BELLEVUE, Wash. — The Bellevue Police Department (BPD) is doing something no other police department has ever done before.
BPD is the first and only department in the world to partner with Gracie University as a certified jiu-jitsu training center.
“I just feel more able to do the job and not get attacked as easily,” said officer and instructor Craig Hanaumi. “It’s causing less harm so it’s like a double win. I’m not going to get hurt, they’re not going to get hurt and I still get the objective which is to hold the person down so you cannot beat it.”
Hanaumi and the other instructors say their training is applied by officers working out in the field.
Officers also learned how to handcuff someone and take them into custody from certain holding positions.
“What we found with this training since March is that the techniques have been very beneficial to officers,” said officer and training coordinator Raphael Park. “They’ve been able to resolve incidents with low levels of force rather than being untrained or having an emotional response.”
Since March, all officers have been required to do at least one hour of jiu-jitsu training at BPD’s facility every other week.
“What we know about adult learning is that frequency of training is better than a duration of training,” Park said.
Jiu-jitsu is also extremely helpful to those who may be smaller in size.
“There’s other people or guys that are way bigger and way stronger, so this training shows that you don’t need muscle or height to turn somebody over or flip somebody,” said officer Rachel Serna.
The big goal with this is to build confidence and cause less harm.
“It keeps every person in that interaction safe, not just the suspect, everybody, not just the officer,” Hanaumi said.
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