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HANNIBAL, MO. -- You've always heard that the best offense is a strong defense.

Well, over the next couple of days police officers from around the Tri-States will be strengthening their defense.

KHQA's Jarod Wells found out mental strength may be more important to police officers than physical strength.

HPD Chief Lyndell Davis said, "There's a tendency in law enforcement for officers to get complacent."

And that's when tragedy can occur.  To avoid that Hannibal Police Chief Lyndell Davis is making it mandatory for all of his officers to go through Officer Survival Training with an FBI instructor.

FBI Instructor Michael Sumeracki said, "One of the things we do is talk about complacency and how after a while, after an officer has been successful in doing things over and over that always work out for them, they tend to get in a groove and once in a while they can get a surprise and that surprise can actually cost them their lives."

Officers watched video testimonies from criminals who have attacked officers.

Sumeracki said, "It's surprising to the officers, these videos that we're showing them actually let the officers know that the bad guys are actually sizing up the officers that they meet on the street."

Davis said, "There's a lot of eye-opening things that maybe an officer has a tendency to do this or that and the suspects are picking up on that and it leads to a weakness and eventually to them being attacked."

Sumeracki said, "The officer never, ever knows what's on the bad guys mind, the officer never knows if the bad guy wants to escape or if the bad guy intends on hurting the officer, the officer just never knows what's ahead."

Davis said, "I think there's going to be some information brought up of things that their not even aware of as to how certain individuals that are incarcerated constantly practice to overcome our training and do harm to us and overcome any tactics that we may be displaying. They look for our weaknesses."

That's why physical strength is not the most important thing to keep an officer safe.

Sumeracki said, "We try to show the officer that in order to stay safe, it's more right here (points to head) that it is on the side of their hip. We have a theory and it involves the officer, the offender and the circumstances that bring them together and what we try to do is we try to give the officers tips to have the mindset that they always have to be in control of every situation that they deal with."

This training started Tuesday, December 7th and will go through Friday, December 10th.

It is available to all local and state law enforcement agencies.