While providing close protection, residential security, special event or meeting security could you end up restraining some one? Yes! And you need to be very careful especially at high-profile events where your every move will be being videoed, and possible live streamed on social media. Don’t become famous for the wrong reasons… Learn the basics of conflict resolution, how to safely restrain someone and understand the laws for the area your working in.
I am sure you have all heard the Black Lives Matter slogan of “I Can’t Breathe” that was adopted after several high-profile deaths of black males who were being detained by American law enforcement personnel.
What amazed me when watching the numerous videos of these incidents was the obvious lack of basic training of the law enforcement personnel in restraint techniques. And also, why were they not interested in learning from the mistakes made in previous questionable, controversial, and fatal incidents?
I have heard the arguments that those that died were “Career Criminals” and should not have resisted the police, so they got what they deserved. Maybe so in some people’s eyes, but I am not really comfortable with the idea that a police force can just kill or abuse someone because they view the person as being an undesirable. Remember, we are all an undesirable is someone’s eyes! A police force is a civil service and must work within the law, and for the law, to maintain the respect of the people, if they do otherwise and break the law then they are just another street gang.
I also do not believe that these high-profile deaths were racially motivated as the mainstream media has overly promoted but were the result of untrained or wrongly trained police personnel. For a start they obviously had no understanding of the consequences of positional asphyxia and neck restraints.
It’s a basic fact that when you are physically restraining or controlling a person, they will try to resist to some extent, that’s basic human nature. If they have been drinking alcohol, taking illegal drugs or are on medications, they can struggle a lot more as their thought process is confused. What can appear to be an aggressive response can be put down to the fact the person is scared, confused, panicking, in a state of excited delirium, having mental health issues or suffering from a medical emergency like diabetes. This is where all potentially hostile situations must be dealt with calmly and initially deescalated as much as possible before any reasonable legal force is used. I will explain more about excited delirium in the following paragraphs.
Now, the problems of positional asphyxia, excited delirium and the issues of using neck restraints has been common knowledge to me for many years. They are what I understand to be basic topics for use of force for security and police personnel. So, why are these highly trained and best of the best American police officers apparently so ignorant to such basics?
The technical notes for this chapter I compiled over 26 years ago when I was trying to put together a course program for running the door supervisor (bouncer) licensing courses in UK, when the industry was regulated at the local council level. I never got around to applying to run the courses as I relocated from London to Miami. At that time the idea of the UK SIA was being talked about, as was the fact the licensing requirements and courses would be changing completely in near the future. Nevertheless, the draft of the training manual I put together has proved useful on many other occasions.
When I was in London, I worked freelance and also ran my own security and investigation company. I worked in and provided security and close protection in all flavors of venues, some very colorful and some very shady. When I started providing door supervisors and guards all the new guys I employed were given a printout detailing the basic UK laws that were applicable and the basics of use of force such as dealing with the police, wording statements, positional asphyxia, excited delirium and the issues of using neck restraints. There is a citizen’s arrest law in UK and if detaining people you have to be extremely careful. If someone died while you were detaining them, I am sure it would be an immediate manslaughter charge to start with and if they were excessively injured a possible murder charge.
In the UK door supervisors and event staff working in venues where alcohol was being served have needed to be licensed since at least the early 1990’s. From what I understand the licenses were brought in to push organized criminals out of the business of running the security for bars and nightclubs. Another basic fact, if you control the security for a venue, you can control the drug dealing etc. etc. etc.
I was surprised when I reached the US that the security licensing regulations did not apply to the bar and club sectors. When I mentioned this to a member of Florida Department of Agriculture, the State Department the regulates the security industry in Florida, he laughed at me dismissively and his response was something like “Why do bouncers need training and regulating”. I got very used to dealing with the arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence of such people while I was living in the U.S. for 18 years.
If any sector of the security industry should be regulated it’s the bar, club, and hospitality sector. Why? Because the guards are dealing with drunks, drugs, and violence on a regular basis. But I suppose in Miami such things as drug abuse, prostitution, sexual assaults, organized crime, drunks and violence in bars and clubs doesn’t happen. And if it did ever happen it would be best to ignore the problem, then you do not have to deal with it right?
Meanwhile in Miami – Cannibal Attack
On May 26, 2012, Rudy Eugene attacked and maimed Ronald Poppo, a homeless man, on the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, Florida. During the 18-minute filmed encounter, Eugene accused Poppo of stealing his Bible, beat him unconscious, removed Poppo’s pants, and bit off most of Poppo’s face above the beard (including his left eye), leaving him blind in both eyes… @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_cannibal_attack
The arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence of many supposed experts and government licensing officials in U.S. never ceased to amaze me… Very much a culture that is in denial of reality and hears no evil, sees no evil, and speaks no evil… If you do acknowledge a problem, then it’s not a problem, right? Understand this ad you will begin to understand American bureaucracy.
Excited Delirium
On a basic level whenever approaching or being approached by someone where a physical confrontation could take place, in addition to assessing your surroundings you need to be checking their body language. You need to be assessing if they are agitated, armed, drunk, medicated or drugged as this will help you prepare your response to any aggression, and sometimes these assessments need to be done in a matter of seconds.
The following information is from British Police guidelines on assessing and dealing with excited delirium. Since these notes were taken over 26 years ago other drugs such as Bath Salts and Fentanyl have come onto the market and can cause excited delirium in those stupid enough to knowingly take them or are unfortunate enough to be given them without knowing.
Excited delirium is when someone displays violent, bizarre, and manic behavior rather than only being violent. Excited delirium, or delirious mania, is a form of severe mania sometimes considered part of the spectrum of manic-depressive psychosis and chronic schizophrenia.
Excited Delirium Can Be Caused By
• Psychiatric illness
• Drugs, of which cocaine is the best-known cause
• Alcohol
• A combination of drugs, alcohol, and psychiatric illness
Excited Delirium Symptoms
• Bizarre and/or violent behavior
• Impaired thinking
• Confusion
• Hallucinations
• Acute onset of paranoia
• Panic
• Shouting
• Violence towards others
• Unexpected physical strength
• Significantly diminished sense of pain
• Sweating, fever, heat intolerance
• Sudden calm after frantic activity
These signs can be common to anyone behaving violently. People suffering from excited delirium can die suddenly, during, or after a violent struggle. Death is most likely to occur in two ways:
• The state of excited delirium causes the suspect to have cardiac pains.
• The efforts to avoid being restrained makes an ‘excited delirium’ suspect at greater risk from positional asphyxia.
Dealing With A Case Of Excited Delirium
It’s imperative that you recognize the difference between excited delirium and an ordinary violent flare-up. If you believe that someone is suffering from excited delirium, your next problem is of how to handle them without endangering themselves and others. This will be very challenging. The police must be called immediately. You will almost certainly have to place the person face down on the ground, in order to them restrained safely before the police arrive.
The risk of positional asphyxia is far greater than for that of a normal violent person. They will struggle beyond their point of exhaustion. When they are under your control, do not hold them face down, but move them onto their side, or into a sitting, kneeling, or standing position as soon as it is possible to do so. It can be expected that they will continue to struggle violently. You must get them off their stomach as soon as you can.
You must supervise them carefully and treat them as a medical emergency. Be aware they could collapse and die at any time. They can collapse very suddenly and attempts to resuscitate them usually prove to be unsuccessful. If you think you are dealing with an excited delirium case inform the police as soon as they arrive. The police will then need to get them to a hospital…
So, these were the basic guidelines in UK in the mid 1990’s for door supervisors and police etc. I take it such information never made it across the Atlantic…
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Truth Only Has Few Friends 