One, one, I can't get a place.

I don't have a break.

Uh-huh.

You trying to be a street cop.

What's up, street cops? Smitty here from the street cop instructor group and I want to talk to you today about a very

focused and simple tactic that can maybe improve our skill set when we're out there operating in and around violator vehicles.

With the death of Oster Katie Thine from the Newport News PD in Virginia,

it's probably appropriate for us to all sit back and take a minute and evaluate what it is we do out there and what we can do as individual cops to make

this craft of ours a little bit safer.

I spent a lot of time over the last 29 years being very interested in the tactics that we use when we interact with violators and their vehicles.

And there's one spot that can get us in a lot of trouble.

And that's the inside arc of the door swing. And when I talk

about the inside arc of the door swing, what I'm talking about is that space, when you

open the door on a car, that space, that V-shaped space between the door and the car that you have to pass through to get

in or out of the vehicle that's the arc of the door swing and when you're inside

that you're between the door and the vehicle. Cars are dangerous when there's a desperate

high or drunk or bad guy or girl at the wheel. It's a giant weapon and when the doors are open

that car gets a lot more dangerous and a lot wider.

The open driver door of a toy with the Camry widens the vehicle by 42 inches.

That's 3.5 feet. If both front doors were up in the vehicle is widened by 84

inches that's seven feet wider than it normally is we all know that the car versus

human body always ends in a win for the car. We're frail compared to a car.

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