Hey everybody. Welcome to the Street Cop Podcast. This is Ellie Alfonso and I teach legal use of force for the law enforcement professional. You trying to be a street cop?

Hey everybody. I wanted to jump on here real quick and just talk about something that people

asked me about all the time and that's like quote-unquote what are some of the

things that I can do to improve my chances in the use of force encounter?

So there is no quick fix but one of the things that we can

take ownership of as officers, it's very simple is how we lay out our gear, right?

How is our duty belt set up? How is our vest set up if we have an outer carrier? Do we know where

our handcuffs are? Can we get to them with both hands? If not, do we have two sets of

handcuffs? If your agency allows you to carry fixed blades or folders, do we have it offset to our lethal weapons?

So you have lethal weapon on both sides of your body.

I keep one inside my vest, so I have lethal weapon on right side left side and one inside my vest in case I'm mounted and I can't get to my

Get to my hips and get to my weapons there

But if you don't know where your gear is and if you don't know how to get to your gear and you don't practice pulling this equipment under stress,

then when you need it the most, it's going to fail you. You're going to get frustrated because you're not going to be able to get it,

and it's going to get frustrated because you're not going to be able to get it and it's going

to cost you precious time. So when you set up your vest and you set up your duty belt, as simple as it

sounds, you'd be surprised how many officers don't do it purposefully, right? Maybe at

FTO tells them do it like this, I like it like this, but once you have your belt

set up and your vest set up, can you get to your O.C. Can you get to your baton?

I was never a fan of having my

baton behind my gun because I don't want what's called a slip and capture

where I think I'm going for my gun, but I grab my baton handle instead.

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