Police Constable Lisa Coupar

Constable Lisa Coupar is now in criminal
intelligence for the police department in
Delta, B.C. On an October night in 1997, she
was a thirty-one-year-old officer (then Lisa
Olson) barely four months out of training
at the Police Academy. An emergency call
sent her alone in her squad car to respond
to a scene where a twenty-four-year-old
man had just wounded four people with a shotgun in a bar in
nearby Ladner.

“One part | really enjoyed at the Justice Institute was the
scenario-based training,” she recalls. “That in itself was what
made me react in that way on that particular evening. When |
first went into the JI, | had never really dealt with people wha
were aggressive and wanted to hurt you. One scenario had me
approacli a suspicious male standing by a water fountain with
his back towards me who didn't seem to be doing anything. | had
to ask him, 'Excuse me, sir, what are you doing here?’ When he
turned around, he was combative, coming towards me, and ny
first instinctive reaction as a female not trained was to retreat.
But as the training proceeded, they drilled into you over and over
again that you tried different approaches and were fully aware
of the choices you mace and the reasons you'd make them. You
could try yelling—‘Put vour hands in the air'—and you could
choose one of your tools, sucn as a baton or a use of force tool
that might be applicable.

“In real life, when | was on the street in Ladner, | ad run the
plates of the suspect’s car and knew | had the correct vehicle. My
attention was deflected for moments to see people on the side-
walk were crouching down alid screaming, ‘He has a gun!’ When
| looked towards him he had stopped his vehicle and exited it
and came walking directly into my driver-side window with his
gun pointed directly at my face So my first reaction, as they had
trained you, was to keep moving out of the line of fire. My second
reaction was to confront the threat. Open ni door so the major-
ity of my body was in the door jamb of the car where the metal is
thickest and | could also point my firearm at him.

“And if something doesn’t work the first or second time,
then try a different approach. | was yelling—'Tnrow down vour
weapon!'— and being forceful and loud, which wasn't working
because he wasn't listening to rne. So | calmed myself down and

| went quieter and said, ‘Put down your weapon and you won't
be hurt’ Tried to reassure him—it just came out instinctively.
And there was nobody else with me at that time. Everything be-
came quiet and | saw a tunnel where everything peripheral dis-
appeared. | saw him and what was behind and surrounding him
(because with our firearms training, you have to know what’s
behind should your bullets go through your target).

“The quietness ultimately allowed him to surrender his
weapon. He was in such a heightened state—on drugs and had
been drinking and had just shot four people in a crowded bar
Now the only thing he focused on was me. With me in that
heightened state as well, it seemed to be antagonizing him. So |
made myself sound very reassuring: ‘We'll get tu the bottom of
this.” And it worked, and he threw down the gun. It was maybe a
minute or two—but it felt like forever. He paced back and forth,
never far from the gun, during that hesitation moment, deciding
and wondering

“At that point, two sergeants appeared, who'd heard my
call from the emergency room, and when he was pacing, thev
positioned themselves in a triangle with me as the third point.
We all slowly walked towards him. He looked around and realized
he was surrounded but wasn't really paying attention. Then one
of the officers grabbed him and put him on the ground.

“It was the repetition of the J!’s trairiing me over and
over again, using different scenarios, that helped me act the way |
did. There are alwavs triggers with an aggressive person, but here
are the tools that you can use: how you use your commands and
vour voice and your presence come into play It almost felt like,
Oh, is this just another different scenario? No, this was real, but it
could have been exactly the same scenario I'd learned”

Lisa Coupar won the Delta Police Department's highest
award for bravery, a special award from the Rotary Club, the Ca-
nadian Police Association’s top award and the British Columbia
government's highest award for valour. As her Police Chief Jim
Cessford points out, “We trai at the JI utilizing reality-based
scenarios, su that we are prepared to deal with the real-life situa-
tions. Constable Coupar’s training has not stopped since she left
the JI. We continue to train oi a regular basis within our own de-
partments on topics like active shooter, use of torce and firearms
qualifications. Our training is ongoing.”