Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'm Alex Stone, former military service member and law enforcement officer, now CEO of Echelon Protected Services, one of the fastest growing private security firms on the west coast. And this is ride along, where our guest and I witness firsthand the issues affecting our community.
I believe our proven method of enacting meaningful change through compassion and understanding is the best way to make our streets a safer place and truly achieve security through community.
Hey, Alex Stone here with the ride along. We're here in Portland, Oregon. We're with today's guest, Charles Joe, the korean cowboy. We love him to death. He's here. He's former LAPD SWAt, and he's here to do some training on some room clearing. Now, a lot of you out there might be asking yourselves, why is the security company getting trained by a former police officer, specifically someone that was in SWAT? And the reality is they're just the best at their job. And there's a lot of things that are crossovers from law enforcement and the security world, specifically how to properly clear a room. Now, as a security guard, we're not out there with our guns. We're not trying to do anything like that and be cool and tactical, but we are clearing areas. Right. We're taking alarm response, we're taking incident response, and we're usually on scene before law enforcement is. So we're going to be able to provide necessary communications to law enforcement, firefighters or EMTs so that they can do their jobs better. Right. So we're going to go in here, we're going to learn how to walk through a room. Guards are going to take their turn, and then they're going to get some feedback from Charles Joe. The reason this is important is because guards need to know how to clear an area without alerting someone in the building. Right. And it also allows them to possibly identify victims. Right. If a guard just wants to stand and wait for law enforcement, especially in an urban environment like Portland, they could be waiting hours, two, three, sometimes 4 hours, and there could be someone in that building that's injured that needs our help. So we're going to learn today how to clear buildings and how to take a response such as that.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Come and join me.
I'm Charles Joe. A little bit of background about myself. I did just shy of 25 years with LAPD, and the last twelve was with our SWat team. So I'd like to share with you my experiences and kind of a little, they're not really tricks of the trade, but kind of basic sops, if you will, on the principles of the search right. So I think it applies to all of us, whether we're working security, whether we're working patrol, law enforcement, even special forces. We need the ability of concept to systematically get through a structure, any structure, in, in a safe, tactical manner. Let me break down the basic rules that I like to follow and I've been taught from my, they call swap pup days. Number one basic that I say is in a building search, concept or situation, it's minimum two to enter, three to clear. So if we're entering a room, the basic, simple, simplest, rudimentary concept is we divide the room in two. My partner gets one side, I get the other side. Right? With the center kind of overlapping fields of fire. So once you've entered the room, the concept is you're going to enter, divide the room, like I said, and dominate that half. And first and foremost, what are we looking for? The boogeyman. I affectionately call it the boogeyman. So we have to understand, like a mental anchor or something to remember, remind us why we're first there. A lot of times we forget. We just enter the room. We're so concentrating on the tactic or the movement, we forget why we're there.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: So the first things first, foremost is we go to the known, we address the known, then we go to the unknown. The known is the big area right here. And statistically proven across all data and information across the country is officers are engaged. The highest probability where the officers will be engaged, contact, whether it's unarmed or armed, is going to be in the threshold. Right. As soon as they make entry and they open the door. That's why I call the boogeyman. You got to respect the boogeyman. So once you make entry, how far do we go in? How deep do we penetrate? And that went back and forth over the years, over the decades of tactical learning and CQB and all that. And back in the eighties and nineties, it was running the wall. You run the wall. You dominated the wall. So, but if you think back all those tactics that were practiced back then, where was it done? In sterile rooms, no furniture, nothing I have yet. I have all the entries and missions that I've done in the twelve years. Never been into a room where it's completely empty, where that played a part.
[00:05:04] Speaker C: Right.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: You usually have a queen size bed in an eight by eight room. Takes up the whole room or as soon as you make entry, there's a nightstand right there or there's a big refrigerator.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: Right?
[00:05:15] Speaker B: So the whole ability to run the wall, I haven't yet seen, you know, the opportunity. Most of the structures that you see people train in the shoot houses. They don't have alcoves. They don't have indentations. They just have doors. They don't have openings leading to a kitchen. They don't have an opening leading to a t hallway. They don't have that. So angles are what we have to respect. First and foremost, we gotta respect the bogeyman. Second, we gotta respect the angles. Get in there, establish. I allow my brain to absorb all that stimuli, all the threats, all the high ground, all the door takes a moment. What I'm doing is I'm ensuring there's no threats immediately able to harm my partner. That should be the mindset. And my partner, same thing. As I'm stepping in, I'm looking to see if anything can harm my partner because I've got a gun. This is my sector. My partner has his sector to deal with. I've got to make sure the angles aren't exposing to my partner. So as long as you have that, you guys have 360 coverage. If I'm worried about myself, my partner's worried about himself, then both our backs are exposed. If I'm worried about my partner and my partner's worried about me, we're solid. So that's the concept you want to worry about or always think about and strive for. We took that time to absorb no boogeyman. We got our threats. And then we're going to systematically go from usually point of entry all the way through the structure to the opposite end. As my partner goes, what's the communication? Partner is going to go, hey, I've got some areas I need to clear on my side. Copy. Moving. I say move, mean. I acknowledge his preparatory commander or request to move. I said, instead of saying, I'm with you, let's move. My partner goes moving, I say move, and we go on. His movement and I go across, covering the long angles as they open, expose themselves to us. Once he gets to a point where he feels he's confident, clearing all the corners back behind us, we can systematically push through this room. And once again we're going to say, why are we here? If we're looking for a burglary suspect, hot prowl, then we're going to really detail. It's called detail. In this room, we're going to detail. We don't know if that sofa is a daybed. We're going to open it up and look underneath. A lot of times suspects are secreted, hidden. I found several suspects hiding and security in a daybed. We're going to make sure we lift up the sofa. The general rule is, if you can see the floor where you see the floor and the wall meet, you've got to see that seam. If you don't see that seam, you got to make sure you clear furniture around. See that seam? Suspects hide in the far, deep corners. Could be like a roll of rug, carpet behind the curtains, anything that you can conceivably imagine the suspect can hide, you've got to search. That's the detail portion of the great room, or any room. All right, good. Clear as mud. All right, so now the point of the whole mechanics. What are we doing with our body when we're making entry into room? You'll see a lot of different variations of it, right. People coming up with their muzzle high, contact ready, with their rifle, with their pistol all the way choked up really close.
Unless you train that way on the range, I don't recommend you practice that way in real life, because if you're so proficient this way on the range, then there's nobody that can argue with you that, yeah, that's what you are comfortable with. You should go into the room that way, but violates all the principles of side alignment. Side picture, side, everything at the same time.
Anything that you place beneath your eyes becomes obstruction.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: And we know suspects aren't hiding in a plain view area with a target that we shoot at with their hand pointed at you. A lot of times what suspects do? They come out of the room, hands are hidden, they blade themselves, and they're very hostile and aggressive. They come out, what do you want? What, what? And if you don't see a weapon, what's the initial reaction? If you're coming up pista pointed high or muzzle high, hands up. You don't see their hands or anything because they're bladed. They're being suspects. Hey, what do you got? What do you want? And their hands are down. What do you need to do to verify? You got to lower your weapon. The instant you lower your weapon, what happened? His weapon comes up, bang, bang. So now you're caught behind the power curve. So how do we address that? How do we mitigate that? We don't come up contact ready or up high. We come in low, 45 degree angle. What is a true low? Ready? True low. Ready. Is low enough where you can see a suspect's hands and waistband. That's it.
Obviously, the closer you get, the lower it's going to be. Further you get, the higher you can rise, you can raise up because all you want to do is be able to see the suspect's waistband, and hence, that's what a lower radii is if you guys are on different competitions or qualifying. True low radius at 45 degree angle, but it's all relative to where your relationship is with the suspect. As long as you can see suspects hands and waistband, that's sufficient enough for a little ready.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: When I was in law enforcement, we were making entry, going through the curtilage of the front of the yard.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Front yard.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: And I had a dog get way too close to me because I was up here looking for threats, you know, and that I had a dog running at me and didn't even notice it because of that.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Oh, exactly. We had a time where in the eighties and nineties, where our team was doing a lot of dynamic warrants in the projects in south central crack houses, breaking through stuff, and we'd go in with the MP five's contact ready as they came in. There was incident when it came in. Number one came in, there was a suspect lying right there behind the sofa with a. 357 revolver pointing right at him. He missed it because his mp5 was already at contact ready as it came in. Running the wall. Pass it up. Number two went this way, running the wall. Number three came in, scanned, saw suspect, bought the back, shoot partner, and then took them out. So at that point, they said, we've got to revisit tactics. And they went back and said, no, running the walls is not acceptable. Especially when we started introducing force on force, where we get to actually shoot simmunition projectiles at each other and testing our tactics. And that's when they realized, running the walls, man, we're. We're getting our asses handed to us from our own suspects, that we play on each other, force on force. And that's when the whole tactic of running the walls started being questioned, and it came back to limited penetration. And the logic is, like I said, there's no reason for anything. You can address anything across the room with verbal commands or with deadly threat or any other munitions you need from back there. There's no reason why that compels you to violate all those principles and expose yourself and your team to all these angles that you can't handle from the doorway.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: I have a question. Is that okay?
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Yes. Okay.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: So I was taught this by an old school cop when I was a young cop, long, long time ago. He said, hey, when you go into a house, respect the boogeyman. He didn't tell me that, but he said, make sure you're clear. And then just yell out, hey, I see you. Go ahead. Go ahead and come out. I see you. Show me your hands. He said, if you do that a lot. And I would do that. I did that, like. And a lot of times people would just like, okay. And they would just show their hands and come out thinking that you saw them.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Cause they're hiding, so they typically can't see you.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: Right. Right.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Is that something that is.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: That's a great question. That used to be taught and a long time ago and still most recent as well. On vehicle stops, on stolen vehicles, they would get all the passengers out and they would do that ruse. They would say. They would teach that in academy. You know, you in the car, hiding in the backseat. We see you, come on out. You wait, wait, wait. And then obviously that they don't, then you make them make the move. For me, that works for the 98% of the population out there. 98% of population. We do the most screwed up tactics. We come out smelling like roses because they don't want that confrontation. The 2%. No. So you're not doing. You're doing that for 98 percentile. That's fine. You can do any tax if you do that for the two percentile.
[00:13:18] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: They've already got beat on you. If you're doing this stealthily, then you don't want to divulge or reveal your position. So you're saying doing that.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: So the higher level of threat, like possible real crime in progress. Right.
Stealth is more important. But possible juvenile activity, maybe spray painting.
Juvenile, maybe you call them out, potentially.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: But that tactic of calling them out, you can do that from outside, from your vehicle.
[00:13:49] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: So what are you compromising?
[00:13:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: So you're putting yourself in a very risky compromising point being a doorway and saying, you inside, come on. I see you. As opposed to, this is the police.
We know you're inside. From your Pa horn, from your speaker saying, we know you're the police. Or even a bullhorn, but from a safe distance behind the tree, we know you're inside. Come on out, you know, make sure all the lights are on. Open the door, come out with your hands up, no weapons. You can do that several times, but then when you gotta jump in with tactics, I really don't like blending tactics.
[00:14:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Right.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Any other questions on the initial entry moving? We talked about the initial limited penetration. Two to a room, three to clear. So another adage that we're going to throw in there is or another principle is two to a room, three to clear. The reason why we third to clear is we don't operate independently from one another once inside the room, right? Because that's violating the basic principle. Two to a room, right. We work as a team. So if I need to lift the sofa. I'm not going to lift the sofa by myself and clear it with gun in one hand. I'm going to sit in a ready position. We always want to support the basic principles of what shooting platform. We want to be stable and we want to do. We don't want to do anything that might disrupt our shooting platform or our sights. So in a best advantageous angle position, I'll sit there, hold, allow my partner to come on my queue. We lift up the sofa or turn. In the meantime, who's watching? Who's covering the long haul? We got to have our third, who's covering all the angles. And the easiest part about covering a hallway. The angles that you're looking for. Just the outer edges of the leading edges to both sides of the room. So I'm not scanning looking. I'm just worried about both sides of the door jamb, if you will, or the hallway jamb. All I'm doing is looking to see if there any movement popping out. And if I want to, I'm going to cheat towards one side of the corner. To kind of allow myself to assume a barricade position. As long as I'm not. By doing that, exposing my partners that are working right. So that's where sometimes a cover officer has to kind of expose himself. So we'll have you guys step outside, make entry. And just like what we talked about, remember, adhere to the basic principles. Limited penetration, communicate. And work on your threat systematically. And you guys should be fine.
Muzzle down. We use our user, our gun fingers. Gun fingers. And remember, don't come up on target down. So the human brain has a tendency. If you come up on your sights high up near your dominant eye, you'll have a tunnel vision. You'll tend to focus only around there. And you'll start missing all the peripherals. Because that's just the way we want for us. That front sight near your dominant eye. Is that warm and fuzzy. As the situation gets, I call it pucker factor. Pucker factor gets about eight or nine. You'll see officers tend to bring that muzzle, the side alignment. Closer and closer and closer. And they're inevitably making an entry like this. Because it just feels good. They think they'll get the jump on the suspect if they get spooked. But actuality, no, you're way beyond the power curve. It better stay nice and low and let your brain process friend or foe. We're not outside the wire. Anything that moves gets blasted. No, we've really got to make sure that we identify. Only way to do that. And we take those sights away from our eyes. So we open up our field of view. So with that nice deep breath, relax, a little bit of penetration, systematically push all the way through and be fine. All right, you guys get out when you're ready, make entry.
[00:17:32] Speaker D: Clear?
I'm clear? You clear? Clear.
Move your way. Move in.
It's the right quarter.
Quick. Clear on me. To the left.
We're gonna move forward.
Right side clear? Clear.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: Slide it back.
[00:18:25] Speaker D: There you go.
Quick look. Quick look.
Yes.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: Good. You keep your eyes down there. She's got the back room.
[00:18:42] Speaker D: Clear.
Keep going. Two doors on my left. We're going to, ready? Yes.
All right, room is clear.
Room on the right and not hallway.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: That's out of play. Good.
All right, so good.
How'd that feel? You guys were, like, tense, huh? You guys are super tense. So the biggest thing, I'd say the biggest critique, walk like a normal walk every day, right? Because if you're tense and you're doing this, it's hard for your partner to read and anticipate what you're gonna do. But if you walk normally, okay, I got this room going on you and then just walk normally. I can predict that. I can follow you, but if you're, like, really rigid and hard, I don't know how you're gonna move smoothly. I can't react to you. So biggest thing to do is react. If we had four more rooms and you guys will pass out because you guys are so tight, rigid.
Relax.
Relax your shoulders, lower it down and let your head do most of the searching.
[00:19:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Communication was good. I got room, I got open door, I got this moving, you know, that's, that's great. That's the only, my biggest thing is just relax.
And if we had to do a big warehouse man at the neck, you'd probably be off for two days because you're sore, because you're tense. That's nice and relaxed. And when you move, it's how you normally walk. I don't want you to take cross steps. That's a big no no. If you get surprised, you'll fall.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Your toe, toes are always pointing in the direction you want to move. If I don't move that way, my toes are pointing that way. I'm just gonna walk.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: Walk.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: And look, my head's gonna turn and move, and and my gun is gonna always skin in a neutral position. My gun doesn't scan where my eyes go. It's just too, you know, awkward and it's too time consuming. My gun stays normal, and my eyes are searching everywhere real quick. And if there's a threat, my gun will go to that threat.
My gun will go to that threat. But I don't want to go pop.
[00:20:43] Speaker C: Pop, pop, pop, pop.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: I just want to stay neutral, look around, and just walk normal. And the normal is heel toe, heel toe, heel toes. Just relax.
I heard you guys. I can hear you guys.
Yeah, it's like you guys Morse code all the way, all the way. All the way.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: Right?
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Nice. And just relax.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: Relax.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Say relax. Your brain will be opened up, and you'll see all the different threats, but outstanding. Good. You follow the rules. Limited penetration. You systematically clear from all the way front, all the way back. Nice. You didn't miss any, you know, critical. That's why it's hard to clear a building with two people. But you practice hard, then in real life, it'll be easier. You'll have a third. Oh, my gosh. Makes the job so much easier where one person holds long and you guys can open and help each other clear each room. But other than that, good job. It's a good job for a first run, right? You realize how much communication plays a big role, right? You with me? I'm with you. What could we do?
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Yay.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Slice of pie. Slice this. That's perfect. Good job. All right.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Good, good.
The left again. There.
Move it.
That's yours. That's yours.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Don't turn your back on the. Don't turn your back on the threat.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: You can turn your back on your partner. Don't turn your back on the threat.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Good.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Now that's clear. So have to be there anymore. Don't turn your back on the thread. Let him clear it.
[00:23:04] Speaker C: Good.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Clear. Now the last room, you guys, you're done.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: Clear.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: So be with him. You guys both can go into the last room together.
Hey, Cantree, look up. Don't look down. Look up.
[00:23:20] Speaker C: Good.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Look up. Is every nook and cranny cleared?
Is there a nook and cranny in this room that hasn't been cleared? No. Left.
[00:23:28] Speaker C: Left.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Left. All the way to left. Ah, look at that space.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: Good.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Someone could have been hiding there. Make sure you get all four corners. Outstanding. Good job. Come on out.
All right.
All right, we're gonna debrief these young gentlemen out here as a group. So I think we all can benefit from this outstanding job, guys. As you can see, searching a room with a lot of potential threats, it can be kind of. It can be taxing. It's tiring. Right. Your brain is sensory overload. So one of the things I want to bring to a point is this happens to a lot of young operators, young officers, when they move, they tend to forego walking normally because you're comfortable with the right leg back. So every time they move, they want to move and plant with their right leg back or their strong leg back. So they'll sit there and go, everything's ready. So when they're ready, this is a ready position.
[00:24:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: You got to be able to address anything at any movement or part of the gate, right. Meaning engage, fight, talk. At any moment of your step or gate. You'll see that a lot of times, the an officer, they do this, they go and they go always with their right leg back. So what that will do sometimes impede reacting at the right time. If you have to shoot, they'll go. If they're doing this after shoot, they won't shoot until they get into the position they're comfortable.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: So you got to understand, get walk. That's why I say walk like you normally walk every day. When you walk, they'll detach your brain from walking. You're just doing it. Your brain now, more of it is focused on the problem as opposed to doing this.
[00:25:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: So that's one of the things I want to be smooth. Initially, communication was really good. You guys talked.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: But that's the first thing that caught on my mind. You guys are always staging in your ready stance, so you got to be able to just smooth walk, because sometimes you can't gauge that distance to that corner. So you might end up where your right leg is forward, and you might have to pivot and. And turn. You don't want to be. I misgauged it. When I get there, I'm gonna have to go. That's another extra step that your brain has to focus on. Just walk and move normally, but adhere to the angles.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Good communicating. Communication is always gonna win, always gonna get you over the hump. Even the most advanced teams, what happens is they sit there, they'll get into a stall, and what happens, it's one senior dude or even the junior guy will say moving or say something and snaps everyone out. Copy. And then they start going back into the rhythm. So everyone gets into occasional stall. So I'm not saying you guys did communication is good. So know, that power of communication, no matter what, if somebody stalls and you feel like you have kind of a stalemate, someone's got to say something, and that kicks everyone to start, and they go, got it. And then you'll figure it out, right? You guys did a good job in that. One. Critical component I want to say is, that's the unknown. This is unknown. At any point, no matter how limited numbers we are, we're clearing a room. That person who is exposed to the unknown, never turn his back on the unknown, right. And dealing with that, no matter what you're eating. I like to think of myself. If I'm point as the landlord, I own everything in front of me. Only thing I'm going to do is sell off one room at a time. So if I. And if I sell that room, I still own the rest of the. The property. So I'm the landlord, right? So I go, okay, I got the hallway, last two rooms, this first room on the right. Okay, here we go. Who's gonna go in? My partner goes in there. That's no longer under my tenant ownership, right. So then I can continue on. I never want to forego all the rest of my units and then talk with my one unit, right. Because then some angry, disgruntled tenant might come and shoot me in the back. That's what you gotta think about always. I own everything down here, so that's one thing. Twice I was like, no, no, no. You can turn your back on your partner momentarily. You can't turn your back on all the angry tenants. Think of it that way, then you'll be fine. That cool. Other than that, look how smooth and how cleanly they covered all the areas they went from one, one, one. They cleared in probably about 30 seconds. There's no. Not saying there's a time limit, but your communication analogy is just systematically clear everything without leaving anything behind.
Good job.
Boom.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Oh, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow.
Got a hold. All right, go ahead.
Okay, I've got long. All right, come up corner.
Long. All right, come with clearing. Come along. Long, long, long. Okay, there are two doorways. Yeah. Three, four, five doorways and an unknown space beyond. Okay, go ahead. I'll go up. Hold long. I'll go, hold long.
Holding long.
Storage closing. Slide attack.
Clear.
Back off. Got it. That's real quick.
Door is clear here. Okay, hold.
We'll take the open space first. Open doorway to the left. Go ahead, nice and slow. I'll take the doorway and the left. You go to the right. Clear. Right. Clear. Right there.
I've got another doorway beyond it.
Yep.
Okay. Back, back.
You have walls. You have walls and have walls.
That's out of play. Okay.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Are you good?
Okay, go in that last room. Look in the far wall.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: So by peeking in.
[00:30:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: You got to make sure you see the seam. If you see the seam, you're good. You can't see the scene. There's a potential outcome. Right.
General room is. General rule is even though you clear. Gotta step in and see it might have been a door. Two or three more rooms right in that little alco corner. So, yeah, just lesson learned.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: Good debrief out here. Yes.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Come on. Good.
[00:30:30] Speaker C: You want us to give you. Okay.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Outstanding. That was very good. Good comms. So a couple of things I'm going to point out, right.
You got to trust your partner. You got to trust your partner.
[00:30:45] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: So it was almost like you were clearing the room by yourself with a witness manager that was in there with you.
[00:30:51] Speaker C: Right. Right.
[00:30:52] Speaker B: So it's like he was in there and you're. You're clearing the whole house by stuff. You gotta. His area is his area. Your area is your area.
[00:30:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: If he says go along, you cover.
If you come in and this is your room, trust your partner has his side. You don't go here, look at your room and go, what's he doing over there? No. You say, okay, I'm good. I'm good, partner. You good. You communicate with your partner, just like if you're in the car with your partner, you don't have to look at your partner all the time when you're talking with him.
[00:31:20] Speaker C: Right.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: You're looking outside, scanning. Your partner's not gonna move. Partner's in the car seat next to you. So you can say, got it. Got it, partner. What do you want to eat? I don't know. Let's still. We don't have to look at each other and make eye contact when we're driving, because what needs us is our attention out there. So on the same concept, your area is yours. Trust your partner. It is hard to get through. That's where the team concept, when we're going as a team, my sector, I trust my partner with my life on that side. Right. He trusts me with this sector. That responsibility I hold very, very deeply and wholeheartedly. So I'm going to clear everything without knowing what's going on that side until it's clear. Once it's clear, I can jump and help. So that's good thing I've seen. So the communication got you guys through. Your partner was saying, go long. You really want to look at his ear. He's like, no cover long. Okay, but I really want to know what you're doing. He said, keep your eyes long.
[00:32:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: And we made it through. We made it through. So, other than that, and remember that rule. I said in the beginning, you got to see the walls meet that seam and the thing. So if you just clear. Looks good. That back room, locker room, there's a section that there's a cubby hole. You can hide when it's good. And then you walked away. I said, double check, and went there.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: Ah, right.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: So you got to make sure. That's a telltale example of, like I said, when you lift up the sofa, if you don't see the carpet meet the wall, you don't see that seam. Something's wrong. Something is impeding your vision. So you got to either move the sofa over. We had a situation where.
Lifted it up. Suspect rolled just enough. Lift it back. Rolled back, looked behind. Okay, it was good.
Leave. Suspect was rolling around with a shotgun.
They're wily. They will hide in places that you'll never assume or your brain thinking, there's no way. After we clear the whole house, we sit in the kitchen, under the sink, the two doors, which is about yay big, wasn't searched. Sitting there with my rifle, looking, I went, hmm. Why is those doors not open? Nah, there's no way. Suspects hiding there. We're talking, open it up. I see eyes looking back at me. Suspect was wrapped around the pipes, looking at, hoping we would be gone. And it's like, oh, hey, found suspect. So you never know. I'm speaking from experience and trial and error that we've had. So, you know, you got to really understand. So I'll see things that you may not have seen, because the experience of making a mistake wasn't there. Mistake. The experience was there, whether it's mine or other people I embed. I'll pass that on. So good job.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: That's clear. So cover it. Good, good.
Once he's clean there, you gotta cover everything there. You got everything.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: He's doing his job.
[00:35:36] Speaker C: He's gonna go in there, and you got everything?
Good.
Good.
Now he's gonna go there, and you got everything?
Good.
Clear. Good. Last room. Both of you guys go in.
Yes. Yes.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: All right.
[00:36:03] Speaker C: Good job.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Good, good.
You guys are the last two. Hopefully, that perfect pressure of being the last two didn't break. You guys, good job. Good job. So, usually I see if the last two guys have been listening to all the critiques from all the front and see what hopefully you don't make the mistakes of other ones. Previously went, and it went really well. I was about to say, you guys are doing the same mistake, and then doing the same mistake, but then it. And you guys start walking. They're like, oh, good. Initially came in that way, and then you guys start walking. One of the big concepts or one of the concerns that I see a lot is people come in, they look at the ground because their gun's pointing at the ground, right? There's nothing on the ground. Look up. For young SWAT officers going through selection, hardest things to break habit is head up, muzzle down, head up on the ground. They want to attach these two together and look everywhere they go like this, and end up looking at the ground, right? So what you got to do is you come up, and you guys were, like, looking down here. Everything was down here. You guys looking here in the ground, looking down. I'm looking around. No, look up, head up. You'll see movement on the ground. But what's more important is what everything around this area, right? Whoever comes out, they come out, the gun come out. So this is kind of your main critical. Not down here, up here. And the communication was good. You guys didn't. You guys trusted each other. But what I noticed happens a lot. If one officer is behind the other too much. Wherever you look, when you pass, he'll look. And if you look, he'll look. It's kind of like a redundancy, right? So wherever you look, you want to look opposite. What helped me, I imagined when we were training with our teammates, the helmets we wear, you know, those little googly eyes that you paste on dolls and all that. I imagined my partner had a set of googly eyes on the back of his head. So whenever he went in, whenever he went in, wherever those googly eyes are looking, if I'm not looking, suspect's looking at him. So that gave me the urgency. When we go in, as soon as he went in, if I imagine those eyes looking, I had to go in there and cover. And that helped me to focus on your six, right? So everywhere I go, and I kept playing that imaginary game, but as soon as you go in, your helmet, your melon looking at, I gotta get in there. So if you think of it that way, I'm protecting my partner, then it's like, oh, very simple, very simple. Wherever my partner's looking, I trust you can handle your skill sets. What's gonna alert me that he has somebody is what he's going to say. Hey, you suspect. Until he says that, I got to cover your back. I got to protect you. So until protect you, he goes suspect, then I'm going to go. Okay, what are we going to do? Okay, it's safe, partner. Let's redeploy to the cold zone or warm zone? Right now we're in the hot zone. You've already identified where the suspect's at. Okay, let's redeploy. You come back here where it's safe angle you go suspect in the kitchen area. I see youth come out. Put your hands in the light where I can see you. Put down any weapons, anything you have, and slowly come out to the light.
[00:39:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: So then you've created that. What do I say? No matter what, distance and cover equals time, if you see somebody, hey, you suspect. Is it your job to sit there and confront them? No, you've already done your job. You identify where the suspect's at, there is somebody. And verified that call is righteous. You came in there, something in there. Okay, what do you do? Let's redeploy. You and your partner get distance and cover. And then now you go suspect with the black hoodie inside the kitchen area, slowly coming out.
The cops are on the way. And then that's where you do your protocol. But you don't do it face to face. When you find the suspect, your job is done. You found them. Now you redeploy into a position of COVID no matter what. If you forget anything, distance and cover equals time. That's what you gotta do. And that's that. That's gonna be the catch all, save all basic tactic, right? Because it gives you time for you to think, think, think, think, think, think about what should we do? And the mission concept comes back. If you have to even redeploy all the way outside, you've accomplished it. Cops come. Guess what? In the third room in, we're searching, we saw a guy in there rummaging through some stuff. He's in there. Okay, cool. He had to come out. I put my other units on the backside. Suspects in there. Then cops go, cool? Yeah. Verify he's in there. Thank you. And then now they're gonna do their tactics. They send a dog. Whatever they decide to do, it's on them. You've accomplished your job, you've done it safely. That makes sense. So good job.
All right, I got a long haul in front.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: All right, moving, move.
[00:41:04] Speaker C: Clear.
Clear.
Six.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: Hey, that should be on the right.
[00:41:14] Speaker C: Looking good.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: I got point I'm gonna start long first.
Open door on the right.
[00:41:25] Speaker C: Closed on the left. Let's address.
Yeah. I'm gonna go a little bit closer and then give you the opening. You take it on.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: You.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: Look here.
Okay.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: You wanna cover along. I'll get the left open.
[00:41:46] Speaker C: Clear.
We'll take the open door, then the close.
[00:41:51] Speaker B: I got everything in front.
[00:41:52] Speaker C: Left, you got the open.
Clear.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: I got the closed door.
[00:42:01] Speaker C: Left, you got everything.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: You hold my right.
[00:42:10] Speaker C: Gotcha.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Clear.
Last room. I'm on you.
[00:42:20] Speaker C: Clear. Nice. All right.
That's fun. It's been a while.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: It's like riding a bike.
It is actually slow. What I want to say about this is you notice the economy of words. So. Plays a big part of it, right. So what we did try to do is exercise the most economic way of just what we want to do. Just two, three words.
[00:42:45] Speaker C: Two, three words. Right.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: So I think because we. It's just like riding a bike. We've been this type of training for a while. It's easy. So it shows you what you guys can strive for. The more you practice. Certain things that we take for granted. Right. It may not be for someone's music, just. Just be able to communicate and talk. But as long as you adhere to the basic principles.
[00:43:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:43:09] Speaker B: I own this notice. I didn't take my eyes off any of my three. You know, I let my partner kind of deal with what he needed to do, and I heard his movement and I heard his clear, it's on you. And I just kept on moving and covered his six.
[00:43:21] Speaker C: Right.
[00:43:22] Speaker B: And then that's what we. It's pretty basic, but sometimes we forget that we leave the basic tenants because we get sucked into certain architectural problems and so forth. But if you're sick of the basics, just minimum awards, and we just kind of flow and how would you think about.
[00:43:41] Speaker A: That was great, man.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: That fun. Yeah, I felt the energy, man. I was ready, bro.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: I thought, someone's gonna jump out. I was respecting the hell of that boogeyman.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:50] Speaker A: I was giving him all kind of respect.
[00:43:51] Speaker B: You gotta respect the boogeyman. If you don't respect the boogeyman, that's when he comes and bites you.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: Exactly. Charles, thanks for coming.
Having someone like your caliber being able to come in and train, it's phenomenal. And everyone, if we could just give Charles a hand, I'd.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Very humbling.
Thank you. Hey, thanks for allowing me to come and just be part of your training and share a little insight on just kind of the pitfalls and the learning curves that I went through. As a young operator and as a patrol officer, and my pleasure to share the little insights. And contrary to what people think, it's back to basics. If you master the basics, it makes any problem look easy. So hopefully, that was a little peek and thank you for allowing me to come and hang out with you guys today.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: And thanks to everyone at home at your house watching us. This is a special moment, having Charles here, LAPD, SWAT, he's training all kinds of people internationally. We're very humbled to have him. Thank you so much for coming.
[00:44:54] Speaker C: Appreciate it, bro.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: My pleasure.
[00:44:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:55] Speaker B: Later.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Take care.
