Editor’s Note:This is a guest post from Ron Borsch. Ron’s bio is at the end of this article. Ron wrote this article as a fictional analogy several years ago and it originally appeared in Hock Hochheim’s CQC Dispatches. Although the analogy is fictional, understand that police diamond formations do not have a tracking history of success.
The generic “diamond and four-quarters formations” are a commonly taught and accepted entry method for officers entering into an active-shooter situation. In short, officers stay close in physical contact and step/tiptoe/march down the hallways and rooms. Each look a different direction.
Let’s apply the following questions posed by former SEAL and Master Trainer Ken J. Good:
“What is wrong with this picture?
What can I do to improve the overall situation here?
What biases have I internalized?
What lies have I inadvertently accepted as truth”?
Here is a parallel world look at the diamond solution
All waters are treacherous! Legendary lifeguard Hue Guru, head of NLGA, (National Life-Guard Association), and leader of the Lifeguard Survival movement, was upset over a recent increase in drowning victims, especially when one of the drowning victims was a lifeguard. “Those darn panicked swimmers have taken another good man down with them”. There were more amateur would-be rescuers drowning than the professional lifeguards. Still, Guru was tired of the risk, and attending lifeguard funerals, not to mention the trouble and expense head lifeguards have in replacing lifeguard employees. Guru decided to incorporate the old principle of having a swimming partner, in case the panicked swimmer needs to be subdued.
Then a brainstorm struck, why not double that, and have a four lifeguard tactical formation? The idea stuck. No more drowned lifeguards on his watch! Guru patented his idea. Guru’s “Tactical Water Diamond Formation”, or TWDF, went commercial by his starting a private business, and placing it into practice with his authorized stamp of approval. This is how it worked. When a swimmer looked or sounded like they were in trouble, a special location and call-out alarm was sounded up and down the coastline by the first lifeguard.
The first lifeguard’s job was to gather intelligence of sight, sounds and location of the swimmer in trouble while he was on dry land, and wait until an additional three lifeguards arrived to form the TWDF rescue. When the four-Lifeguard formation was methodically launched, it was a wonder to watch, like synchronized swimming. From that day forward, for eight years, there were no further losses of lifeguards due to drowning. Guru was ecstatic that his TWDF had never lost a Lifeguard, (and that his wealth increased). Tinker Mathes was a former student of Guru and thought the world of his hero. While true that the tactical water diamond formation had never lost a lifeguard, people were still drowning, (after all, water is dangerous). Mathes began to comb through the drowning incidents, and found that the drowning victims had actually increased in the last eight years.
As Mathes poured over the data, he was discovering that whenever a drowning victim was saved during this eight year period, it was always by a novice or amateur rescuer. He discovered that the four-man lifeguard formation was always too late. The swimmer in trouble either drowned, or was rescued by amateurs. Tinker Mathes sounded his own alarm about the tactical water diamond formation never having worked. Other lifeguards treated this revelation as heresy, pointing to the perfect TWDF record of never having lost a lifeguard, that lifeguard survival is priority one, and that lifeguards are so precious that they should not be squandered. Mathes was stunned that the other lifeguards did not seem to realize they were establishing a tracking history of failing to do the job for which they were hired. The lifeguard union membership was balking at the thought of returning to solo lifeguards being allowed to attempt the rescue of a swimmer in trouble. Many wanted to, but the peer pressure was significant.
Rapid response, early entry, and aggressive action, by even a solo actor, is and has been, the only effective countermeasure to the active killer in repaid mass murder.
About the Author: Ron Borsch
After a three decade police career, Ron Borsch is semi-retired. While retaining a police commission as a consultant-trainer, he manages and is the lead trainer for SEALE Regional Police Training Academy, a post-graduate facility in Bedford Ohio. SEALE Academy has specialized in tactically training 1st responders since the year 2000. Their current evolution of active killer countermeasures is SOLO, “Single Officer Lifesaving Others”©. Ron has presented various subjects in several different states to fellow officers, Chiefs of Police, national and international instructor audiences.
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The backlash Mr. Mathes is receiving regarding solo lifeguards making rescues seems to be the same backlash some LEOs have over single officers engaging active shooters. I know when I brought the subject up in my department I was summarily told it was a bad idea and to not be John Wayne, however the idea of waiting for enough people to form the traditional 4 man rescue team always seemed a little skewed to me, especially when lives were in danger.