May 26, 2025

Decoding Use of Force with Sgt. Jamie Borden

00:00

Send us a text 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 cas...

Send us a text

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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Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Jamie Borden

08:09 - Creating the Use of Force Analysis Unit

14:29 - Politics vs. Effective Leadership

21:31 - Truth vs. Fact in Critical Incidents

29:01 - De-escalation as a Goal, Not Tactic

37:25 - The Anatomy of a Critical Incident Book

Transcript

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00:00:02.043 --> 00:00:10.455
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

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Welcome back to the show.

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I'm so honored that you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today and today's guest.

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We have been trying to make this happen for some time.

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I'm really excited.

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You're going to be excited.

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This is something you're going to want to tune into, maybe more than once, and send to your friends.

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On today's episode we have Sergeant Jamie Borden.

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Jamie spent well over two decades in law enforcement.

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He's one of the most respected and esteemed experts in the field, particularly with use of force.

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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.

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I can't recommend him his training, his classes, his book enough.

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Sergeant Jamie Borden, how are you?

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doing.

00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:00.883
Sir man, I'm good brother.

00:01:00.883 --> 00:01:02.345
Thank you, it's nice to be on your show.

00:01:03.347 --> 00:01:05.010
Well, jamie, we've had Danny King on.

00:01:05.010 --> 00:01:20.814
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.

00:01:21.939 --> 00:01:22.462
That's a great.

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That's a great question.

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Investigations that's a great question.

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And the crazy thing is, travis, is that my journey to where I?

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First of all, I've given up trying to figure out how I ended up being who I am.

00:01:32.474 --> 00:01:37.448
And this is just me following my passions, answering the call, if you will.

00:01:38.490 --> 00:01:49.927
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.

00:01:49.927 --> 00:01:51.471
I wasn't a cop yet.

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I had always had an interest in being a cop, but I was by his side through that entire process.

00:01:56.855 --> 00:01:58.662
He was internally scrutinized.

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This was the onset of video evidence.

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News camera cop captured the whole thing.

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It was completely distorted in how it presented to the news.

00:02:06.623 --> 00:02:13.893
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.

00:02:13.893 --> 00:02:15.700
So I found that very interesting.

00:02:15.741 --> 00:02:24.687
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.

00:02:24.687 --> 00:02:42.002
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.

00:02:42.002 --> 00:03:01.562
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.

00:03:01.562 --> 00:03:05.712
I mean everything that can find the courtroom in any fashion.

00:03:05.712 --> 00:03:09.628
I'm involved in it and I'm so thankful that I am.

00:03:09.628 --> 00:03:18.069
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.

00:03:18.169 --> 00:03:29.169
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.

00:03:29.169 --> 00:03:31.439
And I've done that my whole career.

00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:34.370
And, lo and behold, I took the job.

00:03:34.370 --> 00:03:36.367
I was a patrol officer, fto.

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I became an officer in charge below a sergeant.

00:03:41.170 --> 00:03:43.949
I then took a break and went out on tour.

00:03:43.949 --> 00:03:53.834
As you know, I have a music career that paralleled police work, came back to work and promoted into I was a narcotics officer.

00:03:53.854 --> 00:04:09.481
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.

00:04:09.481 --> 00:04:21.894
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.

00:04:21.894 --> 00:04:48.634
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.

00:04:48.634 --> 00:04:57.240
And you know so that that unit really quantified, looking at every incident as a training moment for the department.

00:04:57.240 --> 00:05:09.658
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.

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That would happen twice a year, so we had a very good grip on it, and it was that unit that did it.

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That unit became nationally recognized.

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Many departments across the country are adopting similar units at this point, which is where my career started, with lecturing.

00:05:23.766 --> 00:05:26.752
I've lectured across the country.

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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.

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He's my COO.

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He keeps me in line and keeps my schedule in front of me, so I know where to be on every given day.

00:05:48.127 --> 00:05:51.002
But that's kind of a breakdown of how I ended up here today.

00:05:51.685 --> 00:05:57.473
Well, we're very thankful that you do it and obviously, as you mentioned, what your department did at the time was cutting edge.

00:05:57.473 --> 00:06:00.504
Most departments weren't doing that and you guys were at the forefront of that.

00:06:00.504 --> 00:06:03.271
How much did politics come into play?

00:06:03.271 --> 00:06:11.882
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.

00:06:11.882 --> 00:06:16.564
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.

00:06:16.964 --> 00:06:22.504
I've always thought it was amazing, jamie, that we have these commanders or chiefs or whoever that review these use of force.

00:06:22.504 --> 00:06:34.805
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.

00:06:34.805 --> 00:06:48.370
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.

00:06:48.370 --> 00:06:49.333
What's your thoughts on that?

00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:51.819
Well, you're 100% accurate.

00:06:51.819 --> 00:06:57.392
And the chief that allowed that unit to exist came to me.

00:06:57.392 --> 00:07:05.774
My very first task when I took the training bureau spot was to revamp our use of force training policy.

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And I didn't just go through and rewrite the policy.

00:07:08.846 --> 00:07:12.112
I took our neighboring department, Las Vegas Metro.

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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.

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The ACLU gave their recommendations on the policy.

00:07:24.305 --> 00:07:25.752
Well, I took the finished policy and the document from the ACLU.

00:07:25.752 --> 00:07:26.129
The ACLU gave their recommendations on the policy.

00:07:26.129 --> 00:07:30.310
Well, I took the finished policy and the document from the ACLU and I went through and revamped our entire policy.

00:07:30.310 --> 00:07:42.333
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.

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I got a response from them that they were proud to have been a part of it.

00:07:47.221 --> 00:07:48.785
They approved the policy.

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They love the policy and we moved forward with that policy, including the unit and the work that myself and Danny King did.

00:07:56.329 --> 00:07:58.762
So here's where the politics kick in.

00:07:58.841 --> 00:08:00.846
That chief did exactly what you said.

00:08:00.846 --> 00:08:12.584
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.

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And they listened.

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We weren't making recommendations.

00:08:15.595 --> 00:08:21.851
We simply would present the facts to them, but we would teach them about what the facts meant and what this did.

00:08:21.851 --> 00:08:37.250
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.

00:08:37.250 --> 00:08:52.332
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.

00:08:52.332 --> 00:08:56.990
It didn't matter who liked them, who didn't like them, what their reputation on the department was.

00:08:56.990 --> 00:09:05.330
That case is what mattered, and it created a culture where officers were self-investing and making better decisions overall.

00:09:05.700 --> 00:09:07.427
Well, now let's talk about politics.

00:09:07.427 --> 00:09:13.552
That chief was forced out, as most chiefs are with the city of Henderson, by the city government.

00:09:13.552 --> 00:09:20.216
Scandalous allegations the chief ended up leaving under those allegations, ended up suing the department.

00:09:20.216 --> 00:09:21.159
Blah, blah, blah.

00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:29.428
We get a chief in from Arlington, Texas, who was a captain on Arlington, came in not a change maker, but a change agent.

00:09:29.428 --> 00:09:31.783
Right, there's a difference and you know the difference.

00:09:31.783 --> 00:09:39.393
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.

00:09:39.494 --> 00:09:45.390
So I did a 45-minute presentation to the chief and the deputy chief, who had both come from Arlington.

00:09:45.390 --> 00:09:52.374
At the end of that 45-minute presentation and Travis, I had flow charts and I had explanations for everything we were doing.

00:09:52.374 --> 00:09:53.907
I explained the cultural changes.

00:09:53.907 --> 00:09:59.259
I explained the use of force, the decrease in use of force, the increase of hands-on, decrease of taste.

00:09:59.259 --> 00:10:10.015
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.

00:10:10.157 --> 00:10:14.250
The only question I got asked at the end of that was where did you learn how to do this?

00:10:14.250 --> 00:10:16.157
Hold on, Chief.

00:10:16.157 --> 00:10:17.741
I don't understand the question.

00:10:17.741 --> 00:10:19.265
Where did you learn this?

00:10:19.265 --> 00:10:21.751
We didn't learn it, we created it.

00:10:21.751 --> 00:10:22.642
This is cutting edge.

00:10:22.642 --> 00:10:23.683
Other departments are.

00:10:23.683 --> 00:10:31.322
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.

00:10:31.322 --> 00:10:37.488
You're here to protect bad behavior and Travis, that meeting was 45 minutes.

00:10:38.049 --> 00:10:38.390
I went in.

00:10:38.390 --> 00:10:41.200
My lieutenant said, well, I think that went pretty well.

00:10:41.200 --> 00:10:42.802
And I said, well, I think you're on crack.

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That didn't go well at all and I'll tell you I'm on the edge of making a decision.

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It was two days later.

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I came in with my papers and I retired.

00:10:52.668 --> 00:10:58.008
They were going to dissolve the unit and everybody was saying stay, we'll fight for it.

00:10:58.008 --> 00:10:59.751
I don't want the fight to be about me.

00:10:59.751 --> 00:11:03.303
I want the fight to be about the resolve for the department.

00:11:03.303 --> 00:11:04.826
Right, Don't make it about me.

00:11:04.826 --> 00:11:06.148
I don't care about the position.

00:11:06.148 --> 00:11:21.804
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.

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I walked out the door.

00:11:23.730 --> 00:11:55.967
I'll never forget no-transcript when we look at these cases through the lens of risk aversity.

00:11:55.967 --> 00:11:58.982
I've got a whole chapter in my book about risk aversity.

00:11:58.982 --> 00:12:01.668
Identify what it is you're trying to protect.

00:12:01.668 --> 00:12:07.284
Right, and tell people what they need to know, not what you think they want to know, to preserve the position.

00:12:07.284 --> 00:12:14.067
This position was given to you in transition and it's an evolving point, right.

00:12:14.126 --> 00:12:39.250
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.

00:12:39.250 --> 00:12:40.432
You know, we train that.

00:12:40.432 --> 00:12:44.701
It's a parameter, a decision making model, if you will train that.

00:12:44.701 --> 00:12:45.764
It's a parameter, a decision-making model, if you will.

00:12:45.764 --> 00:12:50.417
And then we turn it into a hardline black letter law to shatter their career because one point in that policy was deviated from.

00:12:50.600 --> 00:13:00.032
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.

00:13:00.032 --> 00:13:06.964
I've heard you talk about this before Me and you have talked about it before, so the politics certainly dance in this stuff.

00:13:06.964 --> 00:13:30.349
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.

00:13:30.369 --> 00:13:33.865
To preserve your position, yeah, there's far too many chiefs like this.

00:13:33.865 --> 00:13:37.264
In fact, I wrote a whole book about chiefs like this, called the Courageous Police Leader.

00:13:37.264 --> 00:13:43.725
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.

00:13:43.725 --> 00:13:50.495
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.

00:13:50.495 --> 00:13:53.268
Most people listening to this law enforcement are familiar with below 100.

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Just know this.

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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.

00:14:01.263 --> 00:14:08.071
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.

00:14:08.071 --> 00:14:11.895
What kind of tricks of the trade are you seeing used against law enforcement?

00:14:11.895 --> 00:14:23.128
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.

00:14:23.128 --> 00:14:30.375
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.

00:14:30.375 --> 00:14:30.620
What?

00:14:30.620 --> 00:14:32.808
What's the practice you're seeing from them right now?

00:14:33.620 --> 00:14:33.841
Well.

00:14:33.841 --> 00:14:51.476
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.

00:14:51.476 --> 00:14:55.431
We see something in a case, right, let's just take the Lunsford case, for example.

00:14:55.431 --> 00:14:58.740
The officer did everything by the book.

00:14:58.740 --> 00:15:08.765
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.

00:15:08.765 --> 00:15:19.020
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.

00:15:19.020 --> 00:15:21.245
Well, in that narrative.

00:15:21.245 --> 00:15:36.485
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.

00:15:36.525 --> 00:15:41.630
The subject didn't have a shirt on and used a taser to achieve NMI.

00:15:41.630 --> 00:15:55.402
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.

00:15:55.402 --> 00:15:58.754
Another expert said he could have stepped off and slapped him.

00:15:58.754 --> 00:16:09.731
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.

00:16:09.731 --> 00:16:12.164
This is just something that needs to be known.

00:16:12.164 --> 00:16:16.394
That's not necessarily known In that investigation.

00:16:16.394 --> 00:16:22.472
Every officer involved in the investigation understood exactly why Brad Lunsford used that taser.

00:16:22.472 --> 00:16:30.996
So they never broached the question why did you not use other resources, other implementations?

00:16:30.996 --> 00:16:44.003
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.

00:16:44.003 --> 00:16:46.073
And that's exactly how they pose that argument.

00:16:46.073 --> 00:16:47.597
And it is not the case.

00:16:47.597 --> 00:16:55.562
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.

00:16:56.009 --> 00:16:57.934
We've got to exhaust this information.

00:16:57.934 --> 00:17:02.230
We have to develop that narrative from the core of this incident.

00:17:02.230 --> 00:17:06.041
It doesn't matter why we understand it or why we don't understand it.

00:17:06.041 --> 00:17:13.457
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.

00:17:13.457 --> 00:17:17.553
Well, that includes why did it not make sense to you to use your taser?

00:17:17.553 --> 00:17:26.810
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.

00:17:26.810 --> 00:17:33.275
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.

00:17:33.275 --> 00:17:37.871
It doesn't exist in the pre-existing information, so now it's an excuse.

00:17:37.871 --> 00:17:40.699
If it happens before, it's an explanation.

00:17:40.699 --> 00:17:43.211
If it happens during or after, it's an excuse.

00:17:43.613 --> 00:17:46.441
And I need officers and investigators to understand that.

00:17:46.441 --> 00:17:48.237
That's what my whole course is about.

00:17:48.237 --> 00:17:52.435
Efi Enhanced Force Investigations course is getting that information on the table.

00:17:52.435 --> 00:17:54.795
It's not about accuracy, it's about completeness.

00:17:54.795 --> 00:18:04.101
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.

00:18:04.769 --> 00:18:11.641
You're talking about the original report, correct, correct, yeah, from the point that it happens, the original statements, you know.

00:18:11.641 --> 00:18:13.778
And that's why the cognitive interview is so important.

00:18:13.778 --> 00:18:19.063
I've got a whole section of my EFI course that's focused on how to elicit this information.

00:18:19.063 --> 00:18:45.192
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.

00:18:45.192 --> 00:18:49.875
That doesn't matter, because we're the last ones to look at that report with police background.

00:18:49.875 --> 00:18:58.359
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.

00:18:58.359 --> 00:19:05.105
Brother, we now have to make up that time and it becomes an explanation or becomes an excuse, not an explanation.

00:19:05.505 --> 00:19:10.647
Now part of that report, jamie, would you recommend including training and past experiences?

00:19:10.647 --> 00:19:16.782
And, with that answer, what type of training should officers be seeking now, before they get involved in one of these incidents?

00:19:17.269 --> 00:19:21.240
Well and that self-investment component, Travis, is huge.

00:19:21.240 --> 00:19:25.787
I think that officers and listen, officers are tasked for time.

00:19:25.787 --> 00:19:28.055
Our training budgets are slim.

00:19:28.055 --> 00:19:29.500
Some departments they're none.

00:19:29.500 --> 00:19:40.498
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.

00:19:40.498 --> 00:19:50.609
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.

00:19:51.230 --> 00:19:57.161
I think it's very important to understand that this requires discipline, right, this requires an understanding.

00:19:57.161 --> 00:20:03.401
As an officer involved in a critical incident, you can't put the weight on the investigators to know everything.

00:20:03.401 --> 00:20:07.435
Put the weight on the investigators to know everything.

00:20:07.435 --> 00:20:14.079
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.

00:20:14.079 --> 00:20:15.451
You know and and that's not.

00:20:15.451 --> 00:20:19.903
There's no harm and no foul in doing that, but our training is so important.

00:20:20.289 --> 00:20:25.721
After the fact, when I get a case at the civil level, the very first thing I ask for is training.

00:20:25.721 --> 00:20:31.153
I look for training, I look for lesson plans, I make sure and I can't say that the officer listened during the class.

00:20:31.153 --> 00:20:42.413
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.

00:20:42.413 --> 00:20:50.941
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.

00:20:52.070 --> 00:20:56.213
If you're just now joining us, we're talking to Sergeant Jamie Borden, retired Henderson police.

00:20:56.213 --> 00:20:58.280
Sergeant ran a unit there.

00:20:58.280 --> 00:20:59.836
It was pretty phenomenal and useful force.

00:20:59.836 --> 00:21:04.119
But his book and it's one of the reasons I want to bring him on called the anatomy of the.

00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:17.762
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.

00:21:17.762 --> 00:21:24.663
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.

00:21:28.869 --> 00:21:29.532
So give us your thoughts on that.

00:21:29.532 --> 00:21:31.078
So you know, and this isn't truth and fact in social justice, right, it's not.

00:21:31.078 --> 00:21:32.565
It's not a look at truth and fact through that lens.

00:21:32.565 --> 00:22:09.201
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.

00:22:09.201 --> 00:22:33.163
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.

00:22:33.163 --> 00:22:37.923
That doesn't make it because it wasn't true, doesn't make it a lie.

00:22:37.923 --> 00:22:40.971
So the truth, the difference between truth and fact is.

00:22:40.971 --> 00:22:46.682
The truth is what is subjectively believed in the moment to be fact by the officer.

00:22:46.682 --> 00:22:53.892
Now, in hindsight, through the objective, dispassionate review, we find that those facts may be inconsistent.

00:22:53.892 --> 00:22:56.238
But could the officer have known that?

00:22:56.238 --> 00:22:58.383
That's what Graham v Conner is all about.

00:22:58.589 --> 00:23:17.723
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.

00:23:17.723 --> 00:23:28.809
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.

00:23:28.809 --> 00:23:30.411
Right, Well, you'll get.

00:23:30.411 --> 00:23:32.978
People say no, I'm considering the totality of the facts and circumstances, just like outlined in Graham versus Connor.

00:23:32.998 --> 00:23:33.357
No, you're not.

00:23:33.357 --> 00:23:35.290
That's known to the officer at the time.

00:23:35.290 --> 00:23:44.075
It's a reasonable belief based on the context, the perceptions, the expectations, the decisions and actions that lead to a performance and behavior.

00:23:44.075 --> 00:23:48.902
That's what I call the common thread in my class and I live in that common thread.

00:23:48.902 --> 00:23:51.464
So that's kind of the truth.

00:23:51.464 --> 00:23:58.250
In fact is the facts known to the officer at the time are truthfully and reasonably believed to be the facts.

00:23:58.250 --> 00:24:06.018
The facts in hindsight are objective, irrefutable facts that will be inconsistent with the officer's truth in that moment.

00:24:06.990 --> 00:24:09.557
Yeah, graham v Connor, it's been around since 1989.

00:24:09.557 --> 00:24:10.601
It's not going anywhere.

00:24:10.601 --> 00:24:17.463
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.

00:24:17.463 --> 00:24:27.703
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.

00:24:27.703 --> 00:24:31.199
Unfortunately, you don't really hear that case too often about people trying to defend law enforcement.

00:24:31.199 --> 00:24:34.416
It's an important case but that case is twisted a lot.

00:24:34.416 --> 00:24:41.240
Jamie, I know you talked about some of that, but how are they twisting Granby-Connor even at the department level and policy level?

00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:43.025
That actually hurts officers.

00:24:43.609 --> 00:24:44.998
Well, that's a great question.

00:24:44.998 --> 00:24:55.795
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.

00:24:55.795 --> 00:24:57.619
That's what they're doing Hold up back up.

00:24:57.780 --> 00:24:58.490
What was that again?

00:24:58.490 --> 00:25:07.005
Yeah, they redacted any place that referred to the objective standard in policy in the trial, because this was a criminal case.

00:25:07.005 --> 00:25:15.025
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.

00:25:15.025 --> 00:25:29.233
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.

00:25:29.253 --> 00:25:36.493
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.

00:25:36.493 --> 00:25:48.634
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?

00:25:48.634 --> 00:25:57.577
So when you look at the construct of this whole thing, the application of a deadly force tactic is to save a life.

00:25:57.577 --> 00:26:03.676
The application of a deliberate intention to kill is simply to kill someone, right?

00:26:03.676 --> 00:26:06.063
So this narrative gets misconstrued.

00:26:06.063 --> 00:26:15.421
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.

00:26:15.421 --> 00:26:17.287
Homicide is a method of death.

00:26:17.287 --> 00:26:20.016
It has nothing to do with criminal behavior.

00:26:20.016 --> 00:26:22.503
Murder is what they're thinking.

00:26:22.503 --> 00:26:30.178
Homicide and murder are synonymous with those lay people that just don't have any understanding of the terminology, right?

00:26:30.178 --> 00:26:32.442
So these are the things that get misconstrued.

00:26:32.442 --> 00:26:48.159
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.

00:26:48.318 --> 00:26:58.154
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.

00:26:58.154 --> 00:27:00.343
And that's known right.

00:27:00.343 --> 00:27:08.392
That is the viable and appropriate application of the tactic to save a life, and that narrative gets squelched.

00:27:08.392 --> 00:27:17.257
In these cases, the objective standard gets removed, even though civilly, everything would have been objectively reasonable in this case.

00:27:17.257 --> 00:27:24.260
All of these things stand the test of time until they're redacted and disallowed to be used in a criminal case.

00:27:24.260 --> 00:27:26.430
Until they're redacted and disallowed to be used in a criminal case.

00:27:26.430 --> 00:27:27.935
Well, that's chilling.

00:27:27.935 --> 00:27:36.192
Sit in a courtroom and watch a man get walked out in handcuffs because this is the case that's.

00:27:36.192 --> 00:28:02.133
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.

00:28:02.153 --> 00:28:03.234
They weren't doing that, were they?

00:28:03.916 --> 00:28:09.778
absolutely not, and I'll tell you, you know, my hat's off to jeremy story, the chief over there over las cruces.

00:28:09.778 --> 00:28:11.721
Uh, absolute stallion.

00:28:11.721 --> 00:28:20.653
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.

00:28:21.113 --> 00:28:23.936
One of the things that you talk about, I think, so eloquently in your book.

00:28:23.936 --> 00:28:25.818
I remember anatomy of a critical incident.

00:28:25.818 --> 00:28:27.601
Go get it, just go get it.

00:28:27.601 --> 00:28:29.282
Every cop in America needs it.

00:28:29.282 --> 00:28:31.025
Obviously, every investigator needs it.

00:28:31.025 --> 00:28:44.059
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.

00:28:44.059 --> 00:29:01.039
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.

00:29:01.039 --> 00:29:07.580
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.

00:29:07.809 --> 00:29:10.318
Right that it's misappropriated.

00:29:10.318 --> 00:29:14.271
It's a training term and we're never going to change training De-escalation.

00:29:14.271 --> 00:29:21.984
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.

00:29:21.984 --> 00:29:25.118
Well, and I simplified this in the book.

00:29:25.118 --> 00:29:41.144
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.

00:29:41.144 --> 00:29:54.529
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.

00:29:54.529 --> 00:30:10.162
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.

00:30:10.162 --> 00:30:22.913
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.

00:30:22.952 --> 00:30:23.394
Here's the disconnect.

00:30:23.394 --> 00:30:29.534
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.

00:30:29.534 --> 00:30:45.863
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.

00:30:45.863 --> 00:30:53.636
Remember, most times an officer fails in a de-escalation attempt is because the suspect isn't playing along right.

00:30:53.636 --> 00:30:56.587
The suspect has a role in this communication process.

00:30:56.587 --> 00:31:00.196
Communication is and we all know this is a two-way street.

00:31:00.196 --> 00:31:09.499
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.

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:20.191
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.

00:31:20.191 --> 00:31:39.663
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.

00:31:39.663 --> 00:31:41.557
And that really simplifies it.

00:31:41.557 --> 00:32:01.575
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.

00:32:01.575 --> 00:32:05.874
Right, it's a goal, it's not a tactic, and that's the simplest way I can explain it.

00:32:06.455 --> 00:32:14.173
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.

00:32:14.173 --> 00:32:16.234
Phoenix Police Department's a prime example.

00:32:16.234 --> 00:32:17.155
That's how they train.

00:32:17.155 --> 00:32:21.160
It's appropriate, and the Department of Justice just lost their mind on them right by doing this.

00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:27.526
Because of this, fail to understand what de-escalation is, and let me just prove that to the people listening.

00:32:27.526 --> 00:32:35.178
If you watch any amount of these police videos, you'll see a lot of deadly force that happens after de-escalation fails.

00:32:35.178 --> 00:32:43.441
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.

00:32:43.441 --> 00:32:47.440
But what if the officers could go hands-on much earlier, use a taser much earlier?

00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:52.250
That's part of de-escalation, because you're trying to mitigate that force and you do a brilliant job explaining that.

00:32:52.891 --> 00:33:00.163
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.

00:33:00.163 --> 00:33:05.113
It's important to explain why de-escalation went the way it did.

00:33:05.113 --> 00:33:09.349
It's important to explain that they're trying to reach the goal of de-escalation.

00:33:09.349 --> 00:33:15.653
It's important to explain the difference between what they were trained and how they applied it in the field right.

00:33:15.653 --> 00:33:16.315
These are things.

00:33:16.315 --> 00:33:25.512
This is information that could get left on the table Travis, and this is the information we need when it goes to trial.

00:33:25.512 --> 00:33:29.181
I need it as an expert to refer to it so I can verify that the officers knew exactly what the process was.

00:33:29.181 --> 00:33:37.054
And look, we've been deescalating these critical incidents for 150 years, since Sir Robert Peel ratified common and modern policing.

00:33:37.054 --> 00:33:39.559
This is the way police work has been done.

00:33:39.559 --> 00:33:43.919
It was done differently 25 years ago, right, and you know that was a different climate.

00:33:43.919 --> 00:33:46.534
Not that it was excessive or unnecessary.

00:33:46.534 --> 00:33:53.012
It was just a little bit more defined, if you will, and so our officers need to really understand that.

00:33:53.012 --> 00:34:12.775
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.

00:34:12.775 --> 00:34:26.431
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.

00:34:26.431 --> 00:34:27.413
It happens, right.

00:34:27.693 --> 00:34:30.338
I'm not here to advocate bad behavior.

00:34:30.338 --> 00:34:33.271
I'm here to define good behavior.

00:34:33.271 --> 00:34:36.559
Right, let's define these things and make sure it's on the record.

00:34:36.559 --> 00:34:42.755
These instances are the most important part of everyone's life involved, including the suspect.

00:34:42.755 --> 00:34:43.396
Right?

00:34:43.396 --> 00:34:47.552
We as investigators, reviewers, analyzers, decision makers.

00:34:47.552 --> 00:34:53.552
It had better be the most important incident in our life at the time we're doing that review.

00:34:53.552 --> 00:34:55.518
It's not something we push to the side.

00:34:55.518 --> 00:34:58.695
We get into it, we dig, we find what we need to find.

00:34:58.695 --> 00:35:02.056
We look deeper for things that we might not even know we need.

00:35:02.056 --> 00:35:03.199
Right, it's important.

00:35:03.199 --> 00:35:04.702
It's a very important process.

00:35:05.349 --> 00:35:07.356
And I know you've addressed this you addressed it in your book, Jamie.

00:35:07.356 --> 00:35:08.452
You've addressed it multiple times.

00:35:08.452 --> 00:35:17.097
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.

00:35:17.097 --> 00:35:18.940
It's actually the exact opposite.

00:35:18.940 --> 00:35:20.561
Sort of give a quick explanation on that.

00:35:20.963 --> 00:35:25.976
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.

00:35:25.976 --> 00:35:26.778
Right?

00:35:26.778 --> 00:35:44.371
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.

00:35:44.371 --> 00:35:45.655
I want bad cops gone.

00:35:45.655 --> 00:35:47.463
I fired a lot of cops as a sergeant.

00:35:47.563 --> 00:35:54.623
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.

00:35:54.623 --> 00:36:01.193
I need people to know that I'm here to better law enforcement, not protect cops.

00:36:01.193 --> 00:36:03.614
Cops need to protect themselves.

00:36:03.614 --> 00:36:11.599
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.

00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:19.905
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.

00:36:19.905 --> 00:36:22.746
I'm not afraid to tell people what they need to know.

00:36:22.746 --> 00:36:24.692
Right, and we've had this conversation.

00:36:24.692 --> 00:36:29.032
I'm not the expert that will tell you what you want to hear for the purpose of your case.

00:36:29.032 --> 00:36:36.394
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.

00:36:36.936 --> 00:36:45.275
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.

00:36:45.275 --> 00:36:49.514
Right, I want the work and I want to do the job I'm doing, but I'm not.

00:36:49.514 --> 00:36:50.199
I'm not.

00:36:50.199 --> 00:36:51.427
This is not a money grab.

00:36:51.427 --> 00:37:15.612
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.

00:37:15.612 --> 00:37:16.414
You know what I mean.

00:37:17.097 --> 00:37:18.320
Right Now, Matt.

00:37:18.320 --> 00:37:23.896
I can't thank you enough, Jamie, the punch I'm willing to take, you know what I mean Right Now, man.

00:37:23.896 --> 00:37:24.721
I can't thank you enough, Jamie, for being here Once again, if you're just joining us, Jamie Borden.

00:37:24.721 --> 00:37:25.853
He's the founder and owner of Critical Incident Review.

00:37:25.853 --> 00:37:27.516
He's written an incredible book called the Anatomy of a Critical Incident.

00:37:27.516 --> 00:37:29.059
You can get that book at all major booksellers.

00:37:29.059 --> 00:37:33.753
But, Jamie, I've written a few books so I understand, when I got this book, what this book entailed.

00:37:33.753 --> 00:37:38.561
I can't imagine the effort and the lift that went into this.

00:37:38.561 --> 00:37:42.365
Explain that process to me, because I got to tell you I was impressed.

00:37:42.365 --> 00:37:47.563
You even had to reduce the font size much, to the chagrin of Chip DeBloch because he's half blind.

00:37:47.563 --> 00:37:51.052
He didn't want a thousand page book, but it's.

00:37:51.052 --> 00:37:52.376
I mean every page.

00:37:52.376 --> 00:37:54.262
You could spend an hour dissecting it.

00:37:54.262 --> 00:37:59.583
So I cannot even fathom in my small brain and all the stuff that I write how this was done.

00:37:59.583 --> 00:38:03.760
Explain to us why you decided to do it and the process that went into doing it.

00:38:05.333 --> 00:38:09.309
So it started in 2018 when I retired.

00:38:09.309 --> 00:38:19.971
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.

00:38:19.971 --> 00:38:24.324
At the time, I was a contract instructor for science.

00:38:24.324 --> 00:38:38.460
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.

00:38:38.460 --> 00:38:42.199
We're going to make good investigators out of them through the application of science.

00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:44.056
Right, and that's really where I live.

00:38:44.056 --> 00:38:45.985
I don't have scientific authority.

00:38:45.985 --> 00:38:53.166
I've got a deep understanding and a good grasp on scientific principles that inform me as an investigator.

00:38:53.166 --> 00:38:54.992
So this all began in 2018.

00:38:54.992 --> 00:39:04.644
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.

00:39:04.724 --> 00:39:07.273
As an instructor across the board, I developed this class.

00:39:07.273 --> 00:39:09.860