“It’s a proud day to be a Boston police officer,” Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis told his force over the radio moments after the arrest. “Thank you all.”

We must become more deliberate, more disciplined, and more thorough in our approach to learning and teaching

As cops, we often cry loudly about the lack of training in our profession. I am guilty of it myself.

However, while we whine about the seemingly lack of interest in ongoing training, we also miss the opportunities to train and learn from the everyday lessons available to us.

Those lessons that come from every call we respond to and every shift we work.

There’s No Magic Here

As this is the last week of the year, many of us are understandably looking back at the past 12 months and discussing what we consider to be the significant events of 2012.

In most cases, such discussions tend to focus on the numerous challenges and upheavals we’ve either watched from afar or witnessed firsthand — from police response to crisis to police officers being ambushed and killed in the line of duty.

The fall edition of the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association Journal, has published an article I wrote; Mindset and Winning: About Much More than Words.

In part one of this two-part series, we asked and answered a lot of important questions about our preparedness to win. If you haven’t yet read part one, please do so before reading one, for it is the foundation on which that what follows is built.

Winning on the street comes in many forms and means different things to different people.

Winning in law enforcement encounters can be gaining voluntary compliance through communication and negotiation or it can ebb and flow back and forth through a vast array of outcomes up to and including deadly force. Winning to the cop means one thing, while to an adversary winning on his terms is quite another.

Part Two: The exploring officer takes responsibility for the strategic choices of routes and objectives on his journey into the unknown

Part One: We recognize opposites — day as compared to night, happy compared to sad, failure versus success, peace as opposed to war, and safety counter to danger

You’re assigned to handle an emotionally disturbed person — a female — threatening suicide, according to a person who called dispatch. The location and assailant are known to you — you’ve had frequent interact with this individual, at this location, for the same type of problem.

…nothing but targets. Nine are real fighters, we are lucky to have them, they the battle make.