#125- “FORCE SCIENCE: The Truth Behind Split-Second Decisions” Part 2

In Part 2, the  @ForceScience team dives even deeper into the science-backed research, training methodology, and mission that set Force Science apart as the national standard for evidence-based law enforcement education. Building on the foundational concepts introduced in Part 1, the instructors break down how their courses reshape the way officers, investigators, leaders, and legal teams understand human performance under stress.

Listeners will hear real examples of how Force Science training influences critical-incident investigations, enhances courtroom clarity, and protects both officers and communities through a better understanding of time, distance, decision-making, and behavioral science. The team highlights why agencies across the country rely on Force Science programs—such as the Force Science Certification Course, Realistic De-Escalation Instructor Course, and Advanced Human Factors—to transform policy, improve tactics, and elevate investigative accuracy.

They also discuss the importance of continuing education in an era of rapidly evolving expectations and scrutiny. At its core, Force Science empowers professionals with research-driven insights that answer the questions most agencies struggle with: What did the officer perceive? Why did they react the way they did? And how does science help us explain it?

Near the end of the episode, the team shares details about their marquee annual event—

📅 Force Science Conference | September 22–24, 2026 | Austin, Texas

Held in the heart of Texas, this conference gathers the world’s leading experts in human performance, use-of-force science, investigations, and law enforcement leadership. Additional details can be found on their website:
🔗 https://events.forcescience.com/force-science-conference-2026

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Courses And Training
• 0:22 Memory Gaps And Sense Making
• 1:40 Caution After Critical Incidents
• 3:20 Attention, Automaticity, And Recall
• 4:45 Training Beyond Patrol: Analyst To Specialist
• 6:30 Data‑Driven Tactics And Timelines
• 7:28 De‑Escalation And Building Real Contact
• 8:05 Objective Truth Versus “Cop Apologist” Label
• 9:32 Honest Accountability: Clear Standards
• 11:15 Video Limits And Human Performance
• 13:05 Avoiding Hindsight Bias In Reviews
• 15:05 Tactics, Discretion, And After‑Action Learning
• 16:45 Bridging Public Expectations And Reality
• 18:05 AI, Evidence, And Future Challenges
• 19:20 Funding Experts And Front‑Loading Training
• 21:05 Prosecutors, Juries, And Changing Minds
• 22:35 Conference Dates And Closing Rapid Fire
• 24:20 Sign‑Off And Next Episodes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

And it's 100% online. And it's it actually carries some college credit. Oh well with that course. And then moving backwards, we've got a two-day force encounters course that is really, really aimed at the patrol function. It's great for detectives, great for investigators, great for anybody, but it's really designed and built and delivered around the needs of the patrol officer.

SPEAKER_03: 0:22

Last episode, Blue Grip Podcast.

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

It's your memory has gaps, and we do a thing called sense making where we look back on an event and we have a gap in our memory, and the things that make sense to us based on our experience and our knowledge and the other things associated with that event fill in those blanks.

SPEAKER_02: 0:40

If you have your gun out and point, we then said, Well, how fast is your response time? Right. And what we found was it's almost an eighth of a second with your gun out already to come up and get a name shot on. A case where people don't have an incentive to lie, um, then it's then I then it goes back to more education, less less excuse.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

So you're saying the human brain will fill in the blank frames, just like the camera does. That's a great analogy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09

Is there a reason why you nudged me when you said that? I'm just throwing it out there. That that's exactly right. And there's a risk there. Uh that's why there's some some form of caution when it comes to people that are involved in a critical incident, uh, not comparing details of their experience of the event immediately afterward, because you don't want the perception of an officer who had a different perspective contaminating or incorrectly or inappropriately filling in the blanks of an officer who was involved and had his own perspective.

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

Well, and but officers need to understand all this as well, because when we're talking to witnesses and we're talking to suspects, we need to understand the dynamics apply across the board.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Right. That's right. To officers, to victims, to witnesses. And so earlier you spoke to the 22-year-old patrol officer who's listening, and now I'll speak to the 25-year-old investigator who's listening and say, keep those things in mind. Uh, we need to take things like a public safety statement. Uh, how many of them were there? Which way did they go? If there were any shots fired if you're a member, what direction did the shots go? That that kind of public safety stuff. We also need to try to capture nothing more than the perception of the officer and no details anytime soon. Because that one of the examples we use for that is uh, and and it went to the next level for me in the class. One of the questions I ask when it comes to attention and memory is I'll ask, hey, did anybody drive to the class today? And inevitably somebody will raise their hand and say, Okay, do you remember roughly the route that you took to get here? And I'll say, Of course. You know, I went this way, I turned right on Apple Street, went left on uh on Main Street, and here I am. I say, Okay, very good. Uh, you remember that because you paid attention to it. How many times did your foot touch the brake between your house and the classroom? And they say, I have no idea. And they don't, because that's a that's a procedural thing that they're doing automatically. They don't have to pay attention to touching the brake. That's just something they do automatically. Uh so I give that example in class, and I had a two-day class one time, and and on day one, I I asked a woman those questions, and she, of course, didn't remember how many times she touched the brake. Well, she told me the next day, she pulled me aside on a break and said, Hey, I on the way here this morning, I was counting every time my foot touched the brake because I thought if if you ask that question again, I'm gonna have an answer for you. She and I said, Well, what happened? She said, I missed my turn. So it's a great example of if you're paying attention to the process and not the outcome, you're going to remember the process and not focus externally and do well on the outcome. And and so to the investigators, I would say keep that in mind. Yeah, officers aren't going to necessarily remember the things they do automatically, like where they draw their gun, how many shots they fire, when did they clear that malfunction. They might not even remember clearing the malfunction. Or firing the gun. Well, or firing the gun.

SPEAKER_03: 3:52

And it's so funny you mentioned about classwork and and being in a classroom environment. I think at some point in your in your career, uh, it could be five, ten-year gap, I think. Uh when these guys go to class or ladies go to class for law enforcement purposes, all you're doing is sharing information. You're sharing mistakes that other cops have learned from. Uh in force science, you guys, this is a lot of information that some of it I didn't even realize and know. And so it's in it's important for these guys, these men and women that are serving right now to attend these things because it's not just a use of force situation for critical incidents. This this can this can assist them in investigations as a whole. And so that's why we are supportive of force science, not just for our legal representation for our members, but the training aspect and TMPA's backbone uh for many years has been the training aspect. Talk about the some of the training uh that you guys offer and where those are offered at and and how can people find out about y'all's training?

SPEAKER_00: 4:41

Well, our I would definitely describe our force analyst certification course as our flagship course. It's it's uh what built us to where we are, and it's it's a wonderful course. It's evolved now to a uh three and a half day uh in-person course with some online pre-work, kind of practicing what we preach when we talk about adult adult learning. Uh we we caution against a commitment to butts and seats, block and silo training. Right. And we push more to the interleaving, some desirable difficulties, and some some follow-up, some quizzing, some spacing, other things that that contribute to retention and and uh and transferring. And transfer when when the exam happens outside the classroom, uh, which is what happens in our profession. So that uh Force Analyst Certification course is a about a week-long course, and we've got 15 of those coming up in 2026. We've got two left in 2025. Uh we've also the the in various parts of the country. All over the all in Chicago is that's correct. We've got online, right? We just finished our last Chicago CERT course last month. Um but we do have all uh the CERT course is also offered in a 100% online form. Oh wow. Okay. So you can you can go online and and you know, there's uh you know, mixed reviews on that, uh, but the online course is going to teach you everything that you're gonna learn in the in-person course. You just miss the opportunity to to interact and engage with the instructors one-on-one. Uh the the progression from that is our advanced specialist course, and that's for you know, the the investigator, the IA person, or the person who's working on a civilian review board to really be immersed in the human factors that are involved, the memory, the perception, all of the things that we're talking about here. To become immersed in how those things apply and and present in real life use of force encounters. And that's a that's an 18-week class, it's essentially a semester-long class, and it's a hundred percent on the line. And it's it actually carries some college credit oh well uh with that course. And then moving backwards, we've got a two-day force encounters course uh that is really, really aimed at the patrol function. It's great for detectives, great for investigators, great for anybody, but it's really designed and built and delivered uh around the needs of the patrol officer. It's some self-awareness, it's some uh expectation awareness, it's it helps that officer uh either write their own tactics or contribute to their agency's tactics using the data that we provide about biomechanics, how long it takes to draw and fire a gun from the waistband, how long it takes to punch, kick, slash, stab, and and really inform the tactics that agencies develop. We've also got courses on body cam, uh one, two-day courses on body cam awareness and application. Uh we get realistic de-escalation course, which is uh phenomenal. Realistic de-escalation courses is uh it's kind of a standout in that we take data and apply it to uh realistic expectations on officers and scenes. And and you know, that all boils down to the ability to make contact with somebody. If you can't establish meaningful two-way contact with somebody, you can't hope to build rapport and you can't hope to influence their behavior. Right. Your training is not limited to just law enforcement.

SPEAKER_01: 8:03

That's correct, right? Nor nor is your professional services. I mean, you now you guys and and I I read an article recently where a reporter referred to for science as a high-tech apologist for law enforcement. And I thought, you know, that those aren't the people, that's not the Bill of Whiskey that I met years ago. That's not the people that I've dealt with. And I and you asked a while ago about the relationship between TMPA and forced science. And I I think it comes down to this we're all trying to get at the truth. Yeah. We're not we're not trying to make excuses for cops making errors, we're trying to get at exactly if there were errors made, why? You know, and what can we learn from these experiences moving forward? But but first of all, we need to know the truth. Did did the officer was the officer's behavior justified? Was the the perpetrator's behavior justified given the circumstances? You know, you guys have represented folks where there were not cops involved, right? You've been involved in cases.

SPEAKER_00: 9:07

Well, just like the other one, the the the the the assault in Montana was in a you know so and I'll tell you before before he gives you the real smart answer, I'll I'll tell you that's the blessing that we have is to exist in a space where the objective collection and analysis of facts is our mission. Uh we we don't have uh an agenda, we don't have a winner or a loser. We have the job of collecting and analyzing and presenting uh an explanation of facts that evolve around human factors and human performance and decision making. You want to talk about something that people don't understand, it's decision-making and time-compressed incidents.

SPEAKER_01: 9:46

They have no concept of what actually happens, especially when you're when you're in a profession like law enforcement, where let's face it, 99% of the time in these situations, the officer's not being asked to make the right choice. They're not being asked to find the best solution, they're being asked to find the least bad solution because there aren't any good solutions right out in this moment. Yeah, you know, you can't shoot somebody and it looked good on film. No, it it just is never gonna look good. But was it necessary? Was it appropriate?

SPEAKER_00: 10:15

Was ever the ideal outcome? Yeah, right. Ever the ideal outcome. But but we have the opportunity to exist in that objective space where if that was the outcome, uh, we don't just look at the the overview from the body cam and say, oh, that looks like it was necessary or reasonable or or unreasonable. We get to say, based on this video, this interview with the officer, the statement of the officer, the crime scene visit, the walk through all of the evidence, not just one angle of one camera. Based on all of the evidence, here's what we can explain uh about what we see as it applies to human performance decision making.

SPEAKER_02: 10:52

Yeah. Well, if I can answer two of those at the same time, one is who do we train, what cases do we look at, and finally, um, why would someone say that we're cop apologists, right? And I know why, because I had to study this. And the I want I don't typically ask audience members to write something down, but if they're so inclined, write this down. Force science is committed to this concept of honest accountability. I mentioned a little earlier, and it's two components. One, the standards that you hold officers accountable to have to be clear enough that an officer can predict the lawfulness of their own behavior. Where that comes in is with all this reform efforts and policies. When you see words like it has to be justified, it has to be reasonable, it has to be lowest, it has to be minimum, it has to be proportional, it has to reflect community standards. The law says it has to be reasonable. All those other terms have not really matured through case law so that officers even know what those mean. They're just sort of reform efforts, and we've ended up having officers sitting there being held to standards they've either never heard of or they have no idea what they mean because they're completely outside of the training that they receive, right? That's the first requirement for honest accountability standards clear enough that an officer can predict the lawfulness of own behavior. The second standard is you cannot have expectations beyond human performance capabilities. That is force science's unique offer. So these people who are evaluating a video and they don't know the limitations of video, they don't understand the role of human performance in perception, cognition, decision making, and performance. They don't understand the law when a cop can stop you in the first place, when they can legally use force. There is so much required to understand and be able to actually evaluate a use of force. They don't know any of that. So when the media gets involved and sells them a story, they then hold an opinion and they're expecting the officer to be convicted. Horse science comes in and we don't testify whether the officer was reasonable or not reasonable, whether it was justified or not justified. What we do is we help them establish the correct standard, what was the correct law? So beyond human performance, if you shift into my world of consulting, I have to talk about police practices, use of force, which is threat assessments and responses, the limitations of video, and the impact of potential influences of human performance on all of those things, whether it's training, investigations, or operations. All of that is required if you want to have a sophisticated understanding enough to even have an opinion about a use of force. Right. Legitimate. That's a huge challenge. It's a lot of information that goes into that, and it is challenging. Who doesn't know how to do that? Judges, attorneys, our executive leaders on police departments, our community members, all the people who are in positions to evaluate, both ethically, like that, they have a right and an ethical duty to evaluate their police. They don't necessarily have the knowledge to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 13:51

And so for our judge much less the you know, the cashier from from Walmart who got called a jury duty this week, you know. Yeah, and shown a video.

SPEAKER_02: 14:00

And shown a video, yeah. And that they've been hypnotized to believe is the is the reality. Um, so who do we train? We try to front load this stuff. So I we do custom training as well as our what I call the off-the-shelf, you know, uh products that we have, uh, which are constantly being updated and reviewed. Um, and who that that training he mentioned, I want to make sure I say this. There are top experts in their industries, Dr. Klein, Dr. Mark Green, Tim Lee, Richard Schmidt uh before he passed away, um, that have invested in the development of our curriculum. Now, Dr. Green, in fairness, uh, we steal his stuff, but he knows it. So his stuff is phenomenal. We use we we It's consensual thing. Yeah, he cut he does teach at our conference, but I would, I would, I don't want to oversell his involvement in development, other than he's phenomenal at what he does. He's an industry leader, and we rely on that type of research and that kind of leadership in the development of our curriculum. It applies to a lot of things, not just the use of force. Yeah, no, absolutely decision making. So what we do and what I try to do in my position is I talk at universities, I talk at law schools, we train attorneys, we train judges, we talk and consult with politicians who have to develop the legislation and the policy. We work with executive leaders on police departments who may not have been have put handcuffs on somebody in 30 years. And that's huge, if ever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because here's the product, here's the problem. All of those audiences, even the ones who've been involved in fights, who've been immersed in violence, the further you get away from it, things become more predictable, more certain uh than they ever were on the street, right? We the cop on the street is making an educated guess in time-compressed circumstances as to whether this person is or isn't going to try to hurt them and when they're going to do it. And they have to guess what the best response is. So the a reasonable response would be. All of us standing in judgment of them in an air-conditioned office with plenty of time and no consequences to us if we get it wrong. Yep, it is way too easy to imagine a level of predictability and certainty that just doesn't exist. So I try to talk with the executive leaders. I was a cop for a lot of years. I was an attorney. I've been a special assistant U.S. attorney and a prosecutor. I was a police legal advisor for five different chiefs. What I've realized in all of those jobs is these people are all good people trying to get to the right answer. And if we can front load the information, uh the way I tell community groups, I want you to have an opinion. I want to be an educated one, right? And and they want that as well. Um, so far, none of the anti-police organizations I've dealt with uh without even listening to who they are. When I say, can we at least agree on these two concepts? The first one's just a due process notice that for honest accountability, you gotta know what's lawful, what's expected of me. And if the other one is a legal impossibility standard, you can't expect this person to do something no human could do. So we have a due process criteria and then an impossibility criteria. Every one of them has to agree. At a minimum, whatever standards we're applying to police, whether it's in training standards, operation standards, investigations, or after-the-fact evaluations, have to reflect these two things. And even the most striked anti-police folks out there have to agree to that. Um, and they do, in fairness, they do. So once we get that, we will then have customized training for these internal affairs, use of force boards. We'll go to agencies after a critical incident who just want to shut the door and go, hey, look at our training and tell us how we how we did here, um, or investigate or evaluate a case right alongside of them. And once we front load that stuff, it's a little bit like you're saying, it's like I had no idea. Yep. We have people who sat through our classes at the end of their careers, attorneys and cops who have said, I've been doing this 30 years. I've investigated or prosecuted or defended a hundred plus trials, jury trials on homicides, and I didn't know any of this. And had I needed to know this 30 years ago. That's what breaks your heart. Yeah. You know, and so our commitment is to get out in front of as many people just to get them the information and then let them let the juries make the decision that they've that our society's asked them to make. And in fairness, the guy at Walmart, the case up in Montana, they were phenomenal. When they understood and saw the limitations of video, when they heard how the cases were being evaluated, when they understood what the law was, the people I want on juries are the ones who come from cultures of violence. Yes. I love those inner city people who they grew up around violence, or they grew up in a trailer where there was a lot of violence or in a home, a nice upscale home where there was a lot of violence, because they understand unpredictability, but more than that, they understand the permanent consequences that come from getting it wrong. They've had friends hurt, permanently injured, or killed, and that's what a cop's facing.

SPEAKER_01: 19:02

But that's also, I think, it explains this whole thing of labeling you guys as apologists for cops, because in my opinion, and I've been in this business a while, it's amazing how often cops get it right, even with all the disadvantages they're faced with. And once it is explained, once it is broken down frame by frame for the jury, for the judges, they come to that conclusion. But the general public is still looking at it going, well, the jury's part of the problem now. Right. We expect this should have been a whole different outcome. So the jury has to be part of the problem. The grand jury has to be part of the judge, has to be part of the problem. The whole system is slanted, and that's not the case at all.

SPEAKER_02: 19:43

And and and people need to understand we I don't know, what we toll up in the last three years, like 200 and something cases, I think we're looking at 300, almost 300 cases that have come across my desk with at various stages of litigation. Um, we see a we, I won't I don't even want Overselless. We see cases of the worst police abuse in the country. We are very aware that cops can get it wrong. Any cop who's been in this job for more than a day knows cops can get it wrong. A prosecutor on the stand called me out because I said probably 96 plus percent, I think I said, of the cases we see, officers fell within a reasonable range. I'm not saying the officer was right. The law doesn't require an officer to be right in their threat assessment or the response. They have to be reasonable. Reasonable people can disagree. And I make that point to the judges by saying, Judge, when you make a probable cause determination and someone appeals it for an abuse of discretion, which is what a police tactic is, just discretionary, the appellate court looks and says, even if we disagree with that judge, his decision fell within a reasonable range. We may not overturn it for abuse of discretion, even if we disagreed with the outcome. That is the same thing for police, and citizens don't know that. And so when you get to law, the actual, the actual uh standard correct, and then you apply human performance on top of that. Um lots and lots of cops are falling within a range of reasonable options. Even if I would disagree with them, even if you would disagree with them, that's not our job. Right. Because we have the benefit of knowing the outcome.

SPEAKER_01: 21:16

The cops are what the Supreme Court has said over and over and over. It's not what you know the following Monday. What did the officer know in that moment? And the reason I smiled, by the way, is I wrote an article recently where I tried to explain that. You can have a reasonable fear that leads you to do something even if it was an error. And if you misinterpret it, but it can still be a reasonable fear that justifies shooting an intruder in your home. Right. You know, you could shoot your cousin Wally because he came into your house drunk and you didn't know it was him, and you were reasonably scared to death and you shot him.

SPEAKER_00: 21:51

But if you had the benefit of looking backward with 2020 hindsight after that event played out to its completion and Wally got shot, you would say, I'm not gonna shoot because I know it's Wally. Right. But that's what officers don't have is that benefit of 2020 hindsight. And we say, Gramburst Connor says it, we say it all the time, we we review these cases without the benefit of 2020 hindsight. But what's the first thing an investigator is gonna do when he gets a dash cam video of a use of force incident? He's gonna watch that video from start to finish and he's gonna know how it ends. So his whole investigation has the is looking back. Is looking backwards, knowing how this ended. People talk about, and and Von and I talk about this all the time. People discuss pre-assault indicators. Well, you can't call it a pre-assault indicator unless there is an assault. Yeah. And the only way you know there's an assault is if you wait till the thing is over and you look back with 2020 hindsight. Right. So all of these things that we should have seen or could have seen or should have done or could have done, uh they get biased very we should call potential assault. So that's back to that 25-year-old investigator. I would challenge you instead of watching the video all the way through or or making an officer watch the video all the way through, you know, maybe pause at different moments and see what would a reasonable perception be at this point, not knowing how it ends. One of the worst things we do is we still frame. We pause in the middle of an event and we show the one frame that captures either a clear aggressive posture or a surrender posture, and we assume that the officer should have that same still frame in their perception because it's on the camera. That's a great example of that 2020 hindsight.

SPEAKER_02: 23:33

That well, we all saw that in Michigan recently, right? With the guy with his hand up and he's like looking like he's about to surrender, he starts to get down, his right hand's behind his back, and he comes up and fires at the officer very quickly. If you would have freeze-frame that, you have a guy in a completely obvious surrender posture who then tries to murder the police officer. This is what I call what cops know, right? Um, if if there's a discrepancy between a video and an officer statement every time, the other thing is um the other thing we say is that every single tactical decision could be improved with the benefit of 2020 hindsight. So we have to explain this to juries like, well, would you have done something to different? Would you have done something different? I said, Look, in hindsight, every tactic operation, every decision made at the tactical level during a response could be improved in hindsight. That's why we do after action reviews, right? I would have gone left instead of right, fast instead of slow, might have waited for some backup, might have got there, might have pushed a little sooner and not waited as long. All of those things are discretionary tactical decisions made, what I call by the ball carrier. And the ball carrier is never wrong. I played rugby. Uh, you know, you either pass it or you retain it. And sometimes when you think you're in a great position to receive a pass and you have open space and the guy doesn't pass it, you you learn very early. You don't get to criticize him for not passing it because the ball carrier is never wrong. He's feeling how he has the ball, what grip he has, he's seeing space, he knows it's better to just take it into contact and recycle it. Um, the ball carrier is never wrong. It's the same thing with the guy at the scene making these tactical decisions based on the information they have, right? So those those things are both always true. Video's never going to match up, and tactics can always be improved in hindsight.

SPEAKER_00: 25:14

And when you talk about honest accountability being the a great standard, that that's one conversation. That's honest accountability as we look at something through a legal perspective. There's also a conversation about how can we get better, and that's where the after-action review comes in. Yep, you know, looking back on this, Sarge, I I should have, or I wish I would have done this, I wish I would have zigged instead of zagged. Um, and so maybe I'm gonna practice that in the future, but it doesn't change the reasonableness of the behavior based on that officer's perception at the time. You have the reasonableness discussion and then the how can we get better discussion. And on a micro level, that's at an individual officer development. On a macro level, it's it's the relationship between law enforcement and the public. And I think people are conflating the idea that if law enforcement s could could do these things in this way, it would be better. Uh that's a different discussion than uh an officer performing in a very human way in a time-compressed uh encounter. So we gotta we gotta make a distinction between those two conversations, and honest accountability is the is the standard.

SPEAKER_01: 26:23

And I realize this is not your cup of tea, but uh and we talked about this earlier, you know, the the unreasonable expectations that our citizenry are heaping on law enforcement to in my mind are becoming more and more and more unreasonable. And we've got, I think, two or three generations worth of Americans that have brought and brought up in that environment, and uh they have a complete misconception of why police do what they do when they do it, but they're now becoming elected officials, they're becoming prosecutors, they're becoming you know, United States Congress members, you know, professors and you know attorneys, yeah. Yeah, and at the same time, technology is just improving by leaps and bounds, you know, exponentially. How do we reconcile the the the gap, the the chasm that that creates? Do we should we make it mandatory training in high school or college curriculums that you guys come in and some states already do that, I think.

SPEAKER_02: 27:26

We would love to we'd love to get in front of as many early audiences as possible because what we find at universities, they all want to be the smartest person at their kitchen table. So that TV show comes on, everybody's like, that was excessive. They're like, well, hold on a second, I got some things I learned from for science, you know, sort of thing. So we get a lot. I mean, we have a lot of really good experiences and success front loading our training in those in those settings. We really do. Um you said that might not be our area. That's exactly our area, at least in the world of the consulting division, right? And I'm constantly pushing down to the rest of the divisions, hey, this is what I'm dealing with. Um, so here's how you can help me on the front end deal with this on the back end, right? So we have to sensitize that in our curriculum and our training. Um what makes it bad is there's there's a population of people who are just you know unconscious incompetence. They don't know what they don't know. But if you if you share it with them, they're perfectly reasonable, great people who will apply it appropriately. That's probably the mass of people we deal with, right? Then you've got some who uh you know they they have their their agendas, their political agendas, and they're looking for any reason to maintain their anti-police stance. We do have pressure on them. One, it's just it's just they're they refuse to to be educated on the reality of video limitations and they think it's excuse making. But where our challenge is, is there's there's groups of professors and and lawyers who will come in as opposing experts on our cases and actually reinforce it. They'll reinforce by weaponizing generally accepted police practices. They will weaponize the still photo from a from a frame, and they'll they'll put up for the jury that the gun is now inches from his hand. Well, you can't shoot someone who's not an imminent threat to you. But look, he's not a threat because he doesn't have a gun. Well, that was a still frame in a split seconds. We have experts come in and say, look, he's he's got him in side control right now, which is a position of dominance. He has the advantage, and it's a still frame. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, press play. And then the very next frame, the guy's pushing the officer off of him and throwing him up off his back. But in that frame, these experts are literally coming to accordance and trying to convince the audiences of things that literally aren't true.

SPEAKER_01: 29:47

So we do have to pretend.

SPEAKER_00: 29:55

And not to say that that can't ever be true, right? But in most cases, it's not true. Yeah, yeah. In most cases, it's an issue of perception, cognition, decision making, and performance, and the ability to, you know, Vaughn mentioned earlier a very simple audio audible stimulus to signal that something should start or stop. Our world as police officers is anything but a simple stimulus or a closed environment. There's environmental factors, there's witnesses, there's onlookers, there's people screaming, there's sirens in the background, there's all sorts of things that inhibit our ability to pick up on stimulus, much less become consciously aware of it, and then be able to use it as a cognitive factor in our decision making and performance. He keeps trying to get in a group.

SPEAKER_03: 30:36

We're way over time. Yeah, we're way over time. I do want to hit on something real quick. Uh, for those that don't know, TMPAs and we've invested in like a cinema camera uh for promotional purposes to go out and capture moments with our members and so forth and our staff. When I was reading the book, and I'm I'm I'm just now uh able to dive off into AI and how it's affecting law enforcement and how it's affecting really like the video production things. You guys may not be aware of this, but a simple cinema camera, uh, I think the camera was built in 2022, it has AI built into it now. So I'm looking for moving forward. Uh, we talked about this earlier about different camera programs that has AI built into those. Is there is there something kind of being done right now from Force Science to kind of prepare for this? Or what's to come uh on the AI perspective, and how can Force Science, or how can we, or how can the listener assist you guys with these upcoming situations?

SPEAKER_02: 31:30

I I would say we are right now great students of that game. Yes. We are we're not in conducting independent research, but not trying to develop a new expertise to model or to rival the people who have been doing that for a living. One of the things Bill Lewinsky did that I thought was phenomenal is he he looks at other industries to kind of see what are the what questions are they asking and answering that would have application to us. Right now, that's where we're at with AI. We're watching the AI industry very carefully for my world so that we know which evidence we can and can't trust, what we can and can't say about a certain piece of evidence, whether it was legacy video or now AI uh supported and enhanced video. Um, so in fairness, we're just good students of that game right now.

SPEAKER_00: 32:14

I think that might be a fair way to present that. Yeah, observing and and and making note, you know, one of the things we do in consulting is we issue spot. You get to a point where you've seen enough of these things, you realize this is where people are going to be confused, and this is where people are gonna have questions. So these are issues that I've spotted in this case, and very similar to being good students of this technology as it develops. What are some potential things that we should keep our eye on and just be aware of and and kind of monitor? And as we have the opportunity, use our unique offering and human performance and uh and human factors to to hopefully inform how that gets applied to once work.

SPEAKER_02: 32:51

And part of our process is always included as part of my consult with my clients, is identifying the types of experts that might be useful for the presentation of their case. So we always use psychologists and doctors or forensic examiners or um uh video analysts. And now we might just have to add who's our good AI first who can talk about that.

SPEAKER_01: 33:11

100% might have to have these guys back. Yeah, part two, yeah. Well, hey, I still got a million more things. I know there's a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_02: 33:19

If you need, I know you're gonna clip this maybe, uh but you asked a question earlier, so let me answer that with a little gap for you in case you want to um you asked how TMPA um how the TMPA audiences and their relationship with war science is important. Why is that important? Um I recently was on a case where a judge was concerned that if he allowed me to testify as an expert in human performance at law and use of forced threat assessments, that every civilian was gonna think they had a right to an expert to assist them in their case. This is so sophisticated. These issues are so incredibly important. The application of human performance and video limitations and capabilities to the analysis of this case, the answer to that, Judge, was yes. 100% your audience needs to know if you the relationship you need to have with us is because out-of-pocket expenses, now we've never turned anybody down, but over the time and litigation gets expensive, right? And so you have to have a relationship and a source of that can support that those litigation costs and relationships with organizations like us who understand the reality of uh the issues that have to be presented and how and the types of experts that are going to be necessary to do that, and that is not cheap.

SPEAKER_03: 34:40

Yeah, no, I and I agree. And I think I think it's important for the members to understand is that we, ETMPA, are always looking at ways to enhance the benefits and the quality of service that we provide to our members, one of that being our bread and butter, which is our legal protection. You can't make the argument that not having four science in your corner to back and help the defense strategy uh in certain legal situations for our members, if we're not going to have you guys in our corner, then really what are we doing? How are we preparing and making our legal services better to that to that degree to your point?

SPEAKER_02: 35:10

And and every every insurance carrier we talk to, and I think you guys will see this too, front loading the information is much better than waiting until litigation. Yep. So to the degree there's sponsoring training for these officers or giving them discounts to our online programs, right? Having a relationship that says get this in front so it's education, because once we do it afterwards, it's it's excuse making.

SPEAKER_01: 35:36

Well, yeah, and Kevin Kevin would be it shouldn't be on it shouldn't be incumbent on the defense to bring in the expert. It should be on the prosecution. They've got the half burden proof.56 seconds. It's your job to tell us what happened.

SPEAKER_00: 35:52

You should have brought in the experts on this. And again, that's the that's the beauty of existing in that objective space where where we're there to inform the best decision by the trier effect. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:03

Well, those those prosecutors, though, you to your point, I deal with a lot of prosecutors. I dealt with what would be referred to as one of the most anti-police prosecutors in the country. Um Cabas County? Yeah, but I will tell you this. Once I sat down with that prosecutor and explained these issues, they refused to prosecute the officer. They did, they declined to prosecute the officer. They did not know what they didn't know. Um, when we talk about prosecutors, the prosecutors in that case in Montana were, to your point, not only should they have known, they didn't even know the issue existed, they were hypnotized to believe that's our evidence, that's what we're gonna use. They sat in trial and could not believe what we were testifying to and how that changed even their own personal understanding of the case. They were done. Yeah. And the never should have gotten that. But they didn't know what they didn't know, which is why we want to get in front of prosecutors, defense counters, plaintiffs' counsels. Some of them will still go, got it, and move forward and then try to weaponize that information. Fair enough. But my experience, quite frankly, I'm optimistic. Even the most rabid anti-police folks I meet are that way because they truly believe cops are systemically racist, abusive, and corrupt. And when they get an understanding of how we evaluate those cases honestly, if they are truly incentivized to do that, they do. The overwhelming large population of these prosecutors aren't trying to put people in prison that they believe are innocent. Correct. Right. Yeah, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_03: 37:35

Yeah. Well, you got some training coming up. We're gonna put the information, y'all's uh conference.

SPEAKER_00: 37:40

Do you have the dates for that? Uh we do have the dates, the 22nd through the 24th of September, 2026. Okay. In Round Rock, Texas. At the what is it gonna be at Cal is Cal Hurry or no? It's going to be at the we just signed the contract like to two days ago. Uh it's gonna put out a big announcement in the near future. Awesome. Uh what location in the down the in the in the block. As far as to save the date, uh 22 through 24 September. Yeah, looking forward to attending that for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 38:06

Me and Kevin and uh the whole TNPA team may show up. Maybe not the whole team. Maybe not the whole team. Oh, here we go. Come on, listen. Here we go. Yeah. Hey, uh, if you guys have watched any of our podcasts, we do three rapid fire questions. I hope you guys didn't study for these. We're gonna end it, end it on that note. Is there anything is there anything else you want to cover before we Nope. Good? No, I'm ready. Okay. What is your favorite drink of choice when you're off duty? Favorite line from a cop movie or favorite cop movie? And my favorite, favorite cop car.

SPEAKER_00: 38:38

Easy first answer is your last question. Favorite cop car is a fox body Mustang. Okay? Hands down. Oh, well, DPS.

SPEAKER_02: 38:45

Yep, okay. My favorite cop car is the one they don't know is a cop car. I did so much other cop cars. Yeah, yeah. The one you can talk to your informants and that's just the favorite line from a cop movie, your favorite cop movie? Uh my absolute favorite cop movie was Untouchables. Uh, Sean Connery uh looks at a man who tried to get in his way, and uh, after a reasonable amount of force says, So how do you feel now? Better or worse?

SPEAKER_00: 39:11

I'd say uh what was the Jillin Hole? End of watch. End of watch. Best depicted cop movie. When a hard-charging city street cop allowed a Fed to put his finger in his chin. You knew it was fiction.

SPEAKER_03: 39:27

Yeah, 100%. All right, favorite drink of choice when you guys are off the clock enjoying uh some some U time.

SPEAKER_00: 39:34

I enjoy Buffalo Trace old fashioned.

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

There you go. Yeah, I'm just uh large cube makers uh my go-to to sit back and relax with, but off to you, I gotta say I'm drinking an awful lot of Red Bull.

SPEAKER_03: 39:48

Yeah, yeah. Well Well, I can't thank y'all enough for coming down. We I guess we're gonna have a part two or need to, 'cause I've got a lot still got a lot of questions that I want to ask you guys and loved having you gone. Uh loved getting the old big boss in here today. I know you're you had to clear your schedule. Uh you're har I hardly ever gonna see when you're in the office.

SPEAKER_01: 40:04

Well you know, somebody somebody real smart once said, you know, if you're the smartest guy in the room, you're in the wrong room. You need better friends. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00: 40:13

I know I'm in the right room. As for me. I know. I I met you in 1999 when I became a member, and and you haven't lost any hair since then. Get ready.

SPEAKER_03: 40:25

That became full-time about three years ago, and it's it's quickly uh quickly called out more since it has that chat GBT uh emails with emboldeness uh was was pretty comical the other day. But anyway, I greatly appreciate you guys called.

SPEAKER_01: 40:39

He does a great job for us. We've got a great team right now. We do, man. We do.

SPEAKER_03: 40:44

No, no, no, not at all. It's uh you know, this is a family, and and even to our extended members of the family, but but us us employees and staff, and it truly is a brotherhood and a familyhood, and it's uh it's the correct place to work.

SPEAKER_02: 40:54

So I was I was glad I was in the military as long as I was because we walked in and you guys all stood in a position of attention. Yeah, that was that was not playing about which you got the snipers looking at.

SPEAKER_03: 41:05

That's a habit. Yeah, so I noticed they were all saluting you rap. No doubt, no doubt. Well, hey, we're gonna jump off here. We've got the podcast lined up for you today. We're gonna record with uh National Police Federal Credit Unit. We're gonna talk about the deals and and the partnership that TNPA has with them. Looking forward to having them on. Check out the Force Science uh conference states. We're gonna have that there in the blog and greatly appreciate you guys tuning in. Again, I can't thank y'all enough for coming on. Look forward to having part two in the near future. And maybe we'll do it in the next September, right before that. Y'all's conference get kicked off. I just sounds good. Hey, you guys take care. Stay safe. God bless you, and as always, may God bless Texas. We're out of the house.