Many times in our business, officers must make split-second decisions in order to end situations that could endanger the public. This one happened last week at Rosedale Mall.
Roseville police officers were dispatched to Rosedale on a theft, which had just occurred. Officer Jeff Lopez was already there on an unrelated incident and saw the suspect leaving the mall on foot. It appeared to Officer Lopez that the suspect saw him as he ducked out of sight. Officer Lopez next saw the suspect in a vehicle and gave verbal commands to the suspect to stop. He did shortly, and then drove off at a high rate of speed.
Officer Lopez radioed this information to other officers and Officer Christine Marston arrived and attempted to stop the suspect while still in the mall parking lot. After about .20 miles of red lights and sirens, the suspect stopped on the ring road of the mall. He was acting the same as he did when Officer Lopez originally stopped him and he took off—looking around for a chance to escape, engaging in dialogue unrelated to their commands, etc. It appeared he was going to take off again, so Officer Josh Arneson made a quick decision to use his squad to pin in the front of the suspect vehicle so the suspect could not drive off again and jeopardize the safety of the public.
It worked well and the suspect was arrested for stealing nearly $7,000 in jewelry from a store in Rosedale Mall. The suspect from Minneapolis was already on probation for auto theft.
Officer Arneson will be the first to tell you that this maneuver compromised his safety and temporarily placed him in a dangerous position if the suspect had been armed with a firearm. However, both of us agree it was an excellent display of creative thinking in order to protect the public, based on the totality of the circumstances.
It is very probable the unconventional actions of Officer Arneson upset the thought processes of the suspect and temporarily, seconds only, confused the suspect into inaction—brain freeze.
We have discussed the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) process in our use of force training for many years. It is based on 1950’s era United States Air Force pilot training principles. It’s not only for law enforcement and military applications, something that I plan to touch on in an upcoming newsletter. (I wasn’t too concerned about giving out any trade secrets involving the OODA Loop as Google gave me 614,000 results for it when asked.)
Take Care,
Chief Rick Mathwig
This post was originally published as part of the July 13, 2018 edition of Chief Mathwig’s newsletter, One Chief’s Perspective.
