Technology has long driven the proliferation of less lethal devices. As law enforcement agencies continue to grapple with public perception, they are often in search of tools that help keep their officers safe while limiting officer-involved injuries, shootings and deaths.
This article appeared in the May/June issue of OFFICER Magazine. Click Here to subscribe to OFFICER Magazine.
OFFICER Magazine recently spoke to Compliant Technologies Founder & CEO Jeff Niklaus about the GLOVE (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter). Niklaus stressed the importance of training and tactics and touted the device as a de-escalation tool that can be used to decrease the amount of force used by an officer during a confrontation.
What training is involved for officers using the GLOVE?
We have four levels of training. We have what’s called a Basic User, a Basic Instructor, then we have an Agency Master Instructor and then an Advanced Agency Master Instructor. When Compliant Technologies comes in, whether you’re a dealer or a certified trainer, you go ahead and train the trainer. We train basic instructors, and then they can create as many users as they want.
The instructors cannot create more instructors. It’s kind of modeled after a military design because I’m a prior army guy. So, as an instructor, these certifications last two years. They can either recertify with a dealer or another certified instructor in person, or they can go on our LMS and get recertified. The same thing goes for the users, right.
We encourage larger agencies to take advantage of our AMI training and our AMI agency master instructor training that encompasses. They must have the basic instructor training done before they do AMI training. That’s three days of hands-on training. The interesting thing about our AMI training is you’re never going to throw a punch.
The idea behind the training on a day-to-day basis, we tell everybody to take the GLOVE with them to the range. You need to shoot some magazines with the gloves on. You need to do some immediate action and reloads because even though an officer may only pull his weapon out and use it one to two times in a 20-year career, what happens if it’s that day when you’re wearing the GLOVE? People are surprised how easy it is to shoot with our products. The training is vitally important because if you never train, and you just have them, you’ll never use them.
What role does training and techniques play when it comes to introducing new technology?
You look at the GLOVE, and for the first time in law enforcement corrections history, we have a technology that’s introduced into the vicinity of soft, empty hand control that’s not a weapon. It’s CD3 technology (Conductive Distraction and De-escalation Device). With CD3, without injuring the individual, you’re able to create neuro peripheral interference, which really kind of overloads a person’s mind through the sense of touch to the epidermis that hits the central nervous system up to the brain. Most people will go down or will just change their behavior. So, you really have this use of the GLOVE and how to manipulate a human body before you get into hard empty hand control, which is the beauty of it now.
There’s always been this gap between, you know, if you look at the old force continuum or force options, officer presence, verbal command, soft emptying control, hard emptying control, where this gap between verbal command or soft empty hand control and then you have intermediate tools, and you get into higher levels of force that actually cause injury.
I can cause injury with the hard empty hand. So, with this we’re able to manipulate the body, we’re able to use the GLOVE and really stop a lot of nonsense before it gets out of control and that it flows seamlessly into higher levels of defensive tactics and combatives. I think our products serve as a huge stopgap for a lot of nonsense, but it’s that transition from those uses of force to where they need to get more aggressive to where now we’re able to manipulate the body a lot better, use the GLOVE, and that was what was really designed with the AMI training.
I spent 20 years in the military, and I flew helicopters. We flew a lot more training than we ever did in combat operations. Training is key. That’s why they talk about perishable skills. With anything, you know you’re only as good as your weakest link or your lowest common denominator. These tools require some knowledge, but what I think the benefit of it is that people are willing to train.
What are the applications for these products? Are they used more in corrections than riot control?
It’s mainly used in corrections; that’s a good fit for us right now. But we’re being picked up by more and more police departments. I spoke with Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Assistant Police Chief Adam Glueck recently for a video for our website. They’re using the GLOVE for vehicle extractions and traffic stops. They’ve used the GLOVE over 50 times. He told me that if they took the GLOVE away, they would have a mutiny on their hands because the officers have gravitated to it.
When it comes to riot control at protests, like the ones going on at college campuses currently, how can these devices help give officers the upper hand?
I could give you 1,000 reasons, but here are the main ones. First, it’s very safe. You cannot injure people who are protesting if those protesters are peaceful, but at some point, they must move. They’re blocking traffic, and you need to break a human chain. There is no more wrestling. The optics with the glove are simply “I’m going up and I’m going to grab that individual.” That human chain is broken in about one second. The media is going to be all over the place and with this we’re not spraying, shooting or hitting. I’m simply grabbing you with the GLOVE. The current of the GLOVE is so low that it does not transfer through clothing, hair, metal or fur. I saw the at the videos from Columbia University, where the officers are literally wrestling on the ground with protesters. I saw people filming it and just standing around watching it. What if you’re not having to roll around on the ground and the officer is standing in control, poised, not having to yell, just giving a verbal command? We’ve had a lot of situations with hospitals’ security where nobody in the emergency room knew that the GLOVE was applied to somebody because that’s how fast it ended the situation. I think the best de-escalation tool out there is a confident, competent, well-trained officer. Not just that the officer understands the law and his agency’s protocols and procedures, but that he also understands his equipment and understands himself. When you understand that the GLOVE gives some of these newer officers confidence, it’s truly a force multiplier.
