Grand Jury
Second Judicial Circuit
06/23/2014
Edification Testimony
Lt. James Fairfield

My role
• To serve as a translator for those of you
unfamiliar with the terminology, codes,
signals, and acronyms you may hear
during testimony.
• To expose you to what the officers are
trained to do and why they are trained
that way.
• To provide you an interactive source for
tactical, training and technical information.

Terms
Words and phrases used at the scene of the
event that may not be familiar.
• Radio Codes, signals, and responses
• Names for tactics
• Names for specific tasks

Tools
• The radio – The Motorola MTS1000 with
shoulder microphone.
• The Taser – A battery powered probe
firing electrical impulse device.
• The Handgun – Glock Model 22 .40 Caliber
• The Patrol Rifle – a semi-automatic .223
Caliber rifle in the “AR” style configuration.

Training
• Tool manipulation – The radio, the Taser,
and the firearm.
• Use of Force – Federal law, State law, and
Agency Policy.
• Understanding the limitations of human
reaction time and the physiological effects
of stress.

Training – Use of force
Based on guidelines provided by:
• The United States Constitution
The 4th, 5th, 8th, 14th amendments
• Florida State Statute
FSS 776.05
• Agency Policy and the Use of Force Matrix
recommended by the State of Florida.
General Orders
CJST / FDLE Matrix

The Agency’s policy:
• All policy is created with due regard for
current law and industry standards.
• An agency who intentionally creates policy
that violates law sets themselves up to be
sued.
• The policy can be more restrictive than
the law and therefore provide an agency
some buffer room to be really careful not
to break the law.

TPD Use of Force Policy G.O. 60
•
•

Deadly Force - Any force that is likely to
cause great bodily harm or death.
Officers may use deadly force only when
they reasonably believe it is necessary to
prevent great bodily harm to themselves
or another person, or defend their life or
the life of another person.

The firearm
• Due to the anticipated effect of their application,
it’s use is more restricted than any other tool.
• It is the only force measure specifically defined
as “deadly force” in state statute.
• Officers are instructed to fire their weapons at
the center of the mass of the intended available
target area.
• Shooting to wound is not specifically prohibited,
but it also not trained. The luxury of being able
to carefully aim for non-center mass shot
without unduly risking innocent life rarely exists.

The handgun is a “defensive tool.”
• The firing of a shot, is just making your weapon
go “bang.”
• We are trained to continue to evaluate and keep
firing until we recognize that it is safe to stop.
• Pistols are carried for convenience, not for effect.
We thankfully can not currently justify carrying
shoulder fired weapons at the ready as they do in
some foreign countries.
• The Military police carry pistols, because they are
policing soldiers on the same team. When they
are at war, shooting at the other team, they carry
rifles.

Human performance under
stress
Understanding the limits of
stimulus responses and their
impact on events.

Predictions
• The time to manifest a single response to
a single stimulus can be measured.
• More complicated movements, adds time.
• Multiple stimuli (discernment) can cause
actions to initiate without justification.
• Multiple response options to multiple
stimuli creates “lag time.”
• Actions, once initiated, can sometimes not
be stopped.

The shot timer
• A shot timer provides an audible signal to tell
you to initiate a response
• Because its called a “shot” timer you can
probably guess that it uses a sensor to
capture shots, or rather the sound wave that
shots create.
• We can fool the sensor into capturing things
other than shots and that helps us
understand how long a “reaction” takes.
• So that is what we will do together now.

What can we extrapolate from a single
stimulus applied to a complicated
response?
• An officer recognizes deadly threat (1/4), and
indexes their weapon (1/4).
• They release the safety devices (1/4) and lift the
weapon free of the holster(1/4).
• They extend it towards the target (1/4) and pull
the trigger as they confirm their sights (1/4).
• Total predicted time for first shot = 1.5 seconds

A man with a knife
• Where does it start to feel unsafe? –
setting the stage
• Does that match up with reality?
• Reality includes sanctions for failure.
• Base line physiological indicators.

Proper response, confusing outcomes.
• One of the events today involves a subject
running away.
• Does that mean they are no longer
dangerous to the officer?
• Cowboy code of the west – no shooting in
the back.
• Again – recognition and application can be
worlds apart.

The Bop it - Discernment
• It is easy when you know both what is
coming and exactly what to do when it does.
• It is less easy when several things come but
you are only supposed to respond to a
specific one of them.
• At best you take the time to fully process
what stimulus you just received and just
react more slowly.
• At worst you react quickly but initiate a
response that does not match the stimulus.

Squirrels, Snakes, and loose change
• “I swerved to avoid hitting a squirrel.”
• “A snake is a snake, and there is no such
thing as a good one.”
• Coin sorter effect

Fair is where the rides are….
• If action is faster than re-action, how do
we improve our odds?
• We start reacting to signature or furtive
movements.
• We are predicting the future.
• We keep reacting until some compelling
stimulus redirects us or tells us to stop.
• Sometimes the physical and mental inertia
makes it impossible for us to stop.

Start / Stop stimulus
• We are going to use a weapon simulator
to see how fast one of you can fire it.
• I understand you are likely not trained to
operate the weapon and are not in fear so
will give you a few attempts.
• We will let you shoot a long string to get
the rhythm.
• Who is my volunteer?

Now that we have a speed norm
• We are going to shoot this drill again.
• We are going to compare past speed to
current speed to make sure nobody is
sandbagging.
• We want to be shooting as fast a possible.
• However, this time we are going to have a
second stimulus tell you when to stop
shooting.

What we find typically
• Depending on where the shooter is in the
stroke of the trigger we see between 1
and 3 shots after the stop cue.
• It simply takes some time for the brain to
turn off what it, just an instant ago,
regarded as a very important signal to the
finger.

Here is a real weapon string.

Actual weapon results
• The fastest draw was 1.19 seconds.
• The fastest all 9 rounds were fired was 1.24
seconds.
• The fastest overall time to draw and fire all 9
rounds was 2.52 seconds.
• We don’t know how long it took to decide to
draw, but we can estimate the duration of
the shots.
• In one of the cases you hear today the
witness recall only hearing 5 shots, so there
was likely little dwell between shots.

A moving target
• We already spoke about turns.
• We did not address how far something or
someone can travel from time of decision to
the time of actual application.
• Since we are at short range we are not going
to delve into how far a target may move
while a bullet is actually in flight.
• We are just dealing with how far it moves
before or during the thought and mechanical
firing process.

A person
• Lets assume a 15 second hundred yard
dash time (300 feet / 15 seconds = 20
feet per second.)
• At a minimum ½ second reaction time the
person would have covered 10 feet.
• Assuming a basic “split” between shots of
¼ second a target would travel another 5
feet before the second shot.

A vehicle
• The Dodge Charger involved in the case
today has a 6.5 second 0-60 with the
smallest base engine.
• At 25MPH the vehicle will travel 36.66 FPS.
• That’s 18 feet in the first ½ second or
essentially three vehicle lengths closer in just
the time it takes to draw and fire one shot.
• Assuming a basic “split” between shots of ¼
second a target would travel 9 feet between
shots.

Projectile Paths 2011

29

So why did he not stop shooting
once the car had missed him?
• We have a panic initiation of the firing string.
• The firing starts, but there is no feedback from the
target to indicate previous rounds had worked.
• If we consider an optimal recognition of that the
threat is over, it will be at least ½ second.
• That’s at least two shots but possibly 3+ before
sending the mental signal to disconnect from the
trigger.
• Consider just the rounds fired at the rear, then we
are dissecting how much thought can take place in
.60-.75 of a second.

How does that compare to what we
can predict, or re-create?
• We know from scientific study and
experience that there will be profound
physiological response to this level of
stress.
• We know the types of bodily responses
that manifest themselves under this level
of stress
• We know that precise recall is severely
effected during events such as this.

Knowing what we know now… post
event questions
• We ask if the officer’s response could have been
predicted based upon how they were trained.
• We ask if there was something missing from
their training that failed to prepare them to
lawfully deal with the event.
• We ask if there was a failure in any of our tools
that were utilized.
• We ask if there was a tool that was needed but
not available.
• We ask if the same scenario manifested itself
tomorrow would the outcome be the same.

The final four…..
Ability or apparent ability – without hindsight, did
they have or appear to have the ability to cause
great bodily harm or death?
Opportunity – Is there someone present within the
range of there ability?
Immediacy – Is the danger present right now or
growing more grave at the moment of decision?
Preclusion – Does the situation present such a
danger that to consider or attempt lesser
measures would prolong the peril?

34

Materials
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Memory Drives
Remote control
Power cord / extension / computer
Shot timer / batteries
Mock Knife
Safety lenses
Two blank fire / blanks
Weapon simulator for stop stimulus
Cover jacket