All officers are taught and trained on the critical importance of weapon retention. Clearly, being able to retain the firearm—whether holstered or drawn—is a life-or-death proposition. But what about handcuff retention? In the hands of a trained and capable police officer, restraints are not weapons; but that can change in an instant if a resistive or combative subject gains control of them. I’ve seen plenty of “one handcuff rodeos,” where an officer gets one wrist cuffed, the subject decides he doesn’t want to go to jail, and the struggle ensues. The police tendency is to hang on and go for the ride (I may or may not have been that officer once or twice myself). Trained to instinctively retain control of his or her tools, the officer holds onto the handcuffs, still trying to gain control, while the subject is flailing like mad, or worse. This is why ASP instructor training incorporates a principle we call “Cease to Exist.”
The Cease to Exist concept trains officers to stop a given tactic as a decision to disengage or escalate the force option becomes necessary. While some agencies teach that equipment should never…ever…be dropped, the fact is that restraints not only can be dropped, but may have to be, in the interest of the bigger tactical picture. If, during the handcuffing process, a subject changes from cooperative to combative, it is often best to release and/or drop the handcuffs—AKA make them “cease to exist”—to allow the officer to create space and have options. The alternative, trying to retain the cuffs and “make it work,” makes safe separation impossible, ties up one or both of the officer’s hands, and reduces tactical options.
Cease to Exist can happen prior to restraint application, when the subject is stabilized for handcuffing, but the cuffs aren’t on yet. If the subject turns and comes at the officer, the officer can perform a two-hand check to stop the forward momentum, and make the handcuffs cease to exist simply by letting them drop. Then the officer can move into safe separation distance with both hands free to deploy a force option, like a baton, OC spray or TASER.
Another scenario is losing control of the subject once the first handcuff is applied. In this case, dropping the cuffs obviously isn’t possible. But the same principles still apply; the officer makes the restraints cease to exist simply by letting them go. Again, freeing up to transition to a different defensive tool to gain or regain compliance.
The Cease to Exist philosophy can also apply to letting go of the subject himself. Officers often have to move a person from point A to point B, usually employing an escort hold of some kind. If the subject becomes actively resistive and the level of control needs to be increased, the escort itself would “cease to exist.” That is, instead of continuing to fight for arm control, the officer releases the escort hold, freeing him or herself up to transition to a more positive control maneuver such as an emergency takedown.
As with almost everything we talk about in these posts, training and repetition are key. The more you train, and the more reps you put in, the better you will be. And this concept can be applied to many facets of your skill set, as it is easy to recall under stress with the implementation of a few simple drills.
My dad once told me a story about an incident in the early 70’s when he was on patrol. He was fighting with an assailant, threw a punch, and broke his finger in the process. So, I—a wise guy 16 year old at the time—said “why don’t you learn how to punch?” My dad said that he usually never needed to, as he could use his department issued night stick instead of his fists. So I said, “well what if the bad guy pulls a gun and you're just holding a stick?” To which he replied, very matter of factly, “you drop the stick and pull your gun.” Even if the training technique didn’t have a name back then, clearly the old-time coppers knew exactly what it meant to make one tool Cease to Exist in favor of another.