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In today’s exercise, you will be practice assessing the Uncomfortable Cluster in a police traffic stop scenario.

Video originally viewed on LawOfficer.com and Mediaite.com

Click the “More” button to view the exercise.

The Workout

  • Watch the video (at least the first 3 minutes of it) of this police traffic stop that takes place in Tulsa, OK to get an idea of what happens.
  • Once you have watched it once, ask yourself the following three question:
    • What is the first moment that the person displays that the flight response was triggered? How does the person reveal the uncomfortable cluster?
    • What is the initial stressor that causes the person to display the uncomfortable cluster?
    • What occurs that causes the person to shift from “preparing for flight” to “taking flight”?
  • Write your answers on a sheet of paper before viewing our answers

[expand title=”View Our Answers”]

  • What is the first moment the person displays the uncomfortable cluster?
    • When he pats his waistband.  You don’t observe this in the video, but you hear the officer ask him why he is touching his waistband while he is still in the car.
  • What is the initial stressor that causes the person to display the uncomfortable cluster?
    • Getting unexpectedly pulled over by the police, having a gun in his waistband with an officer looking at him from right outside of the window.
  • What occurs that causes the person to shift from “preparing for flight” to “taking flight”?
    • After stepping out of the car, the officer begins to put him in handcuffs while saying “if you don’t have a gun, we will cut you loose.”[/expand]
Enhance The Workout
  • Repeat
    • After you create your answers and check yours against our answers below and mark the ones that you made and that are also on our list.
    • The goal for this exercise was to help understand the implications of recognizing discomfort in operational settings, so:
      • Note the assessments that we made that you didn’t make, and re-watch the video to build your file folder for that specific behavior.
    • Add a comment with the assessments that you made, but that we didn’t make, so that we can check for those assessments and provide feedback on those specific observations.  We will add them to our answers in the post itself for future viewings of the exercise.
  • Reflect
    • A second goal for this exercise was to provide a scenario for you to think about what you would do in a similar situation upon the recognition of the cluster of observed behavior. So:
    • If you are a police officer: think about how you plan a traffic stop and what sort of scenarios you are thinking through when approaching a car.  What things do you do that typically raise a person’s stress level (like asking them to get out of the car, asking if he has a gun, etc.)? For each stress imposing action you take (which has the ability to cause a shift in the person’s behavior), have you thought through the if-then statements about what you will do if you see dominance? If you see discomfort? Etc.
    • If you aren’t a police officer: Think about things that you experience in your work that are stress imposing to a person. Make these very specific, like having someone step out of a car, and once you note those things that will trigger a response in a person that is “up to something,” while imposing minimal change on the false positives we identify, think through the if-then decisions you will make in your field so that you don’t hesitate.  One of the reasons that these officers were successful is because the first officer never hesitated and kept hold of his arm when he started to run.  That isn’t a decision made on the spot, but the result of training to act without thinking.
  • Act
    • Don’t go get pulled over to see if you can escape, that would be a bad training event. Instead,
    • Put Yourself In Their Shoes: Think about being the driver of a car that has been pulled over.  What makes you uncomfortable? What are ways that an officer could make you feel more comfortable or make you feel more uncomfortable based on their actions? How would an officer observe you as you display discomfort?  What could you do to make an officer feel more safe (more comfortable) once they have pulled you over?
    • Over the next few days, recognize the times when you are starting to experience anxiety, nervousness, jitteriness, etc. and really look at what you were doing that would reveal that.
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