Brazilian who works as a police officer in the US counts as self-defense helping public safety agents

Thiago Bethonico highlighted the importance of martial arts in various areas

In countries such as the United States, France, Japan, Israel and India, martial arts have been adopted in the training of their police forces. The technique must be used within the limit, to immobilize suspects. The benefits range from preparing security agents for work, to contributing to better physical conditioning.

Thiago Bethonico, in addition to being an entrepreneur in the automobile industry, works as a police officer in the United States. He comments that the benefits of teaching martial arts to the police not only contribute to the agents’ self-defense, but also to their emotional health. In addition, with the use of self-defense, arrests happen more easily.

“A police officer who simply has a gun, and who went through the police academy 10 years ago, is not trained to deal with situations on the street. If he was trained in jiu-jitsu, for example, he would be able to perform his job more easily “, he said.

“A police officer who graduated from the Police Academy had basic training. As such, he becomes a ticking time bomb, a danger even for the department. For example: a public security agent who feels in danger can even taking someone’s life. If there was training, he would be able to immobilize the suspect, without the need to use a weapon,” he added.

Thiago points out that martial arts training helps in situations of resistance to arrest and should be applied when the police officer is at risk. He mentions that self-defense is used when the suspect tries to attack the security agent, and helps to end the danger. In addition, police officers are instructed on the amount of force to apply in order not to endanger the life of the person to be arrested.

“Here, jiu-jitsu training is taught as self-defense in different departments. Where I work, for example, we train once a week for free at the police academy. On the streets, we have pepper spray, batons and stun guns. But , many times, this does not work very well. So, I think that, for sure, it is a question of the security of the policeman and of the person that is being learned. Training with martial arts for immobilization is a very good help”, he concluded.