Fear is the natural, automatic response to one’s perception that he/she is in a dangerous situation. The key here is the officer’s perception based on the degree of “preparedness” training. An inexperienced officer may experience fear when in fact no threat of danger exists. Even a seasoned officer may become fearful if his/her emotional or mental faculties are in any way diminished, impaired or distracted.

Reasonable fear is common to all officers. It can be triggered by legitimately dangerous situations: conducting a building search at night for an armed suspect, confronted by a mentally ill person predisposed toward violence or facing an armed attacker. Therefore, reasonable fear is a survival technique. It can be thought of as your mind sending warning signals to the rest of your body. You can expect an adrenalin dump when the individual you are engaged with tells you in not so many words that he is not going to do what you say. In essence, “Make Me!”

However, here is a distinct difference between controlled, legitimate and manageable fear, and uncontrolled panic. Uncontrolled and inappropriate fear is not only unreasonable, but dangerous to the officer and everyone in his immediate environment. It is this sort of fear for which officers make take inappropriate action or use excessive force. For situations like these, the legal ramification can be enormous for a law enforcement, correctional agency and the community. It is essential that officers and their supervisors develop techniques to distinguish between these two types of fear, to determine how fear affects a trained officer’s responses and to evaluate what preventive steps should be taken.

What is Fear: Fear is a system overload stimulated by your perception of the perceived danger or threat. Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat and officers may incorrectly perceive fear and have a constant apprehensive approach to the day. The human body copes with stress with the aid of two main hormones, DHEA and Cortisol. An imbalance of these forces put your body in a great disadvantage for handling stressful situations.

“Fear is the instinct of self preservation to danger. All animals feel fear. Of all the emotions that we possess, fear is the most important to our survival.” Lord Morgan, Anatomy of Courage.

“Fear is a neural circuit that has been designed to keep an organism alive in dangerous situations.” Dr. Joseph LeDoux

Perception of a threat, Awareness or perception of threat vulnerability, Evaluation of the threat itself, Decisions to take action, the action itself and then Survival mode. Unreasonable fear is a fear generated in the officer’s mind that has no direct correlation to the facts or situation at hand. There are seven (7) general causes of unreasonable fear such as:

Fear of doing physical harm: can be caused by other types of disorders or anxiety when the threat may or may not be there. Fear caused by cultural background, family influence, and religious influence. Although a reality, many people involved in combative training have not “really” internalized or thought about having to take a life or seriously injure another person. 1) If the level of force is justified, the officer may use anything capable to deliver the necessary force. 2) Potential injury to the aggressor should not deter the necessary lawful use of force. 3) The individual aggressor always dictates the amount of force to be utilized; therefore the individual is responsible for any injury that may occur while resisting. 4) It is incumbent on the officer to overcome the individual’s resistance quickly, to minimize the potential for injury, or degree of injury, to themselves or the offender.

Psychological fear: Caused by being impacted to the point of system overload because of noise, situation, numbers of people. If one does not come to grips with this issue and mentally prepare for altercations one will fail to act, or act incorrectly, in such a situation. Build a phrase or affirmation to use when you start to feel fear. This acknowledges the onset of your fear, and your action to manage it. This might be as simple as “(name), BREATHE, You can do this” or “One step at a time.” There is more than one word for “fear.” One of them is “excitement.” Another is “challenge.” Some officers prefer “exhilaration.” Be aware that what others may report as “scary” may not seem so to you. Hold to your own judgment and don’t let dramatic reports throw you off until you have been able to see for yourself what your natural reaction will be. YOUR GOAL IS NOT TO BE WITHOUT FEAR, BUT TO MANAGE IT!

Positional Fear: Caused by the lack of preparation, training or not personally suited for the task. Some individuals freak out if they find themselves on the ground or in a headlock. Training will correct this type of fear. It can also occur when the brain receives contradictory information from its motion sensors—the eyes, the semicircular canals, and the muscle sensors (nerve endings in muscles and joints that provide information about body position).

Racial Fear: Caused by lack of contact, rumor, gravity to ones own ethnic group, politics and power, or lack of power. This however politically correct racial differences are a real fear. Even with the strides taken forward as it relates to racial equality there is still an invisible divide that moves us to congregate among those of same race. Our laws may be color blind, but our fantasies, fears and imagination most emphatically are not.

Cultural Fear: Caused by a lack of exposure, failure to understand, mannerisms, “Haves look down on the have not’s” resent and reject. “A cultural war is raging across our land-storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and what we believe.” “Ask the Romans if powerful nations have ever fallen as a result of cultural division. There are ruins around the world that were once the smug centers of small-minded, arrogant elitism. It appears that, rather than evaporate in the flash of a split atom, we may succumb to a divided culture!” Charlton Heston

Peer Disapproval: A desire to be accepted leads to fear of being rejected; fear of rejection can create a system overload. You may feel as if you are being graded on your courage and dynamics of profession. We all want to admire a superstar and the one who is above the bar, but don’t let this desire lead you into something that is wrong and unsafe.

Fear of Physical Harm: This is the type of fear officers fail to often articulate. We cannot always control our environment in which we work but we can control our responses to that environment like controlling breathing, remaining calm and professional, using our instincts, and knowing our limitations. John Wayne is no longer among us and Dirty Harry would have been sued out of the agency. This works well to document the reason you did what you did was because you were afraid. It makes you seem human and not robotic.

Perception: The officer observes the scene and the elements of the situation. These create an impression on the officer’s senses. Facts, Circumstances, Legalities, Available Resources, Back up, Fear, History, Confrontation dynamics, Reaction, Time, Situational awareness, Mr. Murphy. From these impressions; the officer makes an…

Evaluation: The officer integrates the impressions observed with his knowledge, experience, and training. At this point, the officer processes information as rapidly as he must, given the situation. The proper use of force is based on split second judgments in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving. At the appropriate time, the officer then makes a…

Decision: The officer selects from among alternative courses of action based on the evaluation process. This is the most crucial point in the incident because subsequent events will flow from the decision reached. The courses of action available again reflect the officer’s experience and training. Once the decision is taken, new information (perceptions) or re-evaluation may cause the officer to pause and reach a different decision. But at some point a final decision is reached and the officer moves to.. ↕

Action: Based on the above steps of the process, the officer acts in response to the level of threat he must counter. The action will be dictated by the decision, but may be halted or delayed by new circumstances. ↑

Psychological Intimidation: Includes non-verbal cues indicating the subject’s attitude, appearance and physical readiness. This is often referred to as the “body language” of the subject, which influences an officer’s decisions on how to approach a subject, or what level of force to use if the subject starts to resist a detention or an arrest. Non-verbal intimidating actions may include, but are not limited to: clenching the fists; widening the foot stance; or wearing a blank expression, which may warn officers of an individual’s emotional state. These non-verbal actions often warn an officer of a subject’s potential for violence when the subject has offered no verbal threats. A subject’s non-verbal intimidation should be used as information to mentally prepare officers for attack, not as justification for the use of force.

A certain amount of agency participation and cooperation is required to address the issue of unreasonable fear while individual action will also be necessary. Therefore an attempt is made to establish a “normal” mode of behavior. It is the responsibility of the department to create the environment which encourages honest, candid discussion among its members. It may be necessary for a department to provide professional counseling services to officers who may not be able to discuss their fears openly. The department should offer to support anyone who requires professional counseling without any stigma attached or reprisal. It is often the field training officer who will be in the position to first observe the new recruit in action. The field training officer can identify possible symptoms and suggest corrective actions, additional training or guidance before the problem becomes entrenched.