White Lies, that Kill

When I met my now-wife, she quickly learned not to ask questions she didn’t want honest answers to.
“Does this dress make me look fat?” My answer would, of course, not simply be “Yes,” but rather a well-crafted, honest response with context.

“Did you like the food I cooked?” Again, I would respond honestly. While this approach created some tension at first, my wife was never left to guess my true thoughts or feelings. I didn’t let her walk around in a dress everyone thought looked bad, or continue to cook food no one would enjoy—including me. I expected the same honesty from her. Sometimes, I would even instigate things just to force her to be honest.

White lies have their place, but they should be used sparingly. Trust is incredibly easy to lose and often difficult to earn. While my approach can rub some people the wrong way, no one ever leaves wondering how I feel. This creates trust—both in big things and in small.

Many might scoff at my approach, which is their right. But white lies can become toxic. They often become the default response. They erode our ability to be honest with others, to work through confrontation, and to be honest with ourselves. White lies create the illusion of perfection in our every action.

As an officer, this is dangerous, toxic, and life-threatening. That might seem hyperbolic, but let me explain.

Officers and departments face extremely limited budgets, time, and resources. The small things always matter—but even more so when training for life-or-death situations under such constraints. Every opportunity must count.

When we train to succeed, we’re not improving—we’re merely sustaining, at best. Add to this a culture of trainers who avoid correcting issues, choosing instead to tell the white lies that make life easier now but potentially deadly later.

At the range, we allow officers to requalify repeatedly without addressing how frightening it is to have someone on the street who can barely qualify at all. Couple this with the fact that most departments use stagnant, draw-and-shoot qualifications. What happens when we introduce real-world stress?

The white lies instill a false confidence in officers that leaves them spiraling and unprepared amid real-world chaos. It’s that gut-wrenching feeling of being ill-prepared when the moment finally arrives.

It seems that most departments do not conduct AARs (After Action Reviews) after real-world incidents. And if we do, we often tell ourselves—and others—the white lies that everything looked good. We ignore issues, big and small, because, well, they’re just “not worth it.”

But our lives are not worth being honest about? That mindset is dangerous. The white lies make life easier now and potentially deadly later.

What I’ve found is that, most of the time, fellow officers are simply unaware of their mistakes, how to fix them, or even what to consider. They are trained under constraints—limited budgets, limited time, limited resources. They’ve been trained by people who either perpetuate the white lies or were themselves trained under those same lies.

There are others, however, who believe the white lies so deeply that no words seem capable of bringing them back to reality. These officers are often difficult to reach—though not always impossible.

The impact of these white lies plays out every day. In the age of body-worn cameras, it’s difficult to hide them. And yet, officers still choose to ignore what’s right in front of them.

As professionals, we must shed the burden of white lies and be honest—with ourselves and with others. If not for our own sake, then for our citizens, and our families. We must recognize that what we do before the incident is what shapes how we respond during the incident.

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on June 15, 2023.

Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.