Be Curious

If you don’t KNOW… Ask…

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

-Epictetus

An officer was dispatched to a convenience store because a young man inside appeared to be under the influence, and had started trying to light items in the store on fire with a lighter.

Someone in the store captured and posted video of the officer’s attempt to arrest this individual.

When the video starts, the guy is lying on his back in the middle of the store with a handcuff on one of his wrists. The officer is kneeling next to the guy and giving appropriate commands, ordering the guy to roll over onto his stomach. The officer is attempting to roll the guy over, but does not succeed.

After a few seconds, the guy gets up off of the ground and becomes extremely belligerent, saying something to the effect of “I’m going to kill you all”.

The officer grabs the guy once they both exit the store and attempts to take him to the ground, but his effort has the opposite effect. The officer ends up on the ground with his arms wrapped around the (standing) bad guy’s leg. The guy is still wearing the handcuff that was applied at some point during the exchange, and begins striking the officer in the head with a closed fist, the loose handcuff swinging around dangerously.

After punching the officer 7-10+ times, the guy just walks away. The officer, seemingly stunned, uses his radio to call for back-up, but does not appear to pursue.

The guy was apprehended almost immediately. He fought with the apprehending officers, as well.

A video like this almost always elicits a strong emotional reaction from most who view it, which is completely understandable. For starters, it contains human-on-human violence at a very primal level, and the fight depicted in the video is unsanctioned and unregulated. The bad guy is not constrained by rules, and the unpredictability of his intoxicated and/or psychotic behavior is frightening. Losing this one COULD have been catastrophic for the officer (thankfully, the bad guy just walked away).

Some will feel sorry for the officer. Some will feel anger towards the bad guy, while some feel angry with the officer. A lifetime of experiences coalesce in a flash to form strong emotional reactions.

“I think this guy is a piece of shit. He’s clearly untrained and he embarrassed himself, his family, and this department. He embarrassed ME. I work here, and wear the same uniform, and I train hard, so why can’t he? Guy probably sits around thinking he’s some kind of badass because he’s got a gun and a badge. They should remove him from the street until he proves that he can handle it. He could’ve gotten somebody killed. There’s plenty of training offered, or he could join a gym and learn the way that I did. He’s just lazy. How about he hop off Netflix and learn to fight so he doesn’t embarrass himself for all to see again. F that guy, he shouldn’t be working here.”

“He should’ve shot that guy.”

“Guy has no idea how bad it could have been. He probably thinks he did a good job.”

I want to be very clear- these are not direct quotes. I formed the above statements through things that I’ve heard people say about this incident, and about similar incidents in the past. Unfortunately, the law enforcement peer-response to these events is often negative, ranging from apathetic to naive to harshly critical and even cruel.

What if the matter was more complicated?

“He’s actually a pretty good dude. He’s been wanting to join a gym for a long time, and he’s waiting until his kids are a little older so that they can drive themselves to practices. His wife used to help out with all of that but it’s been difficult since she got sick. In fact, he was working overtime that day because she had to cut back her hours. She broke down that morning as he left for work because she feels so guilty about him not having a day off on account of her now bringing in less money. His kids love him and were terrified when one of them was shown the video by a classmate at school. He’s devastated about the whole thing- his wife felt even worse when she saw the bruises on his face, and he had a tough time explaining it to his kids.”

“He’s grateful to have survived the encounter, but doesn’t understand the steps he could’ve taken to help alter the outcome in his favor. He graduated the police academy and has satisfied his training requirements religiously, so he thinks that he should be fine. He remembers being told that nothing mattered so long as he ‘went home at the end of the night’, and so believes this encounter was a successful one.”

I have no clue. I’ve never met this officer, and have yet to meet anyone who knows anything about him.

The point is, any of the above COULD be true.

It’s also quite possible that none of it is true.

Anything you haven’t verified is most likely to be a story your mind made up to resolve how awful it felt about seeing the events unfold in the video.

When we don’t have the opportunity or willingness to ask questions- to gather information from the source itself- we have no idea what the truth of the matter really IS. The mind is prepared to fill in the gaps, completing the open loops of the story with guesses- some educated, some not- like the ones above. Absent proper perspective, these guesses become your new reality- you BELIEVE the stuff you made up about the situation at hand. Worse, you start to seek justifications for your flawed hypothesis versus seeking the actual truth- you rig the study to get the results you want.

It’s not the hypothesis itself that is harmful. As we engage in the pursuit of our best selves, we can and should draw conclusions as to whether we have control over an undesirable outcome like the one in the video:

1.Was the behavior I witnessed optimal? Is that how I would wish to behave?

2.Can it be prevented or mitigated by some thought, word, or action?

To watch a video like the one mentioned above and judge what you actually witnessed can be helpful in clarifying your optimal vision for interacting with the world.

My REACTION was one of intense sympathy. I felt sorry for the officer. I thought about his kids (don’t even know if he has any), his wife (may have never had a significant other in his life), and how he must have felt during and after (no clue, never even met the dude). Maybe he’s single and childless and felt great after. Imagine if I had reached out to him in a reactionary manner and asked if his wife and kids needed anything, or if I could do anything to make him feel less terrible.

Instead, I let the REACTION go and attempted to form a rational RESPONSE to the video. Here’s what I came up with:

I think the officer is lucky that he wasn’t seriously injured.

Watching the video reminds me of the importance of mental, physical, philosophical and spiritual preparation and readiness.

I believe the techniques that the officer attempted to apply were ineffective and sub-optimal, but am unsure whether that was because they are A) invalid, B) improperly applied, or both.

I am grateful that the officer survived the encounter and hope that he is okay.

Professionally, I wish that I could help this guy. There are a lot of things that I wish I knew. As such, I have a lot of questions:

What was his readiness like in the moment of this incident? Was he underslept (chronically or acutely), overstressed (professionally or personally), or both?

What is his preparation like? Is he physically and philosophically fit? Does he have an instinctual feel for taking someone into custody? What is his level of training?

What is his attitude on training?

Is he confident in his ability to handle the demands of a modern law enforcement officer?

I want to know who he was taught by, what he was taught, and HOW he was taught it. What he thinks about before, enroute to, during, and after an incident like the one he survived. I want to know if he understands pursuit of excellence, and how this incident impacted the next disorderly call he responded to.

I want to know what’s being done for him to TRULY help him correct the mistakes that he made during this video, and to reinforce any of the things that he did well.

Personally, I wonder if he’s okay. Does he have a family? Are THEY okay?

Is he ashamed of himself? Is he reflecting on what happened and how it got to that point?

Does he accept what happened and hold himself accountable for it?

The statements above represent my professional opinion based on what I witnessed in the video. When combined with the questions I asked they form my response to this incident. Notice how the statements in my example don’t contain any judgements about the officer’s character, level of training, or the impact that his behavior had on my reputation or the reputation of the department.

Ten years ago (hell, maybe even five) it’s likely I would’ve ridden a reaction- my RESPONSE tended to run on a six week delay. Ten years ago, I had yet to hear a compelling argument against dogging this guy. Cut this guy from the herd so that he doesn’t hinder the rest of us. I would’ve crafted a story in my head and BELIEVED it, carefully selecting bits of “evidence” to justify my belief, falsely telling myself that I was gaining “wisdom”.

I would’ve used this incident to “feel better” about my own capability. I would’ve discussed it with bravado and talked about what I would have done amd how much better I would’ve done. And then, as was often the case, I would’ve felt like an ignorant moron when I looked back on my reaction six weeks/months later.

I’m intensely curious about what makes people think what they think, say what they say, and do what they do. I always have been. Absent proper perspective, hubris has often led me to believe I could ascertain what a person was about without asking any questions. If my wife were in a bad mood, I could make an educated guess as to why. I could even convince her (as I had convinced myself) that I was right. Obviously, this has disastrous potential.

The process of acquiring wisdom is severely stunted when you exist solely in the world created for you by your mind- when limited facts and cognitive biases formed by a lifetime of experiences fool you into believing that the conclusions you’ve drawn about “the beyond”; that is, the educated guesses you’re making about what you haven’t personally witnessed.

Judge away at the aspects you can verify from the video- the officer’s technique, verbal tone, and the words he used. Form all the opinions you want about how he performed within the confines of what you personally witnessed. But before you start slinging filth on his name, character, or reputation, make sure that you’ve done everything you can to help him- that you’ve found satisfactory answers to the pertinent questions, as opposed to finding ways to justify your initial reaction. If you don’t have an avenue to the truth, then only judge what you can verify (in this case, only what you personally saw within the video itself), and let the rest go.

The Monday morning quarterbacking of a police video is an easy example, but the tendency to jump to conclusions extends to all facets of our lives.

When it comes to interpersonal matters, draw all the conclusions you want. But before you allow them to calcify- before you write someone’s story for them and then treat them (or their reputation) accordingly - do your due diligence and find out if your hypotheses are correct. Seek the truth of the matter.

Apply this philosophy when interacting with your family, friends, and significant others. Do the same with strangers, including public figures who you may THINK you know but have never met (beware of creating hollow heroes or scapegoat villains).

Remain at the helm. Avoid ceding control to your ego, lest it trap you into a hellish prison built of arrogance, ignorance, and pride.

Ask questions.

Seek truth.

Learn.

Be curious.

Thanks for reading.