Here’s a great piece by Ron Martinelli about the reactionary gap and perception lag, something we touch upon in our GSL Defense Training Illinois 16-hour CCW classes and talk more in depth about in our Intermediate Personal Protection classes.
Read it, learn it, be able to articulate it. Note the lag times between exposure to the “triggering event” and meaningful action. And once again, how long does it take a bad guy to cover 21 feet? How about 9 feet. Then look at those lag times once more and you’ll see the significance of guarding that immediate personal space to maintain some sort of reactionary gap against a potential threat.
Who is Ron Martinelli?
Ron Martinelli, Ph.D., is a nationally renowned forensic criminologist specializing in police death cases, use of force, human factors, and psychophysiology. Dr. Martinelli is a retired law enforcement officer who directs the nation’s only multidisciplinary civilian Forensic Death Investigation Team at Martinelli & Associates, Inc. He can be reached at (951) 719-1450 and www.martinelliandassoc.com. His firm is presently engaged in a major forensic scientific project reanalyzing the “21-Foot Rule.” If you are interested in volunteering for this important project, please contact his office.
(Police Mag) – For decades now many American officers have heard use-of-force instructors discuss the “21-Foot Rule” during officer safety, firearms, and deadly force training. As a use-of-force instructor and a practicing forensic police practices expert, I have also trained and testified to this concept myself.
…But is the “21-Foot Rule” a forensic fact or a police myth?
The Variables
Psychophysiology–This is the study of how the brain influences and affects physiological function. Science tells us that humans possess both a forebrain and a midbrain. The forebrain is where cognitive processing and decision-making take place. The midbrain plays a role in situational awareness, sleep, arousal, alertness, and trained and subconscious memories.
When an officer experiences a threat, it takes on average .58 seconds to experience the threat and determine if it is real. It then takes on average .56 to 1.0 seconds to make a response decision. Humans have five possible responses to threat: defend (fight), disengage (retreat), posture (yell, point a finger, act aggressive), become hypervigilant (panic, confusion, freezing, using force excessively), and submit (surrender).
When a human is threatened, the brain automatically infuses the body with adrenalin (stimulant), endorphins (pain blockers), and dopamine (euphoric pain blocker). The body uses these chemicals to help us survive an encounter by making us faster, stronger, and more pain tolerant. However, these same chemicals can also significantly diminish our performance under intense stress by causing such problems as perceptional narrowing (tunnel vision), loss of near vision, and auditory occlusion (reduced hearing) or exclusion (loss of hearing). This ultimately negatively affects our chances of surviving a violent encounter.
Under the intense stress normally associated with deadly force threat scenarios and while under the influence of survival chemicals, the body’s basal metabolic rate, measured by heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, climbs significantly in milliseconds. This dynamic can cause further psychophysiological impairments such as vasoconstriction, which can impair weapon manipulation, cognitive processing, and stress memory recall following an encounter.
Equipment and competency—Several factors affect an officer’s survival against an attacker. For instance, an officer or detective whose sidearm is secured in a Level III holster will certainly have a slower draw-to-target acquisition time than an officer drawing from a Level I holster. An officer’s experience and competency with his or her holster system and combat shooting style are also critical human factors in that officer’s ability to draw, move off the line of attack, and direct accurate fire upon an armed assailant.
Accuracy of fire at close distances—The average officer in static firearms qualifications (non-timed, standing, and shooting without moving) can hit the 9 and 10 rings far more often than not from the five-yard line. However, research of actual OIS incidents has shown that officers can only accurately hit their moving assailants 14% of the time in life-or-death situations from distances of only two to 10 feet. On the other hand, assailants were able to successfully engage and hit officers 68% of the time within those same distances.
Perception lag—Once the average officer gets on target, it takes him or her .56 seconds to make a decision to commence shooting. However, it then takes that same officer .25 to .31/100ths of a second per trigger pull to fire. As the deadly force scenario rapidly evolves, it takes that same officer on average .5 to .6 seconds to realize that the threat has passed and to stop shooting. This is because of a psychophysiological dynamic referred to as “perception action-reaction lag time.”
The reason why some suspects are found to have entry wounds in their sides and backs when the officers who shot them say the suspects were facing them when they fired is often the perception action-reaction lag time and the manner in which information was processed by the officers’ brains. This is pretty sophisticated information for a criminal or civil jury to understand and consider.
…As the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Graham v. Connor (490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct) has eloquently stated, each high-risk encounter during a rapidly evolving situation is unique. My sense is that future research may underscore that legal principle with respect to the Tueller Drill.
There’s more… read the whole article for the rest.
Hmmm.
Where have I heard that before?
This should be required reading for Al Sharpton and his ilk.