Editor’s note: This article is reprinted with permission from the July/August 2024 issue of LVPPA Vegas Beat, the official publication of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association.

Pre-planning can be a key to successfully handling any LEO call, from big to small. Pre-planning is literally defined as when you plan in advance. On critical events, pre-planning — as an individual and with teammates — can make the difference for a well-run call that allows officers to adjust and overcome sudden developments that are almost inevitable in the field. Pre-planning should begin long before the call is handled. It begins in training and prep before the actual call. On the call, it should happen while en route, can be codified in a quick conversation with teammates upon arrival and on approach to the target, and should continue with ongoing communication with teammates throughout the call.

A key to pre-planning through-out your career will be your individual preparation. Preparation for the individual officer begins with the prefix “pre-,” which means “before.” The individual officer should begin to prepare for the event by being physically fit, mentally and emotionally ready, and tactically proficient. Officers must prepare ahead of time, because the day chooses you. When the moment arrives, the time to prepare, or pre-plan, has passed and reality begins. A reality with no pre-planning or preparation can be very unforgiving. At best, it ends with the officer physically surviving, but dealing with unintended outcomes. At worst, the officer can lose the encounter, resulting in substantial injuries or even death. This article is not meant to suggest that officers who are killed on calls in the line of duty are all officers who did not pre-plan. I firmly believe that, despite preparation, sometimes it just is your time to go. However, most critical incidents that go sideways expose a lack of pre-planning before, upon arrival and during the event.

Officers must prepare ahead of time, because the day chooses you. When the moment arrives, the time to prepare, or pre-plan, has passed and reality begins.

Before the event

Pre-planning before is all about training. I consistently champion the value of training consistently over time, a little a lot. Training can be through department in-service, such as AOST, RBT, DT training or the range. Officers can also seek out outside LEO-based training through private resources or LEO training conferences. For this training to have pre-planning value, you need to retain it. I would suggest actually taking notes throughout the training. Effective notes should list the title and date of the training and capture key principles, fundamentals, policies, case law and techniques taught. These notes can be reviewed over time, and the techniques learned can be reviewed over time. You can mentally apply the principles and techniques covered in training to calls you have been on, or calls you mentally rehearse in your mind. Physical and mental rehearsal of training is a critical part of pre-planning for actual calls and should be done routinely throughout an officer’s career. Physical repetitions should be done at least twice a week. Mental rehearsal should be done several times a shift, including active mental rehearsal while en route to every call.

The physical and mental rehearsal covered above can be done with a partner or your squad. I have trained above and beyond the department-provided training with partners and eventually on a squad-based level on every assignment I have ever worked in my 20-plus-year career. Cops actually like training that is relevant and effective, and will participate if the training is conducted in a safe manner.

En route

When officers are dispatched to a call, they should be mentally rehearsing potential scenarios based on the details of the call. If you are performing a car stop or a person stop, you should be rapidly assessing the stop, the environment and potential scenarios that could happen. Assessment is based on why you are performing the stop, how many people are you stopping, lighting conditions and environmental factors, plus anything else relevant to the officer at that time.

Let’s go back to dispatched calls. If I am alone, I am visualizing and running different scenarios through my mind. As I consider different scenarios, I am thinking of needed resources, tactics and training that will lead to favorable outcomes to handle the potential call I have. This is not a process where I turn every call into a STAR protocol or a SWAT callout. I consider the call for what it is to start, but I also consider how will I adapt if the call is inaccurate or goes south at some point. If I have a partner in the car, this is a huge potential advantage on any call I go on.

That advantage is emphasized exponentially if I actually communicate with my partner. We bounce stuff off of one another and quickly run through pre-planning for the call we are going to. We can squander any advantage we may have had by not communicating or pre-planning while en route. In that case, we are simply giving a ride to two cops who are going to a call. It is disheartening to see officers headed to calls jamming out to the radio, or arriving early and parking down the street to wait for cover and jump on their phone to play some game or surf social media while they wait. This time could be used to focus on the call, go over the details, think of training and consider potential scenarios and outcomes. The easiest way to kick-start any event toward a safe resolution for everyone involved (including the suspect) is to start communicating prior to the event and continue coms throughout.

Pre-planning and communication should include potential roles or resources needed, which can vary depending on the call — contact versus cover, lethal versus low lethal, hands-on versus security, etc. Even though initial roles can be “assigned,” a big part of pre-planning is realizing that these roles can change rapidly, or may not be needed at all. Officers need to be flexible and adapt, but having a plan and communicating that plan allows them to get into a mindset that facilitates a trained response and kicks off pre-planning. Officers who pre-plan and communicate handle calls and make adjustments better than officers who don’t. If there needs to be an adaptation on the call and someone fills your role or it is not needed, if you pre-planned it is much easier to “find work” and pick up a different role. Preparation, training and communication only matter if you use them.

Train, prepare, pre-plan, communicate and act until your responses on calls come from a knowledge-based fear response and not an emotion-based fear response.

On the scene

If officers do not drive together, they should meet briefly upon arrival and communicate a plan of action. Once again, a key component of any plan is that it can change. We may need to adapt. However, by starting the process and starting communication prior to the event and the accompanying stress and elevated heart rate, officers are more likely to make key adjustments and respond in a trained manner. This leads to favorable outcomes. This meeting can be brief or longer, depending on the call and what is occurring. Pre-planning is not designed to hinder a response or design a “perfect plan.” It is designed to give the officers a coordinated and planned start to the event that gets them on the same page and responding as a team. A pre-planned response executed is better than a perfect plan not executed.

No amount of pre-planning can stop calls from going sideways or differently than planned. Officers have to use force at times based on the suspect’s behavior. Officers must follow law and policy as they choose appropriate force options. A key consideration in analyzing an officer’s force is whether the officer felt a reasonable fear based upon the suspect’s actions. That reasonable fear is based on the officer’s fear of the consequences of their inaction (i.e., the injury or death that may occur to the officer or anyone else based upon the suspect’s actions if the officer does not respond to the threat).

An officer experiencing a reasonable fear and choosing a proper response is far more likely to occur if the officer regularly pre-plans for potential scenarios. Pre-planning allows the officer to experience fear based on training and preparation, not just emotion. A reasonable fear based on pre-planning and training is knowledge-based, and much easier to articulate. A knowledge-based fear response as threats arise is far more likely to produce trained and appropriate responses that increase officer safety than a true emotional fear response. If you train consistently and don’t pre-plan during calls, you are not getting the true benefit of any training you are undertaking because the suspect may “surprise you” with resistance, leading to an emotion-based fear response.

Can you imagine a football team practicing and pre-planning for the game, but then not arriving to the stadium early to meet and not huddling before every play to have a plan? The real key is not the pre-game meetings or huddles. Those are important, because we get on the same page and are thinking about what we are doing, not a game on our phone. The key adjustments are post-huddle, pre-snap and even after the snap through communication. The best defenses talk and communicate throughout the play — run, pass, draw, screen, motion, etc. The best teams practice, pre-plan, communicate, act and continue to communicate. This formula captures the importance of pre-planning and how it can actually be implemented. Whether you are a football fan or not, there is a lot to learn about how to successfully win on everyday police calls.

Train, prepare, pre-plan, communicate and act until your responses on calls come from a knowledge-based fear response and not an emotion-based fear response. Do I still get scared on calls? Sure. But my training, pre-planning and coms create trained actions as a result of my fear, not emotional untrained responses. There are times on calls where I have actually felt really physically scared after it was over, when I thought about what “could have happened.” During the event, however, if we have pre-planned, that is often what comes out when the stress begins. If you are not afraid, this job is not for you. If you are not managing that fear with consistent training, pre-planning, communication and acting, it may not be for you either.