Situational awareness, the ability to perceive, understand, and respond effectively to one’s environment.

In Part One of this article, I’d like to share two personal experiences. The first made me mindful of situational awareness and the importance of incorporating it in my everyday life. The second made clear the importance of the Holy Ghost’s role in situational awareness. In Part Two, we’ll explore situational awareness in Church history, and how it should continue to be a relevant component in our own Church participation today.

Part One

In March of 1977, I entered the Los Angeles Police Academy for six months of intensive training. Upon graduation from the academy, I was sworn in as a police officer and assigned to Van Nuys Division (one of eighteen geographic divisions—now called areas—across the city) where I began my twelve-month probationary period. If I made it through my rookie year, I would automatically be assigned to another geographic area with the hopes of escaping any rookie mistakes I may have made.

All probationary officers are assigned to work with a training officer. These were seasoned cops assigned to rate their probationary partner once a month to chart their progress. As in any situation, the quality of training officers ran the gamut from burned out old timers with little interest, to those who enjoyed teaching by humiliation, to those rare few who actually cared about making sure the next generation of cops had the tools they needed to both do the job and—more importantly—stay alive.

Cal Dixon was one of the latter and I was lucky enough to be taken under his wing as the last rookie he would train before his retirement. Over six feet tall, Cal was solidly built, and despite his tenure, still as hard as quarry rock. We were assigned to the graveyard shift, which was Cal’s preferred environment. I often wondered if he got caught by the sun he might go up in flames like a vampire.

On our first shift together, Cal let me know in no uncertain terms I wasn’t going to be driving the patrol car anytime soon. Apparently, I had too much to learn before I was allowed to handle that precious piece of police equipment. But unlike some training officers, Cal didn’t tell me to sit in the passenger seat, keep my mouth shut, and not to do anything without him telling me to do it.

The first thing he did tell me to do, however, was to stop calling him sir. That sobriquet was reserved for those of the rank of sergeant and above. Even though he was in charge of my training and evaluation, he told me he was a street cop, a peer, nothing more. It was all he ever aspired to be. He loved his job and he needed me to unwind and relax a bit so he could actually teach me something and have it stick.

There were a number of things he told me before we even pulled out of the station parking lot. “Understand,” he said. “I’m never giving up my gun. If something bad happens and you get taken hostage by a suspect, you have five seconds to make a move and then I’m taking my best shot to put the suspect out of his misery.”

This was a very important point all patrol partners discussed. What would become famously known as the onion field killing—the 1963 kidnapping of two LAPD officers by a pair of criminals during a traffic stop and the subsequent murder of one of the officers after they gave up their guns—was still a fresh wound and remains so to this day. Talking about it with your partner and having a plan in case something similar occurred was the best way to make sure the outcome would be different.

“Got it?”

“Yes, sir, er, Cal.” I was now officially more scared than when I’d entered the roll call room for this first shift.

“Where do you carry your back-up weapon?”

“Ankle holster left leg.”

“I carry mine in my right rear pocket.”

At that time, our service weapon was a Smith & Wesson stainless steel .38 revolver with a four inch barrel and six bullets, which we carried in a breakfront holster on our hip. The preferred back-up weapon was a Smith & Wesson blue steel Chief Special with a two-inch barrel, five bullets, and a shrouded hammer that wouldn’t snag when the gun was pulled from its hidden holster. If there was a shootout with the bad guys and your partner went down and you were out of ammunition, it was a good idea to know where your partner carried his back-up weapon so you could access more fire power.

“Got it?”

“Got it,” I said.

Still sitting sideways to face me across the front bench seat of the patrol unit with the engine off, Cal moved on to the next order of business.

“Starting now, you need to forget everything you learned at the police academy,” Cal said. “None of that book stuff is going to help you out here on the street. I’ll teach you what you need to know to survive as long as you don’t start quoting some academy instructor without enough practical experience to fill a coffee cup. You make a mistake at the academy, you get washed out. You make a mistake out here and you die, and maybe so does your partner. Got it?”

“Got it…”

“You do what I tell you when I tell you. You can ask questions later. Do what I tell you and we’ll both go home in the morning to come back and fight another day. Don’t do what I tell you and you’ll be back flipping burgers before the next shift.”

There was a short silence.

“Got it?” Cal asked.

“Got it…”

“Questions?”

I waited a beat then asked, “Can we start the car now?”

Cal looked at me assessing what he saw. He then turned forward in his seat and turned the key and started the engine. “You might be okay,” he said, putting the car into gear.

Over the next few weeks, Cal taught me more than I thought possible about real street police work. His constant mantra was situational awareness. “Don’t think about probabilities, think about possibilities,” he told me on a daily basis, drilling it into me.

Always know where cover is in case bullets start flying.

Cover is something bullets won’t penetrate.

If you use the patrol car for cover, keep the engine block and the front wheels between you and the suspect.

Never park directly in front of an address to which you’ve been called.

Decide ahead of time which officer is going to engage and which officer is going to watch everything. You can’t both talk to a suspect at the same time. If you do, you’ll end giving contradictory orders and confusing the situation. And if both of you are talking, nobody is watching for other threats.

When you walk up to a vehicle you’ve pulled over for a traffic stop always touch the trunk as you walk to the driver’s window to make sure it’s secure, and always look into the rear seat compartment in case somebody is hiding there.

Never assume things are probably safe. Always focus on the possibility things are not what they appear. When you engage a citizen, be in the moment. There is the possibility they’re actually a suspect, or on parole. Then there is the reverse—don’t assume somebody is a gang banger because they are dressed as a gang banger, You don’t want to arrest somebody simply for having bad fashion sense. Possibilities not probabilities. Situational awareness at all times.

Cal drove this lesson home around three o’clock in the morning during a slow shift. Van Nuys Division is basically made up of two halves. North of Ventura Boulevard, the streets run on a fair approximation of the grid system. South of the boulevard lurk the Encino hills with streets winding higgledy-piggledy on their way up to Mulholland Drive. There are dead ends and few street lights.

Cal was driving slowly though those hills, making turn after turn without a specific destination. We were patrolling—looking for furtive movements, windows down listening for the sounds of trouble. All was very, very quiet, and very, very dark. I was bored, sleepy, and lulled into complacency by the purr of the car engine and the sweep of the street curves.

I startled alert when I felt the car hit the curb and slowly roll to a stop. I looked over at Cal. He was staring at me with hard cold eyes. “Let’s assume we’ve just driven into an ambush and I’ve been shot,” he said. “Where are we?”

I glanced around. Panic filled my throat. I had no idea and there were no street signs or anything else I could identify to tell me where we were.

“Come on,” Cal said. “I’m bleeding out here. When you radio for back-up and an ambulance where are you going to tell them to come?”

I was completely off-balance and flustered.

“You better get out of the car and find out. More bullets are hitting the hood. I’m dying. You’re next.”

I scrambled from the car. Almost falling to my knees. We didn’t have handheld radios in 1977. The only communication we had was the radio in the car.

“You better have your gun out,” Cal said. His voice was sharp and rising. “I told you bullets are flying.”

I crouched down and ran along the side of the car to the rear. No street signs were visible. I ran to the nearest corner. Still no street signs. I ran down the street to the next corner. Street signs at last. I checked the names, turned and ran back, uphill, to the patrol car. Cal was there slumped in his seat, eyes closed. “I’m dead,” he said. “What are you going to say over the radio.”

“I could barely catch my breath to talk. “Officer down, Valdez Way north of Conchita Drive.”

“It’s Valdez Drive and Conchita Way,” Cal said. “What’s the street number?”

I didn’t know.

“Find out,” Cal said.

I scrambled out of the car again and moved to the front bumper. I used my flashlight to illuminate the reflective house number of the curb across the street. I then dragged myself back to the passenger seat and virtually collapsed. “One seven two eight Valdez Drive,” I said, the words coming out one breath at a time.

“We were probably not going to get ambushed tonight. But we possibly might have been. Situational awareness. Always stay alert. Always know where you are.” Cal reversed the patrol car off the curb and slowly pulled away. “Thus endeth the lesson.”

I would never again not know where I was anywhere in the city.

Cal’s lessons in situational awareness would stay with me for the rest of my career. However, a number of years later when I became an adult convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I also began to understand the role the Holy Ghost plays in situational awareness.

In an example from late in my career, I was running a specialized detective unit with thirty detectives. As part of our investigative mandate, it was not unusual for us to serve search warrants and arrest warrants, with some of them considered high risk.

One morning we were preparing to serve an arrest warrant on an eighty-five year old doctor with no prior criminal record who was living in the penthouse of an exclusive high-rise complex on the edge of Beverly Hills. He had no prior record, but the crime of which he was accused was serious and ongoing and involved a dozen victims, and we believed there were a number of others of which we were not yet aware.

This did not appear to be a high-risk situation and the mood in the squad room as we prepared to serve the warrant was light and jocular. I was about to say something regarding making sure we didn’t take the situation lightly when I received a strong impression (actually, I felt as if I had been struck by a baseball bat) that the whole team was in danger.

In the work environment, it would have been hard to explain that the Holy Ghost had given me a warning to be aware of the situation. Instead, I gathered the team together, acknowledged the doctor did not appear to pose a threat, but suggested this would be a good training opportunity to go through all the steps we would take if this was a high-risk situation. There was no argument over this suggestion—my crew of detectives had been hand-picked and were exceptional at what they did—and everyone began to put on and tighten up their tactical gear.

The lead detective on the investigation drew up an assault plan and made assignments of responsibilities to the other detectives involved. The two detectives who were responsible for deploying our two-foot key (a short but heavy battering ram) and our Arizona toothpick (a four foot solid metal pole with a claw on one end and a very sharp point on the other) carried those items out to our van. Ballistic helmets were donned, as were bullet proof vests and shatterproof goggles.

Even though it was seven o’clock in the morning, which as very early by bad guy standard time, we wanted to be sure the suspect was home. To facilitate this, the lead detective called the penthouses landline, which the doctor answered only to be told the caller had dialed a wrong number—we had lift off.

We were geared up, battened down, and prepared to act as a smoothly efficient team. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I felt an unusual calmness while still very aware of the Holy Ghost’s original warning.

At the location, we gained access to the floor of the penthouse via the building manager. We left two uniformed patrol officers with him to make sure he didn’t alert our suspect.

We deployed along the hallway on both sides of double door entry to the penthouse. I quietly verified the door was locked before the lead investigative detective pounded on the door several times and announced our presences in a voice that would have done a Marine Corps drill instructor proud. He then stepped back and to the side—well clear if shots were fired through the door from the inside.

We listened with anticipation for the door to be unlocked. Instead we heard a loud crash and a scream from inside the penthouse. A quick signal and the two detectives with the battering ram stepped up, swung in back between them, and then slammed it forward. The double doors not only flew open but such was the force of the blow that one side flew off its bottom hinge smashing two large glass vases set back but in front of the entryway—shards flew everywhere. The interior shrieking grew louder.

As we entered like a flowing river with guns drawn, we saw a twenty-something young man curled up in a fetal position on the floor, blood pouring from his nose—most likely hit in the face when the doors blew open. We also saw the eighty-five year old suspect fleeing down the glass covered hallway leading to the back of the penthouse. His feet were bare and bloody and his long grey hair flapped behind him.

Two detectives chased after him, yelling for him to stop, to freeze, but he kept running. One detective accelerated to a sprint and threw himself at the suspect’s legs tackling him to the ground. The suspect kicked a bloody foot backward, hitting the detective in the face and breaking free to continue his flight. The second detective ran right over his partner and made another grab for the suspect who appeared to be making a beeline for a back room with a door slightly ajar.

The suspect was strong for an old guy and tore himself loose, crawling and straining to get to the door of a back room. As he reached it and began to push it open, he was suddenly buried under the weight of several adrenaline driven detective bodies. He screamed foul epitaphs, but handcuffs and hobbles (to stop him kicking) were quickly applied.

Once order was relatively restored, I moved to the back room and pushed the door fully open. It was a bedroom, and on the bed was an Uzi machine pistol loaded with what would turn out to be armor piercing bullets. I was stunned and extremely grateful for the blessing of the Holy Ghost’s situational awareness promptings.

We had been preparing based on probabilities when we needed to be preparing for possibilities.

The penthouse turned out to be a storage facility for large quantities of prescription drugs and illegal narcotics, including cases and cases of Evian water bottles spiked with the date rape drug Rohypnol—which we believed had been used on our multiple victims.

While the situation had become chaotic, it had been a controlled chaos due to everyone on the team being prepared and doing each of their jobs without hesitating. As a result, all of us went home that evening safe and alive. The situation could have gone completely and tragically different.

Situational awareness—with a little help from spiritual promptings (part of situational awareness is being aware and open to those promptings)—saved the heartbreak of a cop funeral or in this case possibly multiple cop funerals.

Our unit never took another warrant service for granted.

In Part Two, we’ll explore situational awareness in Church history, and how it should continue to be a relevant component in our own Church participation today.

To read more of this series, explore our titles below: 

  1. From the Streets to the Spirit: What Situational Awareness Teaches Us
  2. Situational Awareness: Joseph Smith’s Need to Know his Standing with God
  3. Situational Awareness: A Christlike Skill for a Complex World