Tactical Decision Making: Critical Thinking Skills in Moments of Crisis

This equation is simple to look at. Its effects are profound in application. As you start to use it, you will find that it fits every situation you will come across, and it will give you a more concise way of evaluating situations in the field. As you gain experience in using it, your critical thinking and decision-making skills will become more refined.

You won’t find yourself at a loss for words when you have to explain your actions in the aftermath of a situation. This is important as you recall the incident and have to write a report about the incident. You can go by the variables, step by step, and explain what you did and why you did it that particular way.
Supervisors and trainers can use this equation to review actions by officers and look at the reasoning behind the decisions in an organized way.

Best of all, you don’t have to rely on a subjective standard (e.g., “common sense”) or a one-size-fits-all “tactical recipe” to defend your actions.
Let’s review the variables:

Need

What are the needs of the mission/situation that you are in? Why are you there? Is it an arrest, public safety issue, warrant service, military exercise, prisoner snatch, drug raid, etc.? What needs to be accomplished?

Risk

What are the risks associated with the various options available to you? Given the nature of the mission, are the risks acceptable and manageable? In general, the default is the lowest risk option that meets the needs of the mission. Liability risks are also part of this area.

Time

Is time on your side or working against you? In general, the shorter the time available to you to accomplish the mission, the higher the risk factors on the available options left.

Resources Available

What resources can you access during the mission/situation with the time available to you?

Decision

Needs of the mission, available options, associated risks, resources available in the time constraints, and is time working for you or against you?

Using the Equation

Building Search – Possibly Armed Subject in Structure.

Mission
You have been tasked with performing a building search in response to an alarm. As you pull up to the scene, let’s pause for a moment and look at the needs of this mission.

Needs
Search, detain and arrest unlawful intruders.

Risks
Possibly armed subject(s), They have the advantage of cover/ concealment and darkness.

Time
With a perimeter secured, time is on your side.

Resources
You have a partner, a light, a handgun, and a long gun in your car. The Police K-9 is not available tonight as the handler is out of town doing training.
You conduct the search with your partner, slicing the pie, taking advantage of your light, etc. As you come to a back room, you hear a noise that you suspect is a person.

You and your partner move forward. As you come to the doorway, you see a person standing in the room. You challenge him and he suddenly brings a gun around and fires a shot. You stand your ground and return fire as he fires at you. Neither of you hit the other. He ducks back to a corner of the room. You move back a few feet so that he can’t shoot through the wall at you.

Now what do you do? Let’s look at the equation and go from there.

Needs/Mission
Detain and arrest an armed felon.

Risks
Option 1 – leave the building and let someone else deal with it. Risk – none to the officer. Mission not fulfilled.

Option 2 – Retreat to a secure corner with the entry to the room in view. Hold the corner with your partner. Call for SWAT, etc. The offender is contained and isolated in the room. No external window to the outside. If the offender comes out of the room, you have the advantage of holding the corner with two guns against his one. Risks are higher than Option 1 but meet the needs of the situation.

Option 3 – Move to the doorway with your partner. Attempt to take the fight to the subject from the doorway. Risks – Gunfight at close range. One or both of you may be killed or wounded in the exchange. Risk – Higher than Options 1 or 2.

Option 4 – Do a dynamic entry with your partner and take the offender out. Risks – Very high when you close the distance.

Time
Time is on your side at the moment. He is in the room with no exits but the doorway.

Resources
Whatever knowledge, skills, training, and abilities you and your partner can bring to bear, that are relevant to the situation and will help you both manage the risk and accomplish the mission at hand. You have your weapons, ammo, flashlight, and radio. Within a few minutes, or possibly up to an hour or more in rural locations, you can have more backup with more equipment.

Decision
Time is on your side. If you are a patrol officer doing a search it is helpful to think of yourself as a scout. You are there to ascertain the presence of a subject and activity, not necessarily engage in a pitched battle. If you find someone, you don’t necessarily have to fight them. Just contain, isolate and use the best option that still accomplishes or furthers the completion of the intended mission. Option 2 offers the lowest risks at that point that will further the mission of containment and ultimate apprehension of the armed felon.

Situation #2 – School Shooting – Active Shooter

Needs
Mission – First and foremost: Stop the killing. Additional tasks: Stabilize and evacuate the critically injured. Protect, evacuate, or control the student population. Control the perimeters. Here we can use the equation from both a command and control standpoint and an individual officer’s point of view.

Risks
Option 1 – Contain the perimeter. Wait out the subjects.
Risk – Lowest to officers, but not to students. Does not meet the needs of the situation.

Option 2 – Wait for 4 or more officers or SWAT team to deploy and then assault.
Risks – Higher than Option 1 to officers. Students are still at high risk. Time is ticking. Seconds count. People are dying. How long will you wait?

Option 3 – Immediate assault with the first available officers. Take the bad guys under fire and put them under duress. Take away their ability to think clearly. Isolate their mobility and rapidly neutralize them.
Risks – A higher chance for officers to be wounded or killed. Higher chance of a “blue on blue” event if other units are injected into the situation without good command and control. This is the best chance for survival for students who are not locked down in a protected area or haven’t managed to escape.

Time
Here we have a situation where time is working against the officer. Students are being killed. Seconds count.

Resources Available
The knowledge and skill level of officers on scene at that time. Handgun and ammunition on your belt, other items on your belt such as pepper spray, baton, Taser, etc.possibly a long gun if it is not too far away. Protective vest. One other officer is available immediately. Others responding. ETA 15 minutes. ETAs of more than an hour are common in rural parts of the US.

Decision
A complex situation. Mission priorities have to be established immediately. First priority- stop the killing – would take precedence over other mission needs. Other priorities are fulfilled as more personnel become available. There is much room for further discussion here. Reporting using the equations would lay out the variables in the aftermath and allow for clear and concise debriefing and testimony.

What will you decide?

Situation #3 – Arrest and Control Gone Bad

While on a domestic disturbance call you have contacted a large, belligerent subject in the parking lot. As you attempt to calm the situation, he suddenly assaults you. He gets you on the ground and gets on top of you and starts smashing blows down to your head and face. You now have a larger, stronger opponent on top of you. You are in a very vulnerable position.

Needs
Your mission has changed from defusing the situation or arresting the subject to a close-quarter survival situation.

Risks
Option 1 – Attempt to control the subject using whatever knowledge and skills you have at that time.
Risk – One good blow to your face from a mounted opponent and it is lights out for you. From there, your life is in the hands of the attacker. Are you really skilled? Remember, he got you down on the ground already and is in a position of advantage.

Option 2 – deploy a less lethal option from your belt, either OC pepper spray, Taser, or Baton.
Risks – While you are reaching for your belt, you leave yourself open to a smashing attack from above. A Taser at close range may not be effective. OC pepper spray might not be effective either. Baton strikes from below may be very marginal in effectiveness. Time is working against you. Your life is at stake here.

Option 3 – Protect your head and neck by repositioning to the side. Trap his arm on that side and access lethal force tools available to aid you in your survival. Gun, backup gun, knife, etc.
Risks: You must be able to access your available tools without taking a debilitating blow or having the tool taken away and used against you.

Time
is working against you. One good blow to your head/face and your ability to protect yourself either goes away or is severely diminished.
Now, let’s throw in a wrinkle.
Resources Available
Your ground skills are not all that great. You did your last ground fighting skills a year ago, and you haven’t done anything since. You successfully managed to get to a side position but your opponent is lying across your body and your Taser, OC pepper spray, and baton are covered by his body. Your only external weapon resource available in those few precious seconds of respite, before he repositions, is your firearm. No other officer is available at your location, although there are two in the parking lot 200 feet distant contacting other parties to the incident.

Decision
You start your initial defense as you are taken to the ground with option one. The fight is on! He has gotten on top of you and is smashing you in the head repeatedly as you desperately try to defend yourself. You are using a lot of energy to keep him at bay. You are rapidly approaching physical exhaustion. You stop thinking of it as an arrest and control situation and are in fear for your life. You proceed with option 3. You reposition your body and trap his arm nearest your gun. You bring the gun to bear and shoot him through the arm and body; ending the conflict.

In this situation, you can clearly articulate why you used the firearm even when you had other resources on your belt.
Let’s review the equation in the aftermath of the encounter to explain your actions.

Needs
Your mission changed from arrest and control to the need to protect your life. You were stuck in an extremely vulnerable position with a physically superior opponent in terms of size and strength and you were being attacked with deadly force. You were not able to control the subject using your current physical skills and training.

Risks
In each of the various options, the risk was very high for serious bodily injury or death to you.

Time
Time is working against you. You were physically exhausted and moments away from helplessness. In split seconds an incapacitating blow could probably have come down and taken you out of the fight.

Resources Available
Physical ability, skills, and training, tools on your belt.

Decision
Your physical resources were waning. As you rapidly tired, fighting to survive, you could feel the situation becoming more desperate. Your opponent was clearly winning this fight on a physical level. The only tool you could access, from your position and your opponent’s position, in the few seconds allowed, was your firearm. This might also be your backup firearm if he was lying across your primary weapon. Given this situation, Option 3 sounds best to me.
Training to use this equation under duress is the real key to good decision-making. People tend to default to whatever first comes to mind when they are put under pressure. A lot of the time, you will find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out why people do the things they do.

Immediate action drills are great when you are surprised and need to survive the first moments of a crisis. But nothing beats critical thinking skills in the moment for superior performance. This formula, and the critical thinking skills it develops, can help ahead of time in training scenarios, at the moment of truth when lives hang in the balance, and afterward when you have to articulate and justify your actions.

Ron Avery – the man behind the doctrine of “Reactive Shooting Science” and co-founder of Tactical Performance Center

Ron Avery was the co-founder and director of training for The Tactical Performance Center (TPC). A former police officer, as well as a martial artist, Ron brought that experience into the training environment. He was internationally recognized as a researcher, firearms trainer and world-class shooter, and his training methodology has been used by hundreds of agencies and thousands of individuals across the US and internationally. He was a weapons and tactics trainer for handgun, carbine, precision rifle and shotgun, as well as advanced instructor schools, defensive tactics, low light tactics and officer survival.

Ron passed away on February 23, 2019, leaving a legacy of contributions to police firearms and defensive tactics training.