To intervene or not?

EmailPrintTalk BackRegisterRSSWhat's This

Free Video Training Programs for Law Enforcement with The Police Officers Safety Association (POSA)

To intervene or not?

by Ralph Mroz

The recent Utah mall shooting, in which courageous off-duty officer Ken Hammond intervened with gunfire and contained the shooter, has become — and rightfully so — the poster child for off-duty carry. And Officer Hammond has — again rightfully so, in my opinion — become a poster child for everything that's good and right about police officers. 

I admire him, and I hope that if I ever find myself in the same situation that he did, I'd intervene in the same way. 

But I was talking to a friend recently (and no, I'm not being cute — I'm not my "friend") who, without taking anything at all away from Officer Hammond's courage and deciciveness, made the case for another course of action: not intervening. You know what?  Agree or not (and I'm sure this will generate huge amounts of disagreement), my friend has a line of reasoning worth considering before you make your own decision.

The case for not intervening is also rather simply put. To whom is our primary and greatest responsibility? The answer to any of us with families is: to them. If we are with our family when the bad thing happens, is not our greatest responsibility to see them clear to safety before we do anything else? And further, once they are safe, or if we are alone, if we decide to then intervene, we are obviously putting ourselves at risk. If we are injured or killed in this intervention such that we cannot provide for our family, have we not done them grievous harm? And to what end? To possibly help others to whom we owe — if anything at all — then much less than that which we owe to our own family. That is, we have put the welfare of strangers above the welfare of our own family.

Now, my friend was not talking about on-duty actions. If we are on-duty, we clearly have a duty and an obligation to act. He was talking about off-duty situations, in which we have no official duty or obligation to act. What of the innocent people who are in danger if we do not intervene?  Well, the obvious question to ask is: why aren't they armed and prepared to protect themselves and their families? Isn't protection of one's  family from harm the primary obligation of everyone, and not something to be outsourced to others?

In partnership with PoliceOne.com, POSA is offering free tactical training videos on subjects like tactical shotgun usage, crisis entry, disarming a suspect, and more. Click here to view the videos.

To learn more about POSA, visit www.posai.org

Police Officers Safety Association, Inc.
PO Box 685
Chepachet, RI 02814
Phone: 401.568.9951
Fax: 401.568.9677

David Kenik, Executive Director dkenik@posai.org
Ralph Mroz, Training Director rmroz@posai.org

EmailPrintTalk BackRegisterRSSWhat's This