After deadly PBSO shooting, expert explains how deputies train to de-escalate crises

The deadly shooting of a 30-year-old Army veteran by Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies near Boca Raton is raising familiar questions about how law enforcement officers respond to armed people experiencing a mental health crisis. WPTV's Michael Hoffman sat down with a former federal law enforcement officer and trainer to examine how officers are taught to de-escalate crises and how those encounters can become life-or-death situations.

The shooting happened Wednesday night at Sandalfoot Square after deputies responded to a call involving Joshua Senfeld, an Army veteran who Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said was armed and threatening suicide. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said deputies spent more than an hour trying to resolve the encounter peacefully before Senfeld brandished a firearm in their direction and deputies opened fire. Senfeld died at the scene.

The incident is under investigation. The deputies involved were placed on administrative leave, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office and PBSO's Violent Crimes Division are investigating.

Bradshaw said Senfeld's family contacted authorities and that Senfeld was suicidal and armed. The sheriff said Senfeld was an Army veteran who authorities understood had post-traumatic stress disorder.

"He was very suicidal and was armed," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw said deputies negotiated with Senfeld for more than 90 minutes. During that time, one deputy who is also a veteran tried to connect with him.

"They talked to this guy a long, long time trying to talk him down," Bradshaw said. "Even one of our guys who's a vet kind of connected with him a little bit and told him, 'Hey, you know, we're going to get you the help you need.'"

Bradshaw said Senfeld eventually became agitated and began standing with his firearm in what the sheriff described as a "ready position." PBSO said Senfeld brandished the gun in the direction of deputies before they fired.

To better understand how officers are trained to handle situations like these, Hoffman sat down with Tim Miller of Lion Heart Protection Strategies.

Miller, a former Secret Service agent, former federal law enforcement officer and law enforcement trainer, told Hoffman that Crisis Intervention Training is one way officers are taught to respond to people experiencing crises.

"There's a program called Crisis Intervention Training where officers are trained specifically for this kind of thing," Miller said.

Miller said the training can involve mental health professionals teaching law enforcement officers techniques designed to help them communicate with people during a crisis.

"We were trained by some of the best psychiatrists, psychologists," Miller told Hoffman. "They're not police training police in many cases. These are professional mental health experts, training officers on how to connect, how to dissuade, how to hear things with the way the person's speaking, to try to understand for exactly the purposes of de-escalating so that everyone goes home safe."

Miller, who is also a Marine Corps veteran, pointed to veteran suicide as another part of the tragedy surrounding the encounter.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' 2024 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report found there were 6,407 veteran suicides in 2022, an average of 17.6 per day. Those were the most recent figures available in that edition of the VA's annual report.

Miller also spoke about the lasting impact a deadly encounter can have on the officers involved.

"Whoever had to take that shot is going to have to deal with that the rest of his life, even though he or she didn't have a choice," Miller told Hoffman. "They're going to have to live with that. And that's an unfortunate additional tragedy."

The circumstances of Wednesday's shooting remain under investigation, meaning the findings of investigators, rather than the broader training principles discussed by Miller, will ultimately determine what happened during the encounter.

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