One truism of policing in America (although seldom given voice to but universally understood between those engaged in the game of “cops and robbers” that’s all too often played out in inner-city neighborhoods) is that if you make a cop chase you, when and if he catches you, he’s going to dispense some street justice; in other words, he’s going to beat your ass — if he can get away with it. And all too often he can … in spite of the fact such actions are totally illegal.
One of the reasons for this behavior can be attributed to “adrenaline overload,” a common occurrence in policing, and not completely unknown in other professions or situations. Indeed, the internal mechanism that triggers the rush of this chemical throughout our bodies is present in virtually all mammals, and is responsible for the life-preserving “flight or fight” phenomenon. It’s imbedded in our DNA. So, oftentimes when a cop apprehends a suspect after a chase they both are higher than Charles Manson, albeit sometimes from different chemicals.
However, police officers are supposed to receive training to control adrenaline rush, since it’s well documented that when it occurs the results can be deadly. Nonetheless, many young cops live for this rush, and as the father of Tim Loehmann (the cop that killed Tamir Rice) said regarding his son a few days afterwards, “He wanted to be where the action was.” In other words, the “rush.”
Obviously Loehmann is not alone … many other (mostly) young cops simply love tearing through city streets, sirens blaring, getting themselves all pumped up in anticipation of the “action” to come. The classic example (perhaps of all time) is the 137 shots incident where dozens of cops — most disobeying orders — took off in hot pursuit of a car that backfired … and ended up with two unarmed people dead. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Sergeant Charles E. Humes, Jr. is a law enforcement professional with 31 years of experience, including approximately 20 of those years on street patrol. He’s recognized internationally as one of the pioneers of modern, realistic police defensive tactics and training, teaching seminars and instructor certification classes at departments across the country.
Humes defines the problem as one of personality types. “The root answer is that many officers are Type T personalities. If you ask most people, personality types are either A or B. Often described as aggressive, assertive, and goal oriented people — Type A personalities dominate the police culture. Without the Type A traits, few people would go rushing into situations where everyone else is running away.
“Type T is an emerging personality classification now recognized — it’s defined by the McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine as a psychology A personality type that takes risks. Type Ts tend to be extroverted and creative and crave novel experiences and excitement. The sometimes-insatiable craving of a type T personality can be described in two words: adrenaline rush.”
This is probably what Tim Loehmann was experiencing when he jumped out of the patrol car and immediately shot Tamir.
Humes goes on to say that “Type T people not only enjoy the rush of adrenaline, but they will actively seek ventures and conditions that create it. For a type T, it is a powerful, sometimes addictive feeling of ecstasy. The cocktail of hormones (mostly adrenaline and dopamine) that flood the brain during Sympathetic Nervous System arousal, creates this euphoria. High speed driving creates an adrenaline rush. The higher the speeds and the longer the exposure, the adrenaline level increases.”
Back to the 137 shots again.
“For police officers, this creates a conundrum of epic proportions,” Humes writes. “We all know the performance-hindering effects of an adrenaline overload on the fine and complex motor skills necessary to control a car. Not to mention tunnel vision, target fixation, and auditory exclusion, all of which can also be synergistic factors to a car crash.
“Nevertheless, I believe a more critical component is this: when the pleasure centers of the type T brain are flooded with this intense, pleasure-inducing, adrenaline/dopamine overload, the logical, reasoning, cognitive part of the brain yields control to the emotional center of the brain. With the emotional center of the brain in control, and under the euphoric influence of the adrenaline overload, what are the chances that it will command the body to do anything other than to drive even more hazardously to increase the adrenaline level?”
Or, once the chase has ended, with all of this madness rushing through a cop’s brain and body … someone is more likely to die.
Humes concludes by writing: “I think the first thing we need to do is to understand the reality of what can happen. We must fully comprehend that our brain can experience an involuntary, physiological change when under the influence of an adrenaline overload. It’s not just excitement. We are talking about an actual alteration in the way the brain functions, which is likely to encourage us to do things that have a high probability of getting us killed.”
Or, as often happens, with an unarmed civilian being killed.
However, there is a breathing technique that reduces adrenaline levels in the body and Humes has been advocating for years that more cops should receive such training. However, considering how little training police officers receive in Ohio (605 hours, versus 1500 hours for a beautician), the chances of such potentially lifesaving techniques being added to the training curricula are slim to none. That’s why we need a consent decree, to force such training here in Cleveland.
[Photo: Mark Doliner (Flickr)]
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.