Drop the Pen! What Every Writer Should Know About Real Police Work: Why Cops Yell Sometimes—The OODA Loop Phenomenon

By D.L. Williams

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Years ago, my partner and I were on a nightly patrol of an old hotel in the downtown district. The hotel had once been luxurious, a place for celebrities and politicians to rub shoulders, for honeymooners to spend their first night of marriage, or a swanky place you might take a business companion. 

The hotel had gone bankrupt a few years earlier, and it had deteriorated into a haven for drug deals, sexual assaults, vandalism, and actual satanic rituals. We were under orders to patrol the place at least once a night. This was not an easy assignment because the hotel didn’t have electricity, there was broken glass everywhere, and often there were people generally up to no good skulking about. The hotel was five stories, and each level had to be searched room-to-room for the patrol to be considered successful. 

That night we had made it to a parking platform on the top of the building. It was summer, and we were glad to be back out in fresh and comparatively cooler air. We were catching our breath and about to make the long walk back down dark stairs when we heard voices ascending from below us. The voices were whispering, and given the circumstances, we can’t be judged too harshly for thinking those whispers were conspiratorial. 

The sources of the voices were just about to the top level, still shadowed but we could make out human forms. Both of us yelled, “Show me your hands!” 

Yelps and calls for one of their mothers echoed off the concrete walls and pillars. A twenty-something coed burst into tears, and her college boyfriend looked like he was about to leave her there and run for dear life in the half-second between our yells and his fight or flight response kicking in. 

Honestly, our yelling was over the top, and I felt bad for frightening them. To be fair, they had passed six No Trespassing signs on the way up, but they were on more of a lark than out to perform some insidious act. If you kids are reading this now, some two decades later, I apologize. 

Cops yell sometimes. It doesn’t matter if they’re real-life officers or those we see in film; yelling occurs, especially during high-risk high-stress scenarios. It’s rude, poor “bedside manner,” and not super nice, but there are reasons for it. I’m not here to make excuses, but writers should understand some of the dynamics when they’re writing mysteries and thrillers. 

One reason could simply be the guy is having a bad day, and he’s taking out his frustrations on others. That, of course, isn’t acceptable, and my expectation is that all officers always act professionally and politely when dealing with those they’ve sworn to serve. We’re human, and sometimes we will screw up, but professionalism is always the objective standard.

A more important reason has to do with a particular aspect of police officer and military training called the OODA Loop. It’s a fascinating bit of psychology, and one that is now routinely taught at police academies and professional development training for veteran officers.  The OODA Loop is a concept adopted by the military in the 1950s and later by police trainers around the country. It’s standard fare at police academies, and it is practiced for days on end while cadets learn how to do building searches and perform high-threat felony arrests.

 OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. We all do OODA multiple times a day, whether that be sizing up a salesman, managing our children, dealing with a difficult boss, or asking someone out on a date. In simple terms, we humans look at what’s going on, find the rhythm and orient to the situation, identify the best possible choice (hopefully) given the circumstances, and perform whatever action our brain decides to take. 

OODA processing is imperfect. We don’t always hit the baseball, we blurt out the wrong thing in an argument, and we spend more money and time than we’d planned in a casino. Thus, the concept of OODA in police work is to support good acts while simultaneously disrupting negative decision-making.

Let’s say you have a store owner arguing with a customer, and employees dial 911 because it looks like there might be violence. Two officers arrive, and each takes one of the would-be combatants some distance apart to get their side of the story. The customer settles down quickly, but the store owner is incensed and keeps trying to get around the officer to re-confront the customer. 

Telling the store owner to calm down is rarely effective. He’s stuck in a negative OODA Loop, and his brain can’t catch up to let him know his actions leaning toward violence are based on a bad decision. In OODA parlance, the officer needs to interrupt the loop just long enough so that the store owner can start making rational decisions again. 

An example of this would be for the officer to remark positively on some aspect of the store. Let’s say the store owner sells gnome figurines. The officer could say something nice about one of the little statues in an open-ended way: “My wife sure does love gnomes. Maybe I’ll bring her by sometime.”

Hopefully, the store owner’s OODA processing just curved out of the established pattern. He has to think of a response, please a potential new customer, and emotionally—even for an instant—leave the anger loop. Now the store owner has time to re-observe and re-orient, and the conditions for a non-violent, low-drama outcome blossom. 

OODA Loop training in police circles also involves interrupting the process in potentially life-threatening situations. Think of a puma about to spring on a rabbit concentrated on a succulent blade of grass. The rabbit is unaware of the predator lurking on a branch just above, and the puma emits a primal scream as it springs from the tree. That scream interrupts the prey’s OODA Loop, disrupting the bunny’s natural flight response long enough for the big cat to make the kill. 

This is not unlike a loud kiai yell used by martial artists or howls from soldiers as they attack on the battlefield. The guttural bellow is designed to interrupt the OODA process for the opponent, granting a fraction of a second advantage for the attacker. This is also why cops are trained to yell things like, “Get on the ground!” or “Show me your hands!” during moments of heightened danger. 

This is reasonable to a point. Our voices can be used with the effect of a leather whip cracking the air, at once stunning and distracting. It can be too much, however. Four officers all yelling different commands will upend the OODA Loop of a potentially violent person, leading to so much fear and confusion that the person of interest unleashes the fury and terror on the officers. Using OODA Loop tactics, like any form of communication, is best done artfully and with a positive outcome as the end goal.

OODA tactics come into sharper focus the higher the stakes. Let’s examine a scenario in which narcotics officers have secured a search warrant for a meth lab being run out of a house. The occupants are known to have weapons, as well as training in how to use them, and they are convicted, violent felons. The prevailing wisdom amongst those who know the occupants is that they will not go peacefully. Thus, serving this warrant is probably best accomplished using a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team. 

To be clear, jurisdictions refer to such teams with different names (e.g., Emergency Response Team, Tactical Team, etc.), but I’m using the colloquial term most people have heard. I was a tactical medic for federal, city, and county SWAT teams for five years during my career. My position at the back of the “stack” (police term for how such teams enter a home in tactical formation) allowed me to observe all the action and be in on the planning phases. It was an adrenaline-filled time in my life. I don’t have any desire to do it again, but I’m glad to have had the experience. (Note: I plan to talk in more detail about SWAT teams in a future column.)

Consider the OODA Loop of those inside the meth house. Their orientation is centered on being alert to police coming to arrest them. Perhaps one of them observes shadows and sounds outside the home that make him think the police have arrived. The decision might be to pick up a firearm and aim it at those officers, and the action would be to destroy them with gunfire. 

Officers must do something to interrupt that thought pattern. One way to do this is to establish a dialogue, either through a phone call or by calling out to those inside to “come out with your hands up.” This is, by far, the most successful and most used tactic, but there were times when that was deemed tactically unsafe and ineffective. 

Oftentimes, this meant the team would deploy a “flashbang,” a type of grenade that emits white hot light and a loud bang when thrown, but without blasting deadly shrapnel when it explodes. The idea of a flashbang is to render those inside a dangerous structure momentarily stunned, giving the team a few seconds to enter the house and arrest those inside. 

I know this sounds over-the-top violent to some of you, but I’ve seen this tactic successfully deployed a number of times. This is classic OODA Loop interruption. The people inside the home have a mindset to defend the “castle,” and the police team outside uses a loud noise and bright light to interrupt that thought process long enough to make the breach and make the scene safe. I’ve written and spoken before on the very valid concerns of many citizens that “no-knock” warrants can be more destructive than helpful, but there are times when the folks officers are going to arrest are armed to the teeth and willing to kill anyone who tries to stop them from perpetrating insidious crimes. The “No-Knock Warrant” conversation is another one for a future column, and it’s a doozie. 

OODA Loop tactics have a lasting place in policing, and versions are incorporated into most violence prevention training programs currently delivered to cadets and veterans. Like any other tool, such tactics can be improperly used, which is why I will always stress the need for ongoing training and evaluation of every officer in the field.

Try re-framing an OODA Loop next time you’re dealing with a cranky person. Call attention to something you know they are proud of or that makes them happy, doing so with no ulterior motive attached and no yelling. I’ll bet it helps you both have a better day. And if you’re a tired and out-of-breath cop on the beat, having a better day is a touchdown. Onward.

Drop the Pen! What Every Writer Should Know About Real Police Work

Search Warrants Under a Magnifying Glass

By D.L. Williams

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My wife and I watch a streaming series called Joe Pickett about a game warden solving homicides in Wyoming, based on the exceptional novels by C.J. Box. Game Warden Pickett is an honest cop, savvy about woodcraft, less so about the politics and back-door deals of the world. He evidently patrols the most dangerous forest in the world, because someone ends up murdered in every book in the series and in each season of the televised program. 

I have to suspend some disbelief when I watch the show, however, because our good Game Warden Pickett seemingly has never heard of a search warrant. He’ll go in any tent, rifle through any pickup truck, and stick his nose in just about any hunter’s cabin if it means finding the truth. Our hero is out there in the woods alone, except for the fauna he protects, and lurking bad guys. Leaving a possible crime scene in the woods to get a judge to sign a search warrant for an ominous tent or a suspicious backpack means evidence might disappear and murderers will get away. 

Which is an understandable dilemma, but in legal terms this is what defense attorneys call a “no-no.” How you tackle the gray areas of fictional law enforcement depends on what you’re writing, the circumstances in the case, and your own literary voice. My job is to make sure you know the rules, so that you’ll know the stakes when you opt to break them. 

Search warrants are by far the most asked about topic I receive when writers reach out for feedback on their mystery/thriller novels or screenplays, or when I’m speaking at writers’ conferences. Writers know it is a subject they need to get right before sending a novel to agents or publishers, but high school civics was a long time ago for a lot of us. A review is in order.

Search warrants are a fundamental part of our governmental system of checks and balances. They’re a safeguard against executive branch overreach into places any reasonable person would consider private including homes, cars, computer hard drives, cell phones, and even our own bodies. We didn’t like it one bit when British redcoats kicked in our front door and rummaged around looking for evidence that we hadn’t paid a stamp tax or for contraband rum just delivered by the friendly neighborhood smuggler. So, way back in 1791 we passed and ratified the Fourth Amendment to guard against such intrusion:

The right of the people to secure in their person’s, houses, papers, and effects shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. 

Which means, if police officers want to enter your home or other places you consider private, they can only do so with a warrant they’ve obtained by swearing to a judge that what they’re asking to search has to do with a criminal investigation, and that the evidence they’re basing that request on applies directly to the case. There are no search warrants granted for “gut feelings.”

There are a couple of exceptions to the warrant requirement. The first is for the owner of private property to give permission for officers to search the item or place in question. It’s kind of like the rule for vampires. Cops can’t come in until they’re invited. The irony of that analogy isn’t lost on me. 

The other way police officers can enter private property without a warrant is through exigent (emergency) circumstances. Such circumstances allow police officers to enter a private place if there is a reasonable concern someone within is hurt and needs emergency medical care and/or there is an immediate threat to lives or evidence posed by some thing or some person within the home. 

Let’s say a woman calls 911 to report violence in the apartment next door. She can hear a screaming female and a man growling threats. The sounds of glass breaking and furniture toppling reverberates through the apartment walls, and the caller frantically tells the dispatcher, “The cops better hurry before somebody gets killed.” 

Responding officers arrive in time to hear the violence still occurring within the apartment, so they will enter the domicile based on the exigent need to stop the violence and prevent further harm. Once inside, they spot a woman unconscious on the floor, bleeding from a head wound. EMS will be summoned, and first aid will commence. 

Meanwhile, the angry man heard by the 911 caller is nowhere in sight. It’s plausible he’s hiding in the apartment, which poses a continuation of the exigent threat. Officers will keep looking for the other party until they’re sure everyone in that apartment is accounted for. 

In our scenario, two officers searching for the suspect walk into a bathroom, only to discover there is a methamphetamine lab bubbling in the bathtub. This discovery will result in a whole new direction for the investigation, but for now the focus remains on scene safety. 

Only after the scene is made safe and the injured woman is on her way to the hospital will the new investigation into the meth lab kick into gear. Narcotics officers will be called in, as well as fire department personnel, to mitigate any danger from a fire or an explosion in the illicit lab. The scene will get quiet, because there isn’t much else to do until a signed search warrant arrives. Anyone still inside the apartment will be ushered out, and uniformed officers will be stationed at entrances to guard against someone going back in and tampering with evidence. 

A detective will then write a search warrant affidavit. The affidavit is designed to tell a story about how the investigation came about in the first place, what evidence has been secured in the case thus far, why the investigators believe there is more evidence to be discovered, and how they plan to go about finding it.  The affidavit in our case, for example, would detail how officers were dispatched based on a frantic 911 call, that the officers intervened to stop violence, that a man suspected of rendering his wife unconscious hid from officers, and that officers searching for that man in the apartment spied a meth lab during efforts to find him.

The detective writing the affidavit would then spell out exactly what the department personnel will be looking for as they search. Such a list in this case would include supplies used in the manufacture of the drug such as chemicals, heating elements, measuring cups, beakers, etc. 

Once the affidavit is completed and edited (yes, cops edit each other), an investigator must find a judge to sign the warrant. This can be a chokepoint if the judge is currently presiding over a hearing or trial, or if circumstances of the case necessitate the warrant be signed in the middle of the night. Most judges are patient and personable. A few are arrogant jerks, but detectives learn quickly who to approach and who to avoid when going to get a signature. 

The “Affiant,” is the person making the request of the court.  The detective affiant in our fictional case must raise her right hand and swear to tell the truth during the meeting with the judge, an oath which carries the same perjury consequences as a witness at trial if that detective lies. Most judges ask investigators to tell the story first, so they have some idea of what they’ll see in the warrant affidavit, and then they’ll read the actual document. This can take a few minutes, so good detectives steel themselves to wait quietly while the judge reviews their work like a tenth-grade English teacher reading your “What I Did Over the Summer” essay. 

The judge will sign two documents. The first is the affidavit, which spelled out the story in detail. The second is the warrant itself, a comparatively sparse document that simply says officers from Department X are allowed to search the apartment during a specified time period for the purposes of a criminal investigation. The actual details beyond the general nature of the crime being investigated are left off the document. Officers must show the actual warrant to the property owner (the Respondent), but they can withhold the affidavit with all the juicy details for now in order to preserve the ongoing investigation. All the facts will be shared with the suspect and his attorney later, but for now it’s best to keep some specifics secret as detectives work to find witnesses and other related evidence.

The apartment springs back to life as soon as the warrant arrives on scene. By then, everyone on the investigative team will know their assignment. Crime Scene Techs will start the process of photographing and collecting evidence (we’ll go into greater detail about this in a future column), and investigating officers will go to assigned or agreed upon areas of the apartment to search. 

Evidence will be photographed and labeled before being sent for processing (DNA, fingerprints, identification of unknown substances, etc.). The search will continue until the lead detective on the case deems the team has completed the objectives listed in the warrant. A copy of the search warrant is left in plain sight, often on a coffee table or kitchen counter, along with an inventory sheet of everything taken from the home.  

Now, let’s say the investigating officers find a computer in the apartment. That computer will likely be seized as well because it may contain evidentiary information such as search engine research into how to make methamphetamine, lists of ingredients needed for such manufacture, emails to and from potential buyers or sellers of contraband, and even photos of the suspect smoking or injecting the product they created. 

My recommendation is always to get an additional warrant for things like computers and cell phones. Yes, you might be covered in some jurisdictions based solely on the search warrant you gained for the crime scene. However, any evidence discovered in the computer will be challenged in court if there wasn’t a warrant specific to that private area. It’s prudent to simply get another warrant for each additional place to be searched. This would apply as well to remote storage buildings owned or rented by the suspects, cell phones, and cars. 

Novelists and screenwriters often take liberties when it comes to criminal investigations. You may choose to do that as well, if a bit of fudging better fits the tone and narrative of your work. I’m just here to make sure you know the background so you can make informed decisions as you plot your future bestseller.  I bid you luck and joy in crafting your own literary murder forest, packed full of dangerous, two-legged beasts and riddled with places to hide a body.  Onward. 

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David “D.L.” Williams is a public safety veteran with assignments including paramedicine, patrol in high-need areas, helicopter rescue, mental health liaison, and violent crime investigations as a detective. During his thirty-year career, Williams was twice named Officer of the Year by the Fraternal Order of Police, and he has been recognized by Rotary Club, the American Legion, and the National Coalition Against Sexual Violence for his work with families and children in crisis. He now teaches criminology at the University of Arkansas, and he is the bestselling author of Fighting for Her Life: What to do When Someone You Know is Being Abused and Textbooks, Not Targets: How to Prevent School Shootings in Your Community. He and his family have settled in the Ozark Mountains where they offer a haven for donkeys and horses who previously endured a rough life.