Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu… It’s almost as if it was designed for law enforcement – allowing it to overpower and control the violent person, staying safe all the while not afflicting any unnecessary injuries to the suspect.
That’s exactly what the Manteca Police Department from Northern California realized. They started implementing Gracie Survival Tactics training, the only Jiu-Jitsu program that is certified for law enforcement in California.

The Police Department explained their decision:

The FBI’s come out with recent statistics that, in upwards of the 90th-percentile range, that a confrontation will end up on the ground.

In Jiu-Jitsu, if there’s distance, strikes can hurt you. The closer you are, the strikes don’t hurt as much. They don’t have as much force. The moves look sophisticated, but the strategy behind them is simple.
[So], our main goal is to keep our energy up, while he [the suspect] depletes his energy.

Rener Gracie spoke on behalf of the program:

All the techniques have been adapted for the law enforcement consideration that need to be brought into the equation: weapon retention, handcuffing, multiple attackers potentially, confined spaces.

When police officers get better training like we have in Manteca, their use-of-force intensity will go down, and they will be closer to a point where the expectation from the public and the capabilities of law enforcement will be closer to matching… Naturally, officers are going to revert the tools that are on their tool belt, the physical tools; whether that be pepper spray, taser, a baton, a firearm. And they’re going to resort to those very quickly, because there are no empty hand skills being taught.