Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Decoding Use of Force with Sgt. Jamie Borden
What happens when police officers make split-second decisions under immense pressure? How do we fairly evaluate these actions after the fact? These questions lie at the heart of our riveting conversation with Sergeant Jamie Borden, one of law enforcement's most respected use-of-force experts.
Jamie takes us on his remarkable journey from witnessing his brother's scrutinized police shooting in 1992 to becoming a sought-after expert who has consulted on over 400 high-profile cases. His passion for ensuring that officers receive fair and objective reviews of their actions shines throughout our discussion as he reveals how he created a groundbreaking Use of Force Training and Analysis Unit that has become a model for departments nationwide.
Jamie's book, "The Anatomy of a Critical Incident," represents the culmination of his decades of experience and offers what many consider the definitive resource on use of force analysis.
Whether you're in law enforcement, interested in criminal justice, or seeking a deeper understanding of police actions beyond the headlines, this conversation offers profound insights that will transform your perspective on critical incidents. Connect with Jamie's work through Critical Incident Review to learn more about his approach to fair and thorough analysis of police use of force.
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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates:Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored that you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today and today's guest. We have been trying to make this happen for some time. I'm really excited. You're going to be excited. This is something you're going to want to tune into, maybe more than once, and send to your friends. On today's episode we have Sergeant Jamie Borden. Jamie spent well over two decades in law enforcement. He's one of the most respected and esteemed experts in the field, particularly with use of force. His book, the Anatomy of a Critical Incident, is by far the best resource you have today on use of force analysis and use of force investigations. I can't recommend him his training, his classes, his book enough. Sergeant Jamie Borden, how are you?
Jamie Borden :doing. Sir man, I'm good brother. Thank you, it's nice to be on your show.
Travis Yates:Well, jamie, we've had Danny King on. I know you do a lot of work with Danny King and I guess, before we get started, I mean this journey you've had in law enforcement is so interesting, so just sort of give us the quick preview of your career and how you landed here today, being really one of the foremost experts in use of force investigations.
Jamie Borden :That's a great. That's a great question. Investigations that's a great question. And the crazy thing is, travis, is that my journey to where I? First of all, I've given up trying to figure out how I ended up being who I am. And this is just me following my passions, answering the call, if you will.
Jamie Borden :And in 1992, my brother, steve Borden, was involved in a shooting in Las Vegas that went all the way to the Supreme Court LVMPD versus Warren and I was by his side. I wasn't a cop yet. I had always had an interest in being a cop, but I was by his side through that entire process. He was internally scrutinized. This was the onset of video evidence. News camera cop captured the whole thing. It was completely distorted in how it presented to the news. So the allegations were that the officers were too close, they weren't in fear for their life and it was all based on what the video showed. So I found that very interesting.
Jamie Borden :But I remember telling him at the time and my brother did the right thing for the right reason at the right time, like 99% of our officers who were involved in these critical incidents. And I remember telling him at the time this is pre-academy for me, the first time if I've ever got anything to do with this officers that are in your position that have been wrongfully alleged to have done something wrong and they didn't do something wrong I'm going to have play in that. And then you know, fast forward now almost 30 years and here I am involved in, you know, 400 plus cases at everywhere, from the highest profile civil cases to the highest profile criminal cases, to state level civil cases, arbitration, state level decertification cases. I mean everything that can find the courtroom in any fashion. I'm involved in it and I'm so thankful that I am. And it's one of those things that be careful what you wish for A right, follow your passion, be good at what you do.
Jamie Borden :Me and Danny King just did a whole series on officer wellness following your passions, bringing outside passion into police work so that police work thrives and you become a better public servant. And I've done that my whole career. And, lo and behold, I took the job. I was a patrol officer, fto. I became an officer in charge below a sergeant. I then took a break and went out on tour. As you know, I have a music career that paralleled police work, came back to work and promoted into I was a narcotics officer.
Jamie Borden :I then promoted into the training bureau where I just really found my niche in that, and I created the unit, the use of force training and analysis unit, which was responsible for investigating, reviewing and analyzing and then regurgitating information good, bad or indifferent back into the department. So our goal was myself and Danny King and the creation of this unit was to uncover and I came up with an acronym called replicate, change and avoid RCA. We didn't only look at what we wanted to change or avoid, but we looked very heavily at what we wanted to replicate in law enforcement, because most of these critical incidents we immediately overlook what officers have done well in these cases because it's expected, and then we have an outcome that might be undesirable or unexpected and the focus becomes that and then we look backwards on that event with a blame oriented perspective and we look to blame for the outcome. And you know so that that unit really quantified, looking at every incident as a training moment for the department. So we broke down silos and we were training, we were putting out directives and briefing trainings on that department as many times as two to three times a week and then we would siphon those trainings into our symposiums. That would happen twice a year, so we had a very good grip on it, and it was that unit that did it.
Jamie Borden :That unit became nationally recognized. Many departments across the country are adopting similar units at this point, which is where my career started, with lecturing. I've lectured across the country. I've got close to 500 classes under my belt and since 2019, they've all been under the umbrella of Critical Incident Review, the company that I founded, and Danny King works with me for Critical Incident Review. He's my COO. He keeps me in line and keeps my schedule in front of me, so I know where to be on every given day. But that's kind of a breakdown of how I ended up here today.
Travis Yates:Well, we're very thankful that you do it and obviously, as you mentioned, what your department did at the time was cutting edge. Most departments weren't doing that and you guys were at the forefront of that. How much did politics come into play? Because that unit I don't think that unit lasted forever, right, like you guys were doing such a great job and the police chiefs and the police administration. You've got to sort of give up your ego when you do that, because, yeah, you're going to hear from the experts instead of.
Travis Yates:I've always thought it was amazing, jamie, that we have these commanders or chiefs or whoever that review these use of force. I have no external training on that review, right, and so it was certainly very, very smart and cutting edge for them to implement that unit, to then recommend to them what they should be looking at. But politics sometimes get in the way, right, and I wish there wasn't a need for you, right, wish there wasn't a need for Danny King, but certainly politics has has interjected in a way that we may have never foreseen. What's your thoughts on that?
Jamie Borden :Well, you're 100% accurate. And the chief that allowed that unit to exist came to me. My very first task when I took the training bureau spot was to revamp our use of force training policy. And I didn't just go through and rewrite the policy. I took our neighboring department, Las Vegas Metro. They had involvement through a settlement agreement with the DOJ, so they had redone their whole policy and then they'd submitted it to the ACLU. The ACLU gave their recommendations on the policy. Well, I took the finished policy and the document from the ACLU. The ACLU gave their recommendations on the policy. Well, I took the finished policy and the document from the ACLU and I went through and revamped our entire policy. I then did an 85-page document that stated why I adopted and why I did not adopt certain components of the ACLU's recommendations, and I submitted that document to the ACLU. I got a response from them that they were proud to have been a part of it. They approved the policy. They love the policy and we moved forward with that policy, including the unit and the work that myself and Danny King did. So here's where the politics kick in.
Jamie Borden :That chief did exactly what you said. He stepped aside from all of his ego and looked for the people that were invested in that particular component of law enforcement and he put all of the onus on the unit that I created. And they listened. We weren't making recommendations. We simply would present the facts to them, but we would teach them about what the facts meant and what this did. Was it helped them avoid a knee-jerk reaction to these otherwise critical incidents that may look bad on video, and we would break it down and explain exactly why these things were happening, right down to the distortions in video and body-worn camera. And so all of that made a unit that created a culture on the department where officers knew that if they made a decision in the field, that they were going to be fairly and objectively viewed in that incident. It didn't matter who liked them, who didn't like them, what their reputation on the department was. That case is what mattered, and it created a culture where officers were self-investing and making better decisions overall.
Jamie Borden :Well, now let's talk about politics. That chief was forced out, as most chiefs are with the city of Henderson, by the city government. Scandalous allegations the chief ended up leaving under those allegations, ended up suing the department. Blah, blah, blah. We get a chief in from Arlington, Texas, who was a captain on Arlington, came in not a change maker, but a change agent. Right, there's a difference and you know the difference. Right, these are people that come in and fix shit that doesn't need to be fixed, simply because it's their name on it, and now they're owning it.
Jamie Borden :So I did a 45-minute presentation to the chief and the deputy chief, who had both come from Arlington. At the end of that 45-minute presentation and Travis, I had flow charts and I had explanations for everything we were doing. I explained the cultural changes. I explained the use of force, the decrease in use of force, the increase of hands-on, decrease of taste. I mean all the things that we were able to tabulate and follow, analyze, process and then use as evidence-based information to create better training Went through this whole thing.
Jamie Borden :The only question I got asked at the end of that was where did you learn how to do this? Hold on, Chief. I don't understand the question. Where did you learn this? We didn't learn it, we created it. This is cutting edge. Other departments are. Well, I need a breakdown of where you learned this information and I want to know more about it because to me it seems corrupt. You're here to protect bad behavior and Travis, that meeting was 45 minutes.
Jamie Borden :I went in. My lieutenant said, well, I think that went pretty well. And I said, well, I think you're on crack. That didn't go well at all and I'll tell you I'm on the edge of making a decision. It was two days later. I came in with my papers and I retired. They were going to dissolve the unit and everybody was saying stay, we'll fight for it. I don't want the fight to be about me. I want the fight to be about the resolve for the department. Right, Don't make it about me. I don't care about the position. So I had you know, choices at the department were to stay, take a sergeant's position over a unit, which is the best job in the world, or I could go out and have an impact nationally on on the United States in law enforcement, and that's what I chose to do. I walked out the door.
Jamie Borden :I'll never forget no-transcript when we look at these cases through the lens of risk aversity. I've got a whole chapter in my book about risk aversity. Identify what it is you're trying to protect. Right, and tell people what they need to know, not what you think they want to know, to preserve the position. This position was given to you in transition and it's an evolving point, right.
Jamie Borden :But if we're not making the world a better place, if we're just preserving a position, which is bad leadership in my opinion, if you're more concerned about your position than you are, the integrity of a police department, through cops that are doing what they've been trained with the training, the expectation and the right by law to do these things that they're doing in the field, and we're turning our back on them in the 11th hour and using that policy instead of a parameter like it's. You know, we train that. It's a parameter, a decision making model, if you will train that. It's a parameter, a decision-making model, if you will. And then we turn it into a hardline black letter law to shatter their career because one point in that policy was deviated from.
Jamie Borden :In the case which you're never going to be involved in a use of force, case where you're not stepping outside of policy, black line letter because policy doesn't cover everything. I've heard you talk about this before Me and you have talked about it before, so the politics certainly dance in this stuff. I left and here we are today Best decision I ever made, but I'll set of balls, right, You've got to say what needs to be said, not what you think people want you to hear.
Travis Yates:To preserve your position, yeah, there's far too many chiefs like this. In fact, I wrote a whole book about chiefs like this, called the Courageous Police Leader. It seems to be so rare that we have actual leaders who do the right thing, and your story reminds me of something similar of mine. I won't give the background on it, but I was treated in a similar fashion over a unit, and that's why below 100 was developed. Most people listening to this law enforcement are familiar with below 100. Just know this. It was only developed because my department took me out of a role where I was doing the same thing and then I decided well, let's do this nationally.
Travis Yates:So I'm very thankful you did that, jamie, and you're busier, and busier, and busier, unfortunately, because so oftentimes it shouldn't be the case. What kind of tricks of the trade are you seeing used against law enforcement? I know you'll get a little bit of hindsight bias, but if you were to say anything that you're seeing routinely because just like we meet, we talk about best practices the enemies against the profession, the enemies against use of force. When I say enemies, what I mean is they want to take justified legal use of force and twist it and turn it into illegal use of force. What? What's the practice you're seeing from them right now?
Jamie Borden :Well. So the narrative is based on a passionate belief of wrongdoing prosecution and plaintiff's attorneys will take that narrative because we, as a law enforcement, in the profession of law enforcement, leave information on the table. We see something in a case, right, let's just take the Lunsford case, for example. The officer did everything by the book. His decisions were to apply a deadly force tactic to save his partner's life, right Under what he reasonably believed was a deadly threat. Subject had the taser was manipulating, the safety was 12 inches from his face and the decision to use deadly force tactics in that moment was done and it was accepted. Well, in that narrative. Even the experts on the other side and these are experts that have a CV that's deafening, right, they've got all these credentials and they get up and they say, well, the officer could have stepped back, made space, gotten a perfect spread.
Jamie Borden :The subject didn't have a shirt on and used a taser to achieve NMI. First of all, there's no guarantee that a subject is going to is going to respond to the use of a taser, even if it's a direct skin dart to skin contact, right, we know that it just uh, drugs on board will prevent NMI from happening. Another expert said he could have stepped off and slapped him. That's actual words from the trial, right, and why this argument came up is because every officer involved in the investigation and they did an outstanding investigation and this is not a failure. This is just something that needs to be known. That's not necessarily known In that investigation. Every officer involved in the investigation understood exactly why Brad Lunsford used that taser. So they never broached the question why did you not use other resources, other implementations? And had we had that explanation on the record for the trial, then it wouldn't have come up in the trial, because at that point, because the information is not on the table now, it's information that's coming out to try to justify your bad behavior. And that's exactly how they pose that argument. And it is not the case. And, and it's again, it's not a failure on the part of the investigators with with uh, with Lunsford, it's it's not knowing what we don't know.
Jamie Borden :We've got to exhaust this information. We have to develop that narrative from the core of this incident. It doesn't matter why we understand it or why we don't understand it. What matters is we get all the information about why the officer did what they did, why it made sense to them in that moment. Well, that includes why did it not make sense to you to use your taser? And once we got that long narrative about why the taser was an inappropriate weapon, an inappropriate choice at that point, that narrative now belongs to us. No one else can ask that question, even though the question asked two years later on the stand is going to be exactly the same. It doesn't exist in the pre-existing information, so now it's an excuse. If it happens before, it's an explanation. If it happens during or after, it's an excuse.
Jamie Borden :And I need officers and investigators to understand that. That's what my whole course is about. Efi Enhanced Force Investigations course is getting that information on the table. It's not about accuracy, it's about completeness. If we've got completeness, we can develop the accurate points within it, with an understanding that there's going to be some inaccuracies and inconsistencies.
Jamie Borden :You're talking about the original report, correct, correct, yeah, from the point that it happens, the original statements, you know. And that's why the cognitive interview is so important. I've got a whole section of my EFI course that's focused on how to elicit this information. Dr Ed Geiselman gave me the keys to the castle on the CI the cognitive interview and I produced a whole model of the cognitive interview that's specifically for interviewing police officers involved in critical incidents, and there's very important differences right on how we get to that information and how we ask those questions, and that we ask all of the questions, even the stuff that makes sense to us already right, even though we know it and understand it. That doesn't matter, because we're the last ones to look at that report with police background. The next person that looks at that statement is going to be a plaintiff's attorney, a prosecuting attorney, and if that information is not on the table, we're lost in the mix. Brother, we now have to make up that time and it becomes an explanation or becomes an excuse, not an explanation.
Travis Yates:Now part of that report, jamie, would you recommend including training and past experiences? And, with that answer, what type of training should officers be seeking now, before they get involved in one of these incidents?
Jamie Borden :Well and that self-investment component, Travis, is huge. I think that officers and listen, officers are tasked for time. Our training budgets are slim. Some departments they're none. You know myself and Danny, if we were denied a training with Henderson, we'd purchase the training and go to the training ourselves on our own vacation time because the job was just that important to us. You know officers, they and I've done this whole series on officer wellness and investment and applying your passions outside of police work to help your discipline as a police officer.
Jamie Borden :I think it's very important to understand that this requires discipline, right, this requires an understanding. As an officer involved in a critical incident, you can't put the weight on the investigators to know everything. Put the weight on the investigators to know everything. And if you know more about certain components of the incident that you're involved in and it's not getting on the record, you have to know that it's got to get on the record and you have to put it on the record. You know and and that's not. There's no harm and no foul in doing that, but our training is so important.
Jamie Borden :After the fact, when I get a case at the civil level, the very first thing I ask for is training. I look for training, I look for lesson plans, I make sure and I can't say that the officer listened during the class. I can't say that they assimilated any of that information, but I can say that they were exposed to it and that the actions I see in the evidence are consistent with what I know the training to be. So now I've bridged the gap between what they assimilated in training and what we see as a consistent behavior in that evidence, primarily video.
Travis Yates:If you're just now joining us, we're talking to Sergeant Jamie Borden, retired Henderson police. Sergeant ran a unit there. It was pretty phenomenal and useful force. But his book and it's one of the reasons I want to bring him on called the anatomy of the. The anatomy of a critical incident is the best book on the topic and there's so much to talk about in this book, Jamie, I'm not going to make you give it all up, but the one thing that I found interesting was your delineation and difference between truth and fact. I kind of explained to our audience, because that was such an important feature, that I found in the book something that I, quite frankly, hadn't thought too much of before.
Jamie Borden :So give us your thoughts on that. So you know, and this isn't truth and fact in social justice, right, it's not. It's not a look at truth and fact through that lens. This is literally an officer's focus of attention and their limited resources in a critical incident, under the constraints of time and and I want everybody that's listening to really think about this An officer that is involved in a critical incident where all of the information isn't known, because they only know what they've learned pre-incident coming into the call, what they see behaviorally from the suspect and then what they respond to in that context, Well, there's a very thin slice of pie available to the officer regarding their focus of attention, whether it's audible or visual, stimulus, smell, feel, whatever it might be. So, in those instances where it's captured globally on a video camera, we see all of this information and we've got all the information in hindsight, Well, the officer's belief of the facts at that time, what their truth is, their truth is simply a belief of what the facts are in the moment that we may find inconsistencies with in the hindsight review of that case. That doesn't make it because it wasn't true, doesn't make it a lie. So the truth, the difference between truth and fact is. The truth is what is subjectively believed in the moment to be fact by the officer. Now, in hindsight, through the objective, dispassionate review, we find that those facts may be inconsistent. But could the officer have known that? That's what Graham v Conner is all about.
Jamie Borden :Right, 20-20 vision of hindsight and I also have following that chapter Travis is the manipulation of the totality of facts and circumstances known to the officer when the event occurred Pre-existing information, knowledge learned in real time during the, during the contact, and the information at the final moment. That totality of the facts and circumstances isn't the same as the totality of facts and circumstances that I get after the fact isn't the same as the totality of facts and circumstances that I get after the fact. Right, Well, you'll get. People say no, I'm considering the totality of the facts and circumstances, just like outlined in Graham versus Connor.
Jamie Borden :No, you're not. That's known to the officer at the time. It's a reasonable belief based on the context, the perceptions, the expectations, the decisions and actions that lead to a performance and behavior. That's what I call the common thread in my class and I live in that common thread. So that's kind of the truth. In fact is the facts known to the officer at the time are truthfully and reasonably believed to be the facts. The facts in hindsight are objective, irrefutable facts that will be inconsistent with the officer's truth in that moment.
Travis Yates:Yeah, graham v Connor, it's been around since 1989. It's not going anywhere. The makeup of the court and recent decisions it's I mean, as I think the closest they've gotten is a 7-2 decision to reverse that. So it's not going anywhere in the next generation, or potentially two, but you'll never hear that case on MSNBC or CNN or any of these so-called police experts talking negatively about law enforcement. Unfortunately, you don't really hear that case too often about people trying to defend law enforcement. It's an important case but that case is twisted a lot. Jamie, I know you talked about some of that, but how are they twisting Granby-Connor even at the department level and policy level? That actually hurts officers.
Jamie Borden :Well, that's a great question. On a very recent high profile trial, they redacted the objective, reasonable standard from policy and disallowed it to be included in the jury instructions. That's what they're doing Hold up back up.
Jamie Borden :What was that again? Yeah, they redacted any place that referred to the objective standard in policy in the trial, because this was a criminal case. This is an officer that is trained how and why and when to use force based on the objective standard, has a policy to support it. The policy is now in place and it's been completely redacted in court for a jury instruction because it's a civil case, not a criminal case instruction because it's a civil case, not a criminal case.
Jamie Borden :Now this is where and the next point in my book that this comes up is the deadly force narrative, the intent to kill and the application of a deadly force tactic. Right, An application of a deadly force tactic is a tactic that's applied to change behavior where deadly force is prominently or probable in that environment, right? So when you look at the construct of this whole thing, the application of a deadly force tactic is to save a life. The application of a deliberate intention to kill is simply to kill someone, right? So this narrative gets misconstrued. Anytime the news says an officer is under investigation for homicide, homicide is viewed as a terminology that's got a criminal element to it. Homicide is a method of death. It has nothing to do with criminal behavior. Murder is what they're thinking. Homicide and murder are synonymous with those lay people that just don't have any understanding of the terminology, right? So these are the things that get misconstrued. And the prosecutors in this case were saying you made the decision to kill him because and that's not accurate there's not a decision to kill, it's a deadly force tactic to change behavior, to save a life, either your own or someone else's.
Jamie Borden :The stinging effect is that, tragically, someone loses their life because the application of a deadly force tactic comes with the expectation of substantial bodily harm or death. And that's known right. That is the viable and appropriate application of the tactic to save a life, and that narrative gets squelched. In these cases, the objective standard gets removed, even though civilly, everything would have been objectively reasonable in this case. All of these things stand the test of time until they're redacted and disallowed to be used in a criminal case. Until they're redacted and disallowed to be used in a criminal case. Well, that's chilling. Sit in a courtroom and watch a man get walked out in handcuffs because this is the case that's. One of the single most prominent days in my life is watching Brad Lunsford get walked out of that courtroom in handcuffs, full well knowing that he had the full support of his department, his chief, the policy, the training, everything was in place, but somehow it became criminal so I'm sure they weren't lining up the chief and and the policymakers to arrest him because he's following policy.
Travis Yates:They weren't doing that, were they?
Jamie Borden :absolutely not, and I'll tell you, you know, my hat's off to jeremy story, the chief over there over las cruces. Uh, absolute stallion. And I I'd go to work for him today if I didn't think, uh, that, uh, that I'd get sued in the first 12 minutes I was on the job.
Travis Yates:One of the things that you talk about, I think, so eloquently in your book. I remember anatomy of a critical incident. Go get it, just go get it. Every cop in America needs it. Obviously, every investigator needs it. But you break down de-escalation in a way that very few do, because this is one of the most butchered terms that's been used against law enforcement in so many ways and most law enforcement doesn't understand it. I watch these videos every day where I see where this has gotten us as a profession to, where we think that de-escalation is some magic trick to just solve things and what often it does is it gets us in worse trouble Kind of break down, and I know de-escalation is being used as a tool against us as well. Jane, we just kind of break down your thoughts on that Well and another great subject matter, and that's another one of those terms.
Jamie Borden :Right that it's misappropriated. It's a training term and we're never going to change training De-escalation. When I say the term de-escalation, the first thing that pops into your mind is verbal tactics, verbal skills, the attempt to talk somebody off of the ledge. Well, and I simplified this in the book. In fact, Greg Meyer quoted the entire section out of the book that I defined de-escalation as a goal, not a tactic, and it's an honor to be recognized by guys like that who were mentors of mine for years and still are. When you simplify it, if you look up definition for de-escalation, you'll see definitions that are half a page long and they go into all of this different stuff, including social justice and all these convoluted things. The bottom line is this to de-escalate a scenario is to bring under control a situation that is otherwise out of control, and it requires a composite of tactics that officers have been trained, that they've developed as heuristics, and we always want to come in lukewarm. We always want to try to reach the goal of de-escalation through the lowest form of force or tactical application that we can form of force or tactical application that we can.
Jamie Borden :Here's the disconnect. When an officer is failing in their mind in de-escalation because we're not getting a response from the suspect right, the suspect isn't playing well with us. In our attempts to de-escalate, Officers are failing to escalate to a level of force to effectively bring that situation into control and it's because they're stuck on the term de-escalation and the discipline that goes along with failing to de-escalate. Remember, most times an officer fails in a de-escalation attempt is because the suspect isn't playing along right. The suspect has a role in this communication process. Communication is and we all know this is a two-way street. If you're talking at someone and not to someone, or you're talking to someone and not getting a response, then verbal tactics aren't going to be effective.
Jamie Borden :And if we fail and continue to try to stay at these lower levels of force and I'm not saying shoot first, ask questions later, Please don't take this out of context, but officers have to realize. So the way I apply de-escalation in the hindsight and analysis of these cases is to look at the point where the officers are failing or the suspect is failing to comply with officers and at which point are they escalating their level of force to reach the goal of de-escalation. And that really simplifies it. Look at de-escalation as a goal, not a tactic, where you still have the opportunity to move up and down the continuum at whatever point you need to be, to gain control based on the perceptions, context, expectation that drive your decisions and actions and end up in a performance and behavior, the common thread. Right, it's a goal, it's not a tactic, and that's the simplest way I can explain it.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and you even say this in your book and I've been talking about this for years is sometimes you may have to escalate force to deescalate the situation A hundred percent. Phoenix Police Department's a prime example. That's how they train. It's appropriate, and the Department of Justice just lost their mind on them right by doing this. Because of this, fail to understand what de-escalation is, and let me just prove that to the people listening. If you watch any amount of these police videos, you'll see a lot of deadly force that happens after de-escalation fails. If we're using de-escalation as a sole tactic say verbal, but when verbal doesn't fail, the officers have nothing else to use it escalates pretty quickly to deadly force. But what if the officers could go hands-on much earlier, use a taser much earlier? That's part of de-escalation, because you're trying to mitigate that force and you do a brilliant job explaining that.
Jamie Borden :Yeah, and it's a very important subject for officers to understand, especially when they prepare for a statement or they're writing a witness report. It's important to explain why de-escalation went the way it did. It's important to explain that they're trying to reach the goal of de-escalation. It's important to explain the difference between what they were trained and how they applied it in the field right. These are things. This is information that could get left on the table Travis, and this is the information we need when it goes to trial. I need it as an expert to refer to it so I can verify that the officers knew exactly what the process was. And look, we've been deescalating these critical incidents for 150 years, since Sir Robert Peel ratified common and modern policing. This is the way police work has been done. It was done differently 25 years ago, right, and you know that was a different climate. Not that it was excessive or unnecessary. It was just a little bit more defined, if you will, and so our officers need to really understand that. And, moreover, our supervisors, midline management and upper management command staff need to understand the difference between these things, because they'll send officers through de-escalation training and then say that they fail to respond to training when a situation isn't controlled by words and it's outside of the control of officers. In many cases and look Travis we've had cases where an officer comes in hot water right, he comes in hot and fails to try anything else, go straight into a situation with hands on and we can't ratify it through any of the evidence. It happens, right.
Jamie Borden :I'm not here to advocate bad behavior. I'm here to define good behavior. Right, let's define these things and make sure it's on the record. These instances are the most important part of everyone's life involved, including the suspect. Right? We as investigators, reviewers, analyzers, decision makers. It had better be the most important incident in our life at the time we're doing that review. It's not something we push to the side. We get into it, we dig, we find what we need to find. We look deeper for things that we might not even know we need. Right, it's important. It's a very important process.
Travis Yates:And I know you've addressed this you addressed it in your book, Jamie. You've addressed it multiple times. You probably have to address it every time you testify is people will say, oh, Jamie or Travis is trying to permit bad cops or bad behavior. It's actually the exact opposite. Sort of give a quick explanation on that.
Jamie Borden :Well, first of all, and I'll tell you for all your listeners, nobody wants a bad cop out of the mix worse than a good cop. Right? It's too hard to go out and do a great job as a cop, invest yourself, do everything the way it should be done, and then be put in a position where someone else's fail to invest in themselves, bad decisions, bad history, all these things immaturity end up making the whole department look bad, and then undue pressure is on those cops. I want bad cops gone. I fired a lot of cops as a sergeant.
Jamie Borden :I've taken cases against cops as an expert and I don't like doing it, but I do it because I have to call balls and strikes. I need people to know that I'm here to better law enforcement, not protect cops. Cops need to protect themselves. I'll protect law enforcement with your good decisions, but I will also protect law enforcement by calling out bad decisions when I see them. And that's an important point that needs to be made, and every expert that's listening to this, make sure that that's the foundation that you're working from. I'm not afraid to tell people what they need to know. Right, and we've had this conversation. I'm not the expert that will tell you what you want to hear for the purpose of your case. I'll tell you what you need to hear for the purpose of your case and I might not be suitable for it right After doing a full review.
Jamie Borden :My opinions might not align with whoever prosecution or defense plaintiff, whatever it might be, and and I'm, I don't need the work. Right, I want the work and I want to do the job I'm doing, but I'm not. I'm not. This is not a money grab. All right, I take cases on both sides of the table simply because we have to make law enforcement better and, in my opinion, those of us that are out here doing the job that you're doing, that I'm doing with your report about Phoenix and the improprieties of the DOJ and all of the things that we're saying, listen, it's very easy for us to overestimate our popularity, brother, when we're saying what needs to be said, and that's just a punch I'm willing to take. You know what I mean.
Travis Yates:Right Now, Matt. I can't thank you enough, Jamie, the punch I'm willing to take, you know what I mean Right Now, man. I can't thank you enough, Jamie, for being here Once again, if you're just joining us, Jamie Borden. He's the founder and owner of Critical Incident Review. He's written an incredible book called the Anatomy of a Critical Incident. You can get that book at all major booksellers. But, Jamie, I've written a few books so I understand, when I got this book, what this book entailed. I can't imagine the effort and the lift that went into this. Explain that process to me, because I got to tell you I was impressed. You even had to reduce the font size much, to the chagrin of Chip DeBloch because he's half blind. He didn't want a thousand page book, but it's. I mean every page. You could spend an hour dissecting it. So I cannot even fathom in my small brain and all the stuff that I write how this was done. Explain to us why you decided to do it and the process that went into doing it.
Jamie Borden :So it started in 2018 when I retired. I'd been doing cases at that point for about six years or so Well, about five years and I was compiling information for the class that I was putting together. At the time, I was a contract instructor for science. I was teaching and lecturing all over the country for them as their senior lead instructor, and this was important information, because I was teaching the science, but I was compiling information that investigators needed to know, because, in my opinion, we aren't going to make scientists out of investigators. We're going to make good investigators out of them through the application of science. Right, and that's really where I live. I don't have scientific authority. I've got a deep understanding and a good grasp on scientific principles that inform me as an investigator. So this all began in 2018. 2019, I separated and moved on with my own company from Force Science, and it was amicable and I just needed to get out to answer the questions I was getting.
Jamie Borden :As an instructor across the board, I developed this class. As I developed the class, I was taking notes. So for five years, as this class evolved four and a half years I would continually update these notes with full intention that I was going to write a book. Well, at the time I'd made the decision to commit to the book, I had a stack of unorganized notes that big enough to choke an elephant and I started the process of trying to organize. I then, you know, once I got everything on paper and I got into Word documents and I titled every document what the chapter was going to be and I just bled out on the page, got into word documents and I titled every document what the chapter was going to be and I just bled out on the page. I would just sit and write down every thought that I had.
Jamie Borden :I'd go through my course of instruction, I'd write down every subject matter from every slide and then I would sit down and commit and I would commit 10 hours a day for about four and a half months, and on days that I was working in between cases, I would commit 10 hours a day for about four and a half months, and on days that I was working in between cases, I would commit four hours a day.
Jamie Borden :I was literally up at a minimum for 20 hours a day during the final four months when this book came together. And you're right, it was a heavy lift and the problem was is when I was done at 12 font where everybody can read it. I had a thousand page book and I wasn't willing to put that out. But I started going through it and looking at what I was going to cut out and I was also unwilling to cut anything out of the book. It was all important information. So I reduced the font and got it down to 452 pages. So when you get it, don't read it on the toilet because you will go paralyzed.
Travis Yates:Well, it's pretty incredible, man. You've done a service that will outlast our lives for sure. Jamie, that's what legacy is about. It's what we talk about all the time here. I can't thank you enough for what you've done, and I have to tell people this is not just a product or a training for use of force investigators or patrol officers. This is the epitome of law enforcement leadership. If you don't understand these concepts, you have no business in a leadership position, making these types of decisions that affect so many lives. So everybody needs to get to this. I went, I became a force investigator late in my career and I just shake my head of how many decisions I made before I had that knowledge that were probably wrong or come to with the wrong conclusion. So thank you so much for doing it. Thank you for being here. I can't thank you enough.
Jamie Borden :Yeah, Travis, the feelings are mutual. Man, I follow the things that you do very closely and you know we get the opportunity to be on these radio shows together with Chip DeBlock, Law Enforcement Roundtable, and it's always a pleasure. I'm so glad we got the opportunity to get this thing off the ground and hopefully we can do some work together here soon, in the near future.
Travis Yates:Yes, sir Jamie Borden, thank you, and if you've been watching, you've been listening. Thank you for doing that. And just remember lead on and stay courageous.
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