LEO'S: How useful is strobe in the "real world"?

I've heard everything from stunning to useless. Is it really better than a steady very bright light aimed directly at the subject's eyes? Is there any additional advantage, perhaps a moment of surprise, indecision, vulnerability? What about strobe rates that can supposedly trigger an epilectic fit or severe disorientation?

Brightnorm

I'll be the first to voice my opinion. I work in a factory invironment with the loud drone of converyor belts and orange vapor lighting. I have used my strobe on more than one occasion to catch someones attention vs yelling at the top of my lungs or using air time over the radio system. So for me, its usefull. Also being immature, I like to strobe people in the face every now and then, I won't lie, it makes me happy

It varies widely.

Mostly effective at causing a mental processing pause sometimes imbalance, rarely submission, which most focused criminals can train through. Similarities to the effect of tasers can be drawn; don't rely on it, though it is often helpful. The don't tase me bro mantra is based on the individuals experiences with failure to comply - example, our department only allows use of laser aimed tasers to encourage compliance without having to engage with the taser when possible, as a result our regular problem children know the sequence of the drill, and often submit, of course a few see it as test of their manhood... Departments and options vary widely, with known or susupected armed subjects we might use any non-lethal device is simultaneously covered with lethal coverage. We are required of course to use handheld not weapon mounted lights unless its a felony stop.

The advantage is amplified for the average citizen, since a predator has generally selected you because he expects you to submit fully during his ambush. A bright strobe light is gonna cuase a WTF moment. It has worked well on quite a few four legged dogs too. Playing with you light before a potential encounter substainially lowers the probability your strobe or bright light will function as a deterent.

Of course the steroid meth/cocaine/ETOH monster might just shove that light where the sun doesn't shine....escape and evade when possible.

P.S. Always test/train before implementing. Generally, a burst of light immediately proceeded by light off and movement at an angle, attack or retreat, is always better than standing there. Your light also provides a nice place pain here sign.

I've used a strobe to disorient a suspect long enough for another officer to cuff them a few times. Works very well in low light training to distract an individual as well. Also very good at getting someones attention by strobing in front of them on the ground or in a window in a building or house.

workingmids said:

Of course the steroid meth/cocaine/ETOH monster might just shove that light where the sun doesn't shine....escape and evade when possible.

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Forgive the ignorance ETOH, as in ethanol?, as in drunk?

Also strobe confuses the hell out of me but I gotta say I'd be more worried abt a taser :laughing:

I work in EMS, not Law Enforcement, but given that i work a rough area we often face the same challenges with unruly subjects, the difference being that we have to be far more restrained in our use of force.

Let me say, first off, you don't submit people or control the scene with your flashlight you do it with your presence. I carry a gladius on duty and i find that a strobe in the face in combination with strong verbal commands does have a greater effect than no light or solid light (which is easier to adapt to). It also allows you to close the gap and go hands on (when necessary) better than solid light as it messes with your depth perception and ability to identify and react to movement.

Other than that, nothing gets a motorists attention better.

Had fun strobing in the heavy snow last winter :twothumbs

Next to utterly useless. It is attention grabbing, but as far as actually trying to use it "on" somebody, not worth the effort. The strobe is annoying to the user as well as fellow officers. I've also found that it usually makes the subject more agressive. The switch on my LED stinger broke and I have never looked back.

The strobe might be more effective when used as part of surprise operations like a dynamic entry. I was not able to try it in that capacity.

I have voiced my experiences on this many times and will again say that I feel strobe has no use other than working traffic accidents or as an attention marker. I work with over 900 officers and in 13 years of street work I have never seen any use strobe.

I have seen rookie officers who had strobe on their lights however every one of them quickly realized it had no use and they all now use a single stage bright light.

To any of the LEOs here....have you ever actually attended a class or training where strobe was taught as a method of use? I am curious and wonder where the whole "strobe" craze originated. I have been to SWAT training and several other high risk entry schools and have never once heard of any trainers or other officers mention strobe at all. I have met officers from all over several states and again none of them use a strobe light.

I actually once attended a low level lighting course that was an amazing class. The instructors induced failures in equipment and we had to quickly adapt to ways around or clear the failures. The course was designed to give the officers awareness and basic instinct for low level light shooting. This class was a 2 day event and was taught by 5 instructors with various expert qualifications......never once during the class did they mention a strobe feature. In fact the requirement for the class was for each officer to bring a single level bright light and no weapon lights were allowed.

To each his own I guess however in my real world I make much better use of small, bright, single level lights.

I don't think many people saw the "LEO's" in the beginning of the title



:laughing:

Based on responses here, despite some difference of opinion, I will assume that for any kind of civilian vs predator situation steady bright light is best, at least for momentary diversion or blindness followed by evasion/pepper spray/handgun.

For other situations demanding attention, strobe may have an advantage.

I might add that Robocop has been very helpful over the years in his considered opinion about these and many other issues.

Brightnorm

That sounds like a difficult situation, being menaced by rioters while you were separated from your colleagues. it's good you could signal them. Why do you think the rioters stopped. and was it just for a moment or did they hold there?

Brightnorm

As an actual LEO I can tell you that training is the key and as much of it as you can get. For any tool we use in police work we have to be trained and re-trained in order to avoid liability and often times in order to keep our certification valid.

It seems that every other week we have to attend a mandatory class for something. I again ask with all of the training we are exposed to has anyone in actual police work had an actual class or training on the strobe function? I have never even seen a listing for such a class and as such can only imagine other police agencies have no use for the strobe.

I firmly believe that the strobe feature was first intended as an attention grabber and it does that very well. Somewhere along the lines people began to claim it worked great for offensive tactical use and people just ran with that idea.

Now I do know the military has experimented with the very high power strobes on a huge scale. I also know some other officers who believe the strobe may buy you a few seconds. So again the strobe may at some level be useful in a combat scenario however no real police officer is going to depend on this and if they did they would simply be foolish. My point with that is that we have many tools at our disposal and as such to rely on a strobing light for anything other than attention would be unusual.

I am in the "real world" nightly on duty and have been on this night shift for close to 13 years. I believe for your question of real world usage it is best to say I keep a strobe featured light in my bag and the only time I have used it is for traffic accident scenes. It is simply perfect for this usage so it is a good tool for me however a very specialized tool limited to one single usage none the less.

From Ken Good: former Surefire lowlight instructor and founder of Strategos International.

Strobing:

The when and where questions are still being formed and answered.

Using the flashlight in strobe mode and not having the time behind the gun/light is problematic.

From my experience strobing light is an option and when properly employed is devastating to opponents.
The counter-balance is it by definition less light and that light output is presented in a way that you cannot discriminate as well. It can be in fact disorienting to yourself and others in your element.

So, learn to find the time frames that is it most appropriate to go to strobe.

I think most who have spent some reasonable time experimenting would agree, that is is exceptionally effective when the subject is located and you would like someone to close the gap on that individual. Strobing lights disrupts the subject's depth perception, spacial orientation, balance and degrades their peripheral vision.

How much do I need to see right now versus what I want potential threats to perceive is really an important consideration when stalking in the dark.
It's all a balancing game and I like to use extremes sometimes to illustrate the point.

Stepping away from strobe mode for a second and simply dealing with ON or OFF.

The best way for me to see in dark is to turn on all the lights in the structure, turn on any and all flashlights on my person and leave it on.
Yes, I see everything as well as it could be seen right now....Then again so does the opponent(s).
Additionally, instead of controlling when, when and for how long light does appear, I have created an equal opportunity situation for all combatants including those that might want to kill me.
Personally I don't like an even playing field when weapons are involved.

So IF you elect to intermittently use your lights in any fashion to mask some of your movements and timing, you are are doing that at the expense of seeing everything at all times.
The benefits of intermittent use of light clearly outweigh a Constant ON application of light in many situations.

Intermittent, Strobing light is an extension of this principle on the far end of the scale.

Over time, through training, you will find that you can in fact "see" and understand the environment you are with very rapid/short bursts of light and you don't need to walk around like a bored security guard shining a flashlight around the building with no real purpose.

To the degree that you can do this is directly related to how much time you spend honing the skill. Less skilled individuals and teams need longer durations and higher quantity light bursts to perceive what is happening, there is no way around it. Searching in Strobe mode is probably out.

On the flip side, if you ever get the opportunity to try your hand in Force-on-Force against a skilled group of individuals that use the strobe mode as a swarming team, I believe you might suddenly realize their is more to use of flashlight than originally assumed.

To each his own.

Respectfully,

Ken J. Good

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victory said:

From Ken Good: former Surefire lowlight instructor and founder of Strategos International.

that is is exceptionally effective when the subject is located and you would like someone to close the gap on that individual.

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I already mentioned that the strobe mode might be more effective in a dynamic, surprise type situation.

The other "strobing" he talks about does not involve the use of the actual annoying "strobe mode". You use your light by briefly turning it on, just enough to get a picture of where you're at, what you see, and then move on.

Strobing lights disrupts the subject's depth perception, spacial orientation, balance and degrades their peripheral vision.

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The strobe also affects people other than the "subject", although to a lesser extent. Why do you think fun houses/haunted houses have strobes? It was also an issue with strobe based lightbars on police cars.

As a patrol officer, a situation where one is searching a building, finds a burglar, and then strobes him into submission is a fairly rare occurrence. A SWAT team might find the time and training worthwhile. When somebody is using that annoying strobe mode, unit cohesion is an absolute must because everybody has to be acclimated to an area effect tool.

Probably not as useful as OC spray, tazers and firearms. Probably not even as useful as the butt end of a flashlight.

The poster asked the question of "real world" and as such my answers will remain along those lines. You may find quotes from any number of experts however I give my answers from first hand experience in the "real world"

I fully believe that a high power strobe light is disorienting and as such may have a benefit in distraction or confusion. The main thing it will allow is maybe for one to get closer to an opponent or if nothing else allow a split second of distraction.

Now once your hands on then the strobe is useless so for most LEOs a standard high power single level is best and is what will be most usefull most of the times. In the real world street cops use strobe for traffic scenes and this is a convienance rather than a must have.

I respect many instructors out there however will often ask just how many of these experts have actually met some crack head in a dark alley. You see we can all sit around and strobe our friends in controlled situations and laugh as they squint and turn away. Then we can sit back and say "man that strobe is great" when in reality it does very little to deter that crackhead in that dark alley.

I take safety very seriously and thus far am working on training my 13th recruit in a row. I always make sure they stay safe and have as much light possible as again I work nights. In the real word for LEOs you will be in for a suprise when you enter that abandoned house searching for that armed robbery suspect....and you actually find him. The second suprise will come when he charges you and you activate your strobe.....well he is not falling down with seizures or giving up....no he is still charging in a drug induced haze.

This is the real world as best as I know it and again I have stated my opinion on this many times. Use strobe on duty if you wish however please understand what really works best for each situation. I am sure it has its uses however in my personal experiences I have never seen any officer at all use it on a high risk entry or even on crowds of unruly drunks.....it is simply not used in the real world for street patrol.

So to the poster do some research and ask the local cops in your area. I believe you will see that strobe is not really that big in the real world of LEO work. You will see quotes from experts and the magazine and tactical sites that claim the strobe is the best thing since handcuffs.....again I say in the very real world of very violent criminals strobe is not something I would depend on or even use.

I hope this does not take this thread off track as I am seriously attempting to answer the "real world" part of your question brightnorm. I am not quoting from some instructor or that new tactical magazine I got in the mail or even from what is the most popular novelty.....I am giving you some real world experiences and what the 900 officers in my dept. find works best.

Strobe= great for traffic work, attention or hazard warnings...etc:

Real world= bright single level light, good tactics, training, and back up

Robocop said:

I take safety very seriously and thus far am working on training my 13th recruit in a row. I always make sure they stay safe and have as much light possible as again I work nights. In the real word for LEOs you will be in for a suprise when you enter that abandoned house searching for that armed robbery suspect....and you actually find him. The second suprise will come when he charges you and you activate your strobe.....well he is not falling down with seizures or giving up....no he is still charging in a drug induced haze.

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I won't disagree with anything you said, especially this part. Would you go right for the pepper spray in this situation? of course not. The strobe has limited applications and generally is best suited to gain some advantage over non-compliant subjects, not people who are actively attacking you. When used correctly, I find it to be effective when combined with other, proper tactics. When used incorrectly, you're wasting time you don't have.

I don't think we disagree at all.