Ambush Prevention Strategies for Patrol Officers

By Written by: Greg Ellifritz @ Active Response Training

10% of the cops killed on duty are ambushed. Training is the key to Prevention!

Choose the right parking lot. You want to find an empty lot where the presence of a car or person is something unusual. You don’t want to sit in a busy parking lot with lots of traffic. There are too many threat cues to process. Pick a church or school parking lot without any cars in it for better safety.

Park your car in the middle of the parking lot where any intruder will have to cross lots of open space to get to you.

Turn your bright lights on. Not only do you want to see anyone approaching, you also want to create an impenetrable “wall of light” for anyone who is coming your direction. Bright lights limit the chance of the bad guy being able to see your exact position and target you.

Back in the 1990s, it wasn’t unusual to see a cop parked in a lot at night with his light bar “alley lights” (side spotlights) turned on so that he could better see a person on foot approaching his car.

Dim your interior and computer lights. You will be able to see farther outside if your interior lights are dim. Dim interior lights also make it harder for the bad guy to get a sight picture on your head.

Lock your cruiser doors. You don’t want a person to be able to open your cruiser door and either drag you out or shoot you. If you keep your doors locked, you will buy some extra time in the event of a physical attack.

Open your windows a little bit. Your windows shouldn’t be fully opened, because that makes it easy for an attacker to throw a firebomb into your car. They should be open a couple of inches so that you can better hear footsteps or a blacked-out vehicle approaching.

Seat belts should obviously be OFF. Whenever you park your car in a public location, you should remove your seat belt. You want to be able to move without restriction in an ambush attack. Once you are parked, your primary danger isn’t a vehicular collision. It is an attack by someone on foot. Make sure you are prepared for the most likely threat you are going to face.

Turn your radar on. Whenever I’m parked, I turn the rear antenna of my cruiser speed measuring radar on. The radar gives me an audible warning if someone in a car or on a bicycle is approaching from behind where I can’t see them. If you don’t have a rear-facing radar, turn on your forward radar. Any extra warning you have of an attacker approaching is a good thing.

Look around at a regular interval. Don’t be so focused on your report that you fail to scan your surroundings. Set a regular break to look around. When I’m typing a report, I stop after every paragraph and look around my cruiser in a 360 degree scan. I also use the songs on the radio or my phone as a reminder to scan. After every single song ends, I take a few seconds to look around.

These tips won’t prevent every ambush attack, but will likely keep you safe from many folks who might want to hurt you.