary position as a crisis negotiator. I also taught Tactical Communications at the academy, and now I’m a writer. Words can cut, but more importantly, they can heal.

Officers learn many communication strategies over the course of their careers, and the overarching goal is to gain voluntary compliance. Dr. George L. Thompson formalized one strategy that was taught to over a million officers as Verbal Judo. 

To see it in action, let’s look at a contact made during a traffic stop. While assessing the scene for safety concerns, the officer greets the driver, identifies herself (or himself) and her agency, and informs the driver why he was stopped. Now the officer needs something—the driver’s license. Like a sales pitch, it all begins with the ask.

Fortunately, the vast majority of people cooperate with law enforcement officers. When asked for a driver’s license, most individuals will produce it with a nervous smile. 

But just for fun, let’s suppose the driver doesn’t…

It’s human nature to want to know the reason behind a request. In this scenario, the driver’s question is why should I give you my license? This is where cocky officers go off the rails. As in parenting, “Because I said so” rarely produces the desired result. But driving is a privilege and not a right and taking a quick moment to explain that the law requires motor vehicle operators to present their license to peace officers upon demand is usually all that is necessary to resolve that initial conflict.

But our hypothetical driver doesn’t care….

Now it’s time to let your inner rhetorician run amok and explain to the driver about all the unpleasant consequences that could  happen based on his refusal to present his license. Rather than a simple driving infraction, the driver is about to graduate to a misdemeanor offense. Misdemeanor offenses can land a person in jail. If he gets arrested, his car will be towed. Tow fees are expensive. Not to mention, the driver is going to miss dinner.

But if he remains unconvinced…

Without any dramatic eye rolls, the officer simply confirms that the driver would rather be subjected to the above consequences than provide his license. Common sense usually prevails by this point.

But if he lacks common sense….

Cops don’t bluff. The violator is going to jail. 

Fiction versus Reality

Less than ten percent of communication is accomplished by the actual words that are spoken. Voice intonation communicates more of the message, but if you want to know what someone really means, watch their body language—especially when it contradicts the words being spoken. 

On some level, everyone recognizes non-verbal cues. These cues are what writers use to convey what’s really happening between two people. Imagine how a person stands. What expression crosses her face? Is she making eye contact? What does she do with her hands? These are all clues about how open or disingenuous that person is being at that moment in time. 

We’ve all said things in anger. Cops can’t afford to do that. Controlling situations with words that are defensible in court coupled with command presence means not having to fight someone into handcuffs. In real life this is good. In fiction? Maybe not. As an author, I’ve written characters that react badly toward anyone who challenged his or her authority. But let me assure you, on the street, it’s much better to have the skills to stay on track, remain unruffled, and get the job done.  

Safely.—

This article has been updated. The original version appeared on Murder Books Blog.

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M.E. BROWNING served twenty-two years in law enforcement and retired as a captain before turning to a life of crime fiction. Writing as Micki Browning, she penned the Agatha-nominated and award-winning Mer Cavallo mysteries, and her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in anthologies, magazines, and textbooks. As M.E. Browning, she recently began a new series of Jo Wyatt mysteries with Shadow Ridge. Micki is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and Mystery Writers of America. www.mebrowning.com

Social Media Links:

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Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/m-e-browning

About Shadow Ridge:

Death is one click away when a string of murders rocks a small Colorado town in the first mesmerizing novel in M. E. Browning’s A Jo Wyatt Mystery series.

Echo Valley, Colorado, is a place where the natural beauty of a stunning river valley meets a budding hipster urbanity. But when an internet stalker is revealed to be a cold-blooded killer in real life the peaceful community is rocked to its core.

It should have been an open-and-shut case: the suicide of Tye Horton, the designer of a cutting-edge video game. But Detective Jo Wyatt is immediately suspicious of Quinn Kirkwood, who reported the death. When Quinn reveals an internet stalker is terrorizing her, Jo is skeptical. Doubts aside, she delves into the claim and uncovers a link that ties Quinn to a small group of beta-testers who had worked with Horton. When a second member of the group dies in a car accident, Jo’s investigation leads her to the father of a young man who had killed himself a year earlier. But there’s more to this case than a suicide, and as Jo unearths the layers, a more sinister pattern begins to emerge–one driven by desperation, shame, and a single-minded drive for revenge.

As Jo closes in, she edges ever closer to the shattering truth–and a deadly showdown that will put her to the ultimate test.

Buy Link:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/652789/shadow-ridge-by-m-e-browning/

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