At the request of an Advisory Committee member, POST staff researched the POST basic academy and in-service curriculum for instruction in techniques labeled "distraction strikes," "compliance strikes," "stunning strikes," or "distraction blows" (hereafter referred to only as "distraction blows").
POST does not have a definition for distraction blows. Similarly, there is no national standard or definition for distraction blows. Nonetheless, some have informally defined distraction blows to be strikes to a suspect's body to distract the person, enabling the officer to handcuff the person or gain compliance.
POST does not provide instruction on distraction blows in the basic academy. More specifically, there is no reference or training methodologies on distraction blows in the Training and Testing Specifications or the Student Workbooks. Similarly, POST does not provide instruction on distraction blows in any POST-developed in-service training course.
POST conducted a review of 1,148 courses currently housed in the POST Electronic Data Interchange using the search term "distraction" and meeting the following topic criteria:
- Use of Force
- Crowd Control
- Arrest and Control
- Impact Weapon
- Ground Control
- Defensive Tactics
- Less Lethal
- Special Weapons and Tactics
- Any course with the term “Tactical”
The review revealed a total of 100 courses contain some form and level of instruction on distraction blows.
This report will address the use and reference of such techniques, but is not intended to be an analysis of the techniques with respect to use of force statute and case law. |