Head strikes at issue in study of Norfolk police training

In the three months since the fatal injury to police recruit John Kohn, the city has been quietly reviewing its training procedures to ensure safety.

Strikes to recruits' heads, such as those sustained by Kohn before he died, have triggered scrutiny. Some law-enforcement agencies won't publicly discuss it.

Norfolk and other departments have defended the punches as necessary for simulating a real-world scenario that could someday save an officer's life. Norfolk police say they don't know when they began using head punches during recruit training. A four-member panel has evaluated the city's procedures.

Acting Police Chief Sharon Chamberlin is to release the findings at a news conference this morning. In her previous role as senior assistant chief, she oversaw the department's training division.

Some experts and doctors who have studied the issue have concluded that the risk of injury from striking a recruit's head outweighs any benefits.

"I don't know if there is a way in training to hit people in the head safely," said Baltimore-based Dr. Fabrice Czarnecki, the chairman of the Police Physicians Section of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and an adviser to law enforcement agencies.

The number of injuries to Norfolk police recruits is not known. City leaders have not yet provided information in response to a Jan. 27 public records request made by The Virginian-Pilot.

However, according to police reports, Kohn, a 40-year-old sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve, suffered a series of strikes to his head by Norfolk training instructors. He blacked out during a ground-fighting exercise in which an instructor punched him at least four times. Eleven minutes earlier, he suffered a head-to-head collision with a recruit, and earlier that week was knocked down by attacks from an instructor and apparently another recruit, police reports show. An autopsy report is not finished, the state Department of Health said.

In Virginia, decisions on whether to use head strikes - and at what level of force - are left up to each police academy.

A director from the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services, which certifies police training academies in the state, did not return phone calls seeking comment. A spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, which trains various federal officers, said the agency would not comment because of the investigation in Norfolk.

Virginia State Police also would not make an expert available, but said their training has not included strikes or punches to the heads of recruits for many years. A review of the agency's training manual for troopers cautions that "because there may always be someone much bigger and stronger," sworn employees must also be aware of techniques that do not involve physical strength.

Norfolk's defensive training is based on Brazilian jiujitsu, according to department records, which involves ground-fighting. Defensive tactics instructor Leldon Sapp - who was punching Kohn just before he blacked out - is an expert in it, according to police records.

A video capturing Sapp's fight drill on Dec. 9 with Kohn appeared violent.

Head strikes were examined in a March 2006 report Czarnecki co-authored. The report was prepared for the Texas Department of Public Safety by The Gables Group, a consultant and investigative agency in Miami.

It followed the 2005 death of Jimmy Ray Carty Jr., a recruit at the state police academy in Austin, Texas, who suffered a fatal head injury after another recruit landed blows to his head during a boxing match.

According to the report's findings, the academy had a "significant rate of head injuries," 4.2 percent of 451 recruits, between December 2003 and May 2005. The report recommended that Texas instructors stop using full-force strikes on recruits and "should not use repeated strikes to the recruit's head."

It made mention that at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, where boxing drills were not used, there was fewer than one serious head injury per year out of 51,000 students trained annually.

"The clear trend in law enforcement training is to move away from toe-to-toe full force simulation training and towards scenario-based training that is likely to avoid head strikes," the Gables Group report said.

The report further recommended that an emergency medical technician be present in the training room during fight drills and that any recruit knocked down or disoriented after a strike to the head be evaluated by a doctor the same day.

Norfolk did not have an EMT on site when Kohn was injured; one of its training instructors is a former EMT.

Kohn was wearing headgear, although the Texas study and other experts point out that the equipment does not prevent concussions or head injuries.

Czarnecki said he followed up with the Austin academy after the study. They stopped using boxing drills. Calls to the Texas Department of Public Safety's media office were not returned.

However, according to the study, the Texas academy had put the boxing drill in place so recruits could experience what it was like to be hit and learn to fight beyond their point of exhaustion.

Steve Papenfuhs designed a defensive tactics curriculum for two California public safety agencies, including the San Jose Police Department, which is about twice the size of Norfolk's police force.

He said instructors must find a balance between teaching recruits how to block a punch and hurting them.

"Because one of the primary attacks an officer will see on the street is someone trying to punch them, we have to give those recruits defensive skills to protect themselves," said Papenfuhs, who also worked as a defensive tactics instructor in San Jose. "Well, the only way to do that is to punch them."

Those punches, however, can simply be a tap with an open hand in a glove. "You're slapping them, if you will," he said. "All you're doing is tapping them."

Trainers also must ensure that instructors are there to teach, and not to show off, Papenfuhs said.

"The most important safety measure you can take for that level of training is having the instructor... have the right attitude," he said. "He knows he is there to train the recruit, not to show how tough he is or to practice his skills on a novice. And I have seen that happen. And when that happens, you need to put a stop to it."

It's also important for instructors to talk to recruits outside of the presence of others about injuries or other concerns, Papenfuhs said.

Norfolk police have said they are examining a culture in which recruits - or at least Kohn - did not speak up when injured. Norfolk instructors generally ask all recruits at least three times a day if they have any injuries while they are learning defensive tactics.

"If you go ask a recruit and say, 'Are you OK?' they'll say, 'Yeah, I'm fine.' If you say, 'What happened to your arm?' he's going to tell you what happened to him."

Patrick Wilson, (757) 222-3893, patrick.wilson@pilotonline.com

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