The Bend Bulletin, Bend, Oregon  
Signals help police communicate with an unspoken word

By Trish Pinkerton

Redmond police officers (from left) Kirk Hamm, Jonny Dickson, Craig Unger and 
Mike Kidwell practice silent signals they can use to communicate in certain emergency operations.

     Sometimes it’s better to be seen, but not heard.
     Recently, four Redmond , Oregon police officers learned “Silent Universal Signals,” a method of communication for use in situations as varied as accident scenes, traffic stops, SWAT operations and school emergencies.  The Redmond Police Department received a federal grant to train four officers, who will teach the rest of the department and reserve officers.
     “Silent Universal Signals” were developed by Bob Dent, a retired Oregon State Police Senior Trooper, and Alan Morris, retired director of training at the U.S. Navy SEAL’s training academy.  Dent and Morris took standard hand signals that are easy to understand, added some American Sign Language and “invented some of their own,” said Dent.  
     It took them about four years to develop the system that allows public safety personnel to communicate not only when silence means safety, but when radios don’t work, a scene is noisy or different languages are spoken.
     Dent and Morris have taught their signals to law enforcement departments in several states, anti-terrorism experts, military intelligence officers, corrections officers, parole and probation officers, search and rescue, fire service professionals and school teachers.  Their goal is to have a system used universally as a common “language” among all national public safety officials.
     Teaching the police department is the first step in making Redmond (and Central Oregon ), a national role model for the use of silent signals, Dent said.  The next steps will be to teach members of the fire department and school employees.  
     “I want to focus attention on my community,” said Dent, who father was a police officer here.  
     Dent and Morris have taught “Silent Universal Signals” to teachers at three schools in Bend .  The teachers then teach some of the signs to their students.  The school poster shows 18 hand signals for moving groups or individuals, asking for help and indicating the location of danger.  All of the schools have conducted silent fire drills using the hand signals to move children out of buildings.  “It helps eliminate mass confusion,” Morris said.  
     The system also teaches teachers to communicate with police and fire, Dent said.  “In a crisis situation, they can gather intelligence for responding police and fire; tell us where the problem is.  
     If people at Columbine had had the ability to communicate, it would have made for quicker response by law enforcement,” Morris said.  
     Using hand signals, teachers could have alerted police to the location of the shooters and the injured, and the number and types of weapons involved, making it easier for police to intervene.  
     The signals for “Help Me! and “I’m Being Held” also allow kidnapping victims to indicate they need help without alerting the kidnapper, or a domestic abuse victim could use the signs to indicate silently to officers at the door that she needs help, Dent said.  
     The system also has a bonus.  Officers learn enough American Sign Language to ask a hearing or speech impaired person if police or medical help is needed.  
     Two of the officers taking the two day class, Mike Kidwell and Kirk Hamm, teach building searches and thought the hand signals could prove valuable in that setting as well. It’s amazing how fast people pick it up,” Hamm said.  The class learned 26 signals the first day.  
     Kidwell, a member of the Central Oregon Emergency Response Team, thought that having standardized hand signals for team communication would be beneficial.  He also teaches an “active gunman class” where, instead of waiting for a SWAT team, the first four patrol officers on the scene enter a school or business to get between the shooter and the victims.  The signs are “another way SWAT and patrol officers are on the same page,” he added.  I really think we’ll use it on a daily basis,” Kidwell said.  

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