Length: 21-instructional hours, 3-days
Focus: Professional security officers and agents armed with firearms, less-/non-lethal weapons, and/or unarmed.
This three-day course is revolutionary in its concept and delivery! This course is the only “non-technical, outcome-based” program available that is designed to provide the professional security agent with maximum civil liability strategies and communications skills while offering them the ultimate system of practical and legally defensible personal defense. It is the most comprehensive and effective physical conflict resolution program extant. This three-day course includes: proven oral intervention skills, instruction on the laws of self-defense and intervention, organizational policy, physical defense and control skills, as well as articulation and documentation skills necessary for prosecution of the subject as well as civil liability mitigation and defense.
This course is the result of more than thirty years of development and refinement gained from the national and international training of police and military personnel, modified for the particular needs of your professional security officers and organization. This is not a “one-size fits all” program. We teach the laws governing force through your organization’s force policy and local laws.
- Note: If your policy requires revision and updating, we can assist your Risk Management and Human Resources personnel through our highly experienced policy development team.
Your employees require the ability to tactically communicate to gain the desired outcome. When faced with security officers, the average individual who is emotionally out of control will typically choose to calm and cooperate in order to avoid adverse official action. However, some individuals, whether through emotional immaturity or a propensity for violence, not only continue to act out, but will increase their emotional agitation to the point they feel justified in resorting to violence. The security officer may be able to interdict this “spiral of violence” through “tactical communications” that includes “active listening skills,” and “non-violent communication” strategies, permitting the other party to disengage from the spiral while “saving face.”
The ability to communicate effectively with such individuals is dependent upon your security personnel's confidence in his or her capability to reasonably defend against assault. The inability to protect one’s self, and the safety fears that generates, inhibits effective communication with an increasingly out of control individual. This tends to reinforce a fear-based response, revealing the officer's underlying insecurity, further feeding the cycle. The experience of history demonstrates that when two fearful individuals are in conflict, physical assault is almost assured. An effectively trained security agent is more confident in his or her decision-making. Confident officers are less likely to feel the need to engage in fear-based physical altercations, and when they do, their actions are much more objective, reasonable, and justifiable.
In the physical defense component of this course, your security officers gain lasting competency through the foundation of “Effective Combatives Problem-Solving,”? employing the Universal Rules & Principles of Combatives? in a problem-solving format. This training is Practical, Tactical, Real-world, and Defensible! This is not a rehash of old techniques and theory, but a proven system of defense for every security agent in your organization. This course concentrates on real-world methods of physical defense—not “techniques that work against other class participants and small children,” and are then forgotten before the individual ever leaves the training floor. This defense system, available exclusively through Cutting Edge Training, is a simple to learn, uncomplicated approach to physical defense based on your security officer’s actual field needs. It is court tested and medically approved—and with NO complicated martial arts or ineffective pressure point training. This is comprehensive training involving easy to learn, easy to apply Universal Rules & Principles of Combatives and basic, hard-wired and instinctual skills that are easy to accomplish for all skill levels. We also incorporate all of your existing firearms, chemical agent (OC/pepper spray), and other force options (if applicable) into the program.
Tactical Positioning and Recognizing Pre-Assault Threat Cues provides the security agent with the knowledge of how the spiral of violence is cycling into a physical assault. By properly positioning to maintain a physical advantage as well as becoming attuned to the common indicators of impending violence, your security officers may take early steps to mitigate injuries and violence through summoning the police, creating a barrier between the perpetrator(s) and staff, guests, or patients, and physical positioning strategies creating the impression that physical assault will not be successful and is a less-desirable alternative than cooperation. Rather than a “class for cowboys,” this course presents a team approach that is less likely to result in physical restraint of subjects through a symmetry of intent by your security staff.
We also understand the social, political, media, and legal pressures that are present when a security agent is forced to go “hands-on” with an unruly guest or trespasser. Rather than teaching a method of “maximum brawling,” we advocate a legally defensible and truly effective method of quickly resolving most physical conflicts that cannot be avoided through “tactical communications” and talking the subject down. And if the perpetrator chooses to assault staff or another without regard to limitations, this system provides the ability to respond successfully to that threat to the safety of the officer and others.
As one of our course participants said, “This ain’t your dad’s defensive tactics program!” This course is NOT designed by martial artists for the martial artist, leaving everyone else behind. Instead, this is a “problem-solving” course for everyone who needs this training—which is exactly how we all solve physical conflict regardless of the level of training one might possess. Participants are trained in simple, non-technical skills that everyone can competently perform, giving them the tools to use reasonable force to conclude an incident as safely and quickly as possible. There are no complicated techniques to confuse the student and be forgotten as soon as the class is over. There is no way a security officer can do it “wrong” if the officer defends him-/herself successfully and legally! Though the emphasis in any enforcement action should be to coax the violator to leave or to take him/her into custody with little or no force, security officers must have a sound physical defense ability through a realistic means of subject control.
A thorough understanding of Effective Combatives Problem-Solving? allows the security agent all of the information necessary to answer any defensive tactics question. The first order of business is training your personnel in your state laws and your organization's policy(ies) regarding force, and then how to apply it to situational force decision-making. The Universal Rules & Principles of Combatives? are employed in a problem-solving effort that will directly translate to situations found on the property(ies). Understanding the laws of force provides an assurance of action, knowing the limits of permissible behavior in a conflict event. Concomitant with need for knowledge that permits decisive action, the ability to articulate and document the reasonable perception of threat the security agent experienced that required him or her to respond with force to contain the violence or protect the officer or another is key to:
- The prosecution of the perpetrator for any criminal actions including trespass and assault.
- The civil mitigation and protection for both the officer and the organization.
- The internal administrative review to ensure the security agent’s actions, decision-making, and force response was within policy.
This course includes Safer Handcuffing principles and techniques that are uniform, simple to learn, and quick to apply. All handcuffing principles remain consistent regardless of the situation being addressed. There is one method to learn, easing the learning requirements—and assuring that your security officers can competently perform the hazardous task of handcuffing an offender in any circumstance. This method of Arrest & Control has been proven to be the safest method yet devised.
For over 30 years, we have studied how knife attacks actually occur. We discovered they do not comport to the attack methods as espoused by martial artists, and for which “defenses” are built and trained. Instead, we offer a method of defense that is proven and primal (based on what humans are hard-wired to react while under threat), and therefore, more likely to make a difference in an actual life-threatening situation.
“Real-World Response to Firearms Introduced in Proximity” recognizes the reality that firearms are the most effective method of enforcing one’s will on others. If a security agent is suddenly faced with a weapon being drawn in his/her presence, it is vital to instantly respond with effective combatives capabilities. This training builds on the problem-solving methods already presented.
An optional feature is to provide a “Weapon Retention” section of the course for any armed security staff. This is a core requirement for every professional who is armed. Our weapon retention program is proven, uncomplicated and effective.
The Bladed Weapon Defense is the most practical in existence, giving the security officer the tools for practical defense against this type of attack. Again, this defense is also based on the Effective Combatives Problem-Solving?, and is geared toward the average officer’s skill level. It does not rely on any “martial artsy” maneuvers for success. Simple, effective, universal responses provides the security agent with skills to defend today as well as two years from now.
This training course concentrates on the defense skills of the security officer who finds him-/herself on the ground with a suspect. This training applies the Effective Combatives Problem-Solving? in solving common ground defense problems—with the popularity of Mixed Martial Arts, every security officer must be versed in effective response to this difficult and dangerous threat. Effective multiple officer takedowns are addressed as a means of decreasing the injury potential to all parties while maximizing the ability to decrease injury.
This course is the cutting edge of training for security personnel and their safety needs. Oral intervention combined with tactical positioning and multiple officers with a maneuvering with a symmetry of intent will resolve most potentially violent situations. If however, an individual is unwilling or incapable of de-escalating emotionally, the universality of the Effective Combatives Problem-Solving? program through the Universal Rules & Principles of Combatives? creates a more capable security professional. Bringing your security to conversational mastery of the laws of force pertaining to their duties as well as organizational policy creates a certainty of action that is highly defensible in post-incident processes. If forced to respond physically, your security personnel will act according to principle-based methods, permitting flexibility and culpable decision-making based on the totality of the circumstances they are faced with. Following the incident, the ability to articulate one’s actions, perceptions, and decisions mitigates against civil liability exposure and is a key risk management principle.
Simply put, when avoidance of conflict cannot be achieved, civil liability prevention is best served through proper training and comprehensive documentation of the incident.
PLEASE NOTE: This course does not contain instruction in “Aerosol Defense Systems” (Pepper Spray, or Oleoresin Capsicum sprays). Cutting Edge Training will provide that training in a separate training course upon request.
Topics included:
- Limits to Legal Force & Articulating Decisions Within Organizational Policy.
- Documentation of the Force Response and Decision-Making in Mitigating Civil Liability.
- Tactical Communication and Interrupting the Violence Spiral.
- Tactical Positioning to Decrease the Opportunity for Assault.
- Recognizing Pre-Assault Threat Cues.
- Effective Combatives Problem-Solving.
- Real World Physical Control.
- GroundDefense & Control Without Jujitsu/Martial Arts.
- Safer Multiple Agent Takedowns.
- Safer Handcuffing.
- Real-World Bladed Weapon Defense.
- Real-World Response to Firearms Introduced in Proximity.
- (Optional) Firearms Weapon Retention.