Introducing The FOCUS Risk Index™

The Expansion of Courageous Leadership

I have been incredibly blessed with opportunities in my life. It started with where I was born and who my parents were. I didn’t control that, but the gift led to other opportunities and incredible blessings along the way.

When I started my law enforcement career, I never thought about doing anything other than being a police officer. Early in my career, I lived for EVOC training, and when I saw some success at my agency, I decided to set up a website to help others. Unknown to me, in the early days of the internet, that website was the first of its kind. That led to working on the same topic for Police1 for over 10 years and traveling the globe speaking on it.

In 2010, I co-founded the Below 100 Program and watched as dozens of states mandated the training. As I progressed through the ranks at my agency, I became increasingly concerned about the state of leadership in the profession, and when Dallas Sergeant (ret.) Keith Wenzel told me to stop complaining and get to work. I launched Courageous Leadership.

I’ve been speaking on that topic for well over a decade, and, wild enough, the book I wrote in 2019 is still being discussed, and frankly, I believe that God would plant me on that single topic for years to come.

This Is Not A Shift…It’s An Expansion

That belief is why I avoided the topic I am about to discuss for many years. As a rookie officer, Sergeant Jim Clark exposed me to pre-attack indicators and the value of recognizing human behavior to increase officer safety. It was standard training in 1994, but Jim always made a point of reminding me of it, and it saved me many times over the course of my 30-year career.

A decade ago, I added a course called “Seconds For Survival” and traveled to 40+ states teaching it. I never saw it as a primary course, and I often paired it with a second day of Courageous Leadership to keep discussing leadership topics.

A few years ago, I started noticing a trend in the class. Many officers had never heard of the concepts, and a year ago, a student told me he wasn’t sure he could act on behavior cues because his chief would likely fire him. Shortly after that, I was contacted by a few lawyers defending cops who had used legal force, but administrators were ignoring the decisions being made based on the pre-attack behavior of the suspect. Apparently, force would only be authorized AFTER an officer got brutally attacked.

I wasn’t sure why I endured the pain of pursuing a doctorate a few years later, but with the words of Sgt. Wenzel in my ears, I decided to do something about it and use some of the skills I’d learned to document existing research in the area.

It didn’t exist.

Don’t misunderstand, there’s plenty of research on human behavior and pre-attack indicators of violence. Extensive research has been conducted to validate pre-attack behavior among clinicians, corrections, nurses, doctors, and even EMTs.

It just wasn’t there for law enforcement.

And you guessed it. Unlike what some in law enforcement are being told, those other professions are not being taught to turn into a Chick-fil-A employee when they observe them.

Safety Is Leadership

I fought doing what needed to be done for some time because, for me, every day is about pushing leadership. It’s the answer to everything I spent so many years telling others, but I wasn’t listening to my own advice.

I’ve spent the last several months doing the most exhaustive study on officer attacks that has ever been done, and I have discovered that there is a reason why officer assaults have increased every year since 2020 and are more than double what they were a decade ago.

It seems the profession is not following the advice I received from Sergeant Jim Clark many years ago and is often being trained to do the exact opposite.

Field Observable Cues for Unknown Situations (FOCUS)

I have developed a certification course that goes far beyond a typical pre-attack human behavior course. Stop and watch the video below as an example.

There’s no question, the officer recognized the danger (asked about weapons), but without a solid, research-based approach to pre-attack indicators, it feels like instinct, and in today’s environment, there will be hesitation to act solely on a feeling.

I found 8 cues (sentinel cues) in the research that have a high probability of violence, and many others that, when taken in context, must be considered. The video shows some obvious ones, but I had no idea that prior to the attack, 31% of the suspects “walked away.”

Since I didn’t know it after 30 years in the training industry, I doubt this officer knew it either.

That is going to change!

What Is FOCUS

It’s too detailed to include everything here, but the certification will provide officers with a validated method for documenting their observations and actions using the FOCUS Risk Index™. It is research-driven and will provide the confidence officers need to take action early rather than late.

We all know that action beats reaction, but we don’t always know how to react before the action.

This is just the beginning of what I believe God has handed me to provide the profession for years to come. We're conducting additional research, including peer-reviewed journal involvement, and we will provide agencies the opportunity to develop their own trainers so every officer can mitigate violence.

I Need Your Help

First, thank you for following my work over the years, and please understand that this isn’t a replacement for my work in Courageous Leadership…It’s just another aspect of it. It will take courage to challenge the status quo that has made the profession more dangerous than ever and to adopt a research-driven approach to safety. I will continue to speak and write about leadership and discuss this important topic along the way.

It’s time to get the training to as many as possible, so if you want to host it, please contact me at: https://focuscertified.com

Lastly, I did not get here alone. From Sgt. Clark to many in between and those I am speaking to today, this is moving forward because of them.

I’m not sure how I find myself in this position, but I will not take the responsibility lightly. I welcome your prayers and anything you can do to help push this to those who desperately need it.

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Dr. Travis Yates retired as a commander with a large municipal police department after 30 years of service. He is the author of “The Courageous Police Leader: A Survival Guide for Combating Cowards, Chaos & Lies.” His risk management and leadership seminars have been taught to thousands of professionals worldwide. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy with a Doctorate Degree in Strategic Leadership and the CEO of the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance.