New Denver policy on shooting at cars

[GJM]

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/10/28/denver-monitor-praises-rule-limiting-police-shooting-at-cars/

Snippet: Officers can no longer shoot at moving cars unless someone inside is firing at them.

More:

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/06/08/denver-police-department-makes-policy-change-in-wake-of-jessie-hernandez-death/

[Hauptmann]

Glad I didn't take a job there a decade ago......

[Hizzie]

Before I left ohio the closest major city came up with a new policy in response to a teen in a stolen car dying of acute lead poisoning after trying to run the officer over. Officers were not permitted to approach a vehicle for felony stops from the front, rear or sides. Tunneling and parachuting in were not addressed.

[pablo]

The only thing that policies like that do is increase the value of the ghetto lottery jackpot. Trying to run over a cop with a car goes from playing with your life to playing the Power-ball.

[LSP552]

The bottom line in today's thinking is nothing is worse that some criminal getting shot by the police. It's preferable that an officer, or bystander, be seriously injured or even killed instead of the police deliberately killing s thug. Absolute policies prevent an officer from considering the totality of the circumstances when deciding how much force to use.

I'm just glad I retired in 2008.

[voodoo_man]

This isn't new, per se.

Most big PD's are taking any opportunity to change policy to reflect other big PD's. Hell, my PD has had that policy since I came on and let me tell you something, it means nothing, I know this from first hand experience.

Policy, as I've said ad nauseam, is not written in stone and should be taken in a non-literal, "suggestion" or "best practice" guideline. I bet their policy also says "you shall not choke anyone" as my PD's does, guess how many get choked? Those who require it.

[Bigguy]

This isn't new, per se.

Most big PD's are taking any opportunity to change policy to reflect other big PD's. Hell, my PD has had that policy since I came on and let me tell you something, it means nothing, I know this from first hand experience.

Policy, as I've said ad nauseam, is not written in stone and should be taken in a non-literal, "suggestion" or "best practice" guideline. I bet their policy also says "you shall not choke anyone" as my PD's does, guess how many get choked? Those who require it.

Non LEO here, so you can take my opinion for what it's worth. It seems to me one big problem with the idea that policy is really a suggestion, is that all it take is one derp with a cell phone recording such an incident to bring down a world of hurt on the officer. We need to get rid of stupid policies and the politicians who implement them. That won't happen until there is a change in the general IQ level of the voting populace.
I can't imagine what it takes to get up and pin the badge on every morning in this climate. I appreciate you who do, but don't blame those who chuck it in.

[LittleLebowski]

I can't imagine what it takes to get up and pin the badge on every morning in this climate. I appreciate you who do, but don't blame those who chuck it in.

I agree. The Justice Department is going crazy with the "civil rights" investigations on cops

[Hauptmann]

This isn't new, per se.

Most big PD's are taking any opportunity to change policy to reflect other big PD's. Hell, my PD has had that policy since I came on and let me tell you something, it means nothing, I know this from first hand experience.

Policy, as I've said ad nauseam, is not written in stone and should be taken in a non-literal, "suggestion" or "best practice" guideline. I bet their policy also says "you shall not choke anyone" as my PD's does, guess how many get choked? Those who require it.

I guess it depends on your agency. A policy violation like that that could result in a seizure(arrest/force/death) of a citizen would go south in a hurry for most. Many internal investigation branches of a major agency would hand you a Garrity warning before you even left the scene of the incident.

[LSP552]

I guess it depends on your agency. A policy violation like that that could result in a seizure(arrest/force/death) of a citizen would go south in a hurry for most. Many internal investigation branches of a major agency would hand you a Garrity warning before you even left the scene of the incident.

Along with the fact that the agency may be able to step aside on the civil liability issue if they can show you knowingly violated a policy. In today's world, being right operationally doesn't count for what it once did.

[JF1]

Policy, as I've said ad nauseam, is not written in stone and should be taken in a non-literal, "suggestion" or "best practice" guideline. I bet their policy also says "you shall not choke anyone" as my PD's does, guess how many get choked? Those who require it.

I'm glad your admin and community supports not taking your policies literally. I've seen co-workers get fired and disciplined over violating policy. Unless there's some exigent circumstance verbiage in your "shall" policies, you and your agency are leaving yourselves wide open. Your policy and training are one of the first things to get scrutinized after an incident that's peeked someone's interest.

Risk adverse administrators create policies that attempt to prevent members from taking action. You end up with restrictive vehicle pursuit, foot pursuit, force, etc. type policies. It got to a point where my old administration made an executive decision stating that a thrown rock or bottle could not be considered a means of creating serious bodily injury. Get used to it. The pendulum is swinging in a bad way.

If you work in an area that your agency and community support you, then rock on and keep your fingers crossed. If you don't, then you'd better adhere to policy. Don't take this as a lecture, but venting of bad experiences and knowing my area of operation.

[voodoo_man]

Where I work the vocal community does not support us, but most people do, they just arent vocal about it as it could get them fired.

As for policy, it says in one of our policy statements that (paraphrasing) "all policy listed here is not to be considered set in stone and should be taken as a guideline." But it does contradict itself often enough. Same policy text says we should not consider a vehicle, in and of itself, to be a deadly weapon (lol wut?) and that shooting into or out of a moving vehicle shall never be done, same policy says choke holds and striking with your duty firearm shall never be done...underlined, bolded, etc. Except ive done some of them and ive seen coworkers do all of them and we all still have jobs, no federal lawsuits, no suspension days. Fact is when exigency exists you are allowed to do whatever you need to in order to survive. Bo policy in the world will ever stop that.

Where does policy mess officers up? When they dont read between the lines, they dont follow their supervisors advise or the advise of BTDT officers. Many of the "goin south" jobs you see on the news include officers who should have probably taken a moment to reflect on what is important at that moment, ive been there, everyone has. Its experience and training that get you clear of those incidents.

As for warnings, we sign warnings everytime we go to IA, not really worried about that.

[Beat Trash]

My agency has had this policy for over 20 years. You can not shoot at a moving vehicle unless an occupant is using a weapon other than the vehicle against you. It resulted from a OIS in which an FTO (with about 3 yrs on at the time) and a recruit were approach a vehicle from the rear. They were doing a traffic stop (traffic violations only). The driver threw the car in reverse and attempted to run over the FTO. The FTO was white, the driver was not. This was pre-riot when tensions were running high.

The justification for the change in policy forced upon the troops was that it is hard to stop a moving vehicle with a pistol. You can shoot the driver, but the moving vehicle is still a moving vehicle, with or without a driver. We were told to place ourselves os that it is harder to be run over.

Keeping in mind that the administrative types who bowed to public pressure on this topic, literally can't remember the last time they had to do a traffic stop, or put someone at gunpoint. Yet these same experts in policing were the ones trying to push this upon the Beat Trash who were actually doing the job. It went over like a turd in a punchbowl. The newer generation of officers who came on after the policy change can't imagine being able to shoot at a car unless a gun is involved.

The HUGE issue is that once it is in your agency's policy, then you have an issue should you actually shot someone who is just trying to run you over and kill you with a car. You are now acting outside your agency's guidelines. This could cause you some issues in civil court. And in my county, the prosecutor may go for an indictment for homicide. Before anyone talks about implied immunity, our current prosecutor got a Grand Jury to indict a University Police Officer for Homicide this summer. Will he get a conviction in court? time will tell. Is that officer's life screwed? Yep...

[GardoneVT]

If you work in an area that your agency and community support you, then rock on and keep your fingers crossed. If you don't, then you'd better adhere to policy. Don't take this as a lecture, but venting of bad experiences and knowing my area of operation.

Could such an arrangement be intentional on the part of the management?

I.E. , bosses write a totally impractical and restrictive policy knowing everyone who actually bothers to work violates it .
No ones punished , the bosses and managers wink and nod at the rules and life is good until a YouTube warrior sets off a controversy.

Then ,shazam!
Officer X is canned due to "violation of policy".
The hapless officer is tossed for doing their routine every day ,but they have no legal recourse because the bosses t say " against policy" and circle the wagons.

I've seen amoral private sector managers do this as a matter of strategic planning. This way they can sack an employee at will instead of making a proper case to HR and the union-the shop I worked at where this happened was a unionized firm with stringent rules on terminating staff.

[Trooper224]

My experience has been this: when referencing the upper chain of command policy is a "guideline". When referencing field personel it's written on stone by the finger of God. A street cop working with policy as if it's just a suggestion is asking to get thrown under the bus by his/her admin, whenever it's politically expedient for them to do so. By not adherring to policy you give them the perfect scapegoat they're looking for. By strictly adherring to policy you deny them the opportunity to fire you at will, boy doesn't that chap their ass. ;)

[jnc36rcpd]

Bullets fired from duty weapons do not usually stop a vehicle. Moreover, immediate incapacitation of the driver does not necessarily stop the vehicle That said, a volley of shots fired at the driver may well encourage the driver to steer in a different direction.

On the other hand, restrictive policies on shooting at vehicles may well free up the team from directed traffic assignments. If an officer forbidden from firing upon a vehicle whose driver is trying to murder that officer because the officer can just move out of the way, pedestrians who might be run over by a driver who is simply careless, reckless, or inattentive should be encouraged to just move out of the way. If we're expected to just move out of the way of those who would murder us, this should be no issue for the average pedestrian who only has to evade a careless driver.

This idea should reduce those morning and afternoon school zone details.

[Hambo]

My experience has been this: when referencing the upper chain of command policy is a "guideline". When referencing field personel it's written on stone by the finger of God. A street cop working with policy as if it's just a suggestion is asking to get thrown under the bus by his/her admin, whenever it's politically expedient for them to do so. By not adherring to policy you give them the perfect scapegoat they're looking for. By strictly adherring to policy you deny them the opportunity to fire you at will, boy doesn't that chap their ass. ;)

Amen, brother. At one point we had a chief who required us to sign that we had read new policies just for that extra edge in ass hammering anyone who violated them. When I asked what would happen if I refused, I was told a supervisor would watch me read it, then sign as a witness. Policy isn't written to guide what you do, it's written to cover the ass of whoever you work for.

I'm not for restricting the ability to shoot a moving car, but it's far from the worst admin could come up with. If I worked for DPD I'd see this not as the end of the world, but as the tip of the giant administrative penis.

[41magfan]

This was posted in the Romper Room section of the Forum. These are the cases that (rightly or wrongly) serve as perfect fodder for restrictive policies:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/...n_marshal.html

[Chuck Haggard]

This isn't new, per se.

Most big PD's are taking any opportunity to change policy to reflect other big PD's. Hell, my PD has had that policy since I came on and let me tell you something, it means nothing, I know this from first hand experience.

Policy, as I've said ad nauseam, is not written in stone and should be taken in a non-literal, "suggestion" or "best practice" guideline. I bet their policy also says "you shall not choke anyone" as my PD's does, guess how many get choked? Those who require it.

At my agency a violation of such a policy would be firing pretty much on the spot. That is the case in most places I have looked at where cases like this have happened.

Violating policy can indeed let the agency squirm out of backing an officer, and is often used to bak up civil claims that the officer fucked up.

[voodoo_man]

At my agency a violation of such a policy would be firing pretty much on the spot. That is the case in most places I have looked at where cases like this have happened.

Violating policy can indeed let the agency squirm out of backing an officer, and is often used to bak up civil claims that the officer fucked up.

As I stated, seen it first hand, no issues. Havnt seen it recently though (last two years) so who knows how things are done now.

[Dagga Boy]

Criminal laws and dept. Policy are often not in line. This is a huge problem, and is the fault of police administrators who would rather have stupid and unrealistic policies than proper training because it is cheaper and easier, combined with city or county attorney's who write these idiotic policies that get officers and agencies sued....this, job security. Most of the time, the agency's subject matter use of force experts are never consulted. This opens up huge civil liability that benefits the city attorney and hangs individual officer's out to dry thus being a win for executives and lawyers and a lose for people working under horrible policies.

There are strict, and well defined criminal code for use of force. In my experience, review of jury instructions for application of criminal code is a good guideline for writing policy. This truly protects everyone in a fair manner.

A couple examples....officers hitting people with flashlights. You can treat them like an impact weapon, provide training, and ensure that officers are aware of where use of an impact weapon falls in "reasonable" use of force to effect an arrest. Or, police administrators who have likely never worked graveyard where officers have lights in their hand al the time, decide to have a policy that officers shall not hit people with lights and the city attorney's write a "shall not" policy. This doesn't work and the agency is now getting successfully sued civilly for officers violating policy, even though there is no criminal violation on the part of the officer and their actions were legal and reasonable. Police admin and city lawyers blame "stupid cops" for the lawsuits and "fix" the problem by mandating plastic lights. Crooks still get hit, but with no effect requiring more force and thus increased liability, or officers get hurt by not having proper tools. Still a gigantic lose for everyone except the city attorney who has job security.

Making a policy about not shooting moving cars sounds okay on the surface. This is again a training issue that is screaming to be addressed in briefing training and during range and use of force and range training. Let's take a case of a deranged criminal trying to drive through a crowd of people with a vehicle and the only thing between the criminal and hundreds of innocents is two bicycle officers. How about a confirmed threat of a person driving a truck bomb in a terrorist attack? "Oh, well that's different" doesn't cut it for crappy misguided policy that sets up officers for failure rather than train them for success.

[Jeep]

Stupid "policies" that cannot be enforced and don't work in practice are lawsuits waiting to happen. They are designed to provide CYA for senior administrators but result in liability for taxpayers.

[GJM]

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/10/28/denver-monitor-praises-rule-limiting-police-shooting-at-cars/

Snippet: Officers can no longer shoot at moving cars unless someone inside is firing at them.

More:

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/06/08/denver-police-department-makes-policy-change-in-wake-of-jessie-hernandez-death/

wonder what those responsible for this new policy change would think about this -- looks pretty terrifying to me:


http://okcfox.com/news/local/body-cam-footage-released-from-sand-springs-officer-involved-shooting

[41magfan]

Regrettably, too many policy makers are so far removed from real police work they don't realize how their restrictive SOP's hinder the practical enforcement of the law. Those that are cognizant of what they're doing, just don't care how it shakes out on the street.

This is the reality; In most areas of the country you would NOT want the Agency Head to be the guy that responded to your 911 call.

[JF1]

"wonder what those responsible for this new policy change would think about this"

While the link below (Federal Monitor Report Oakland PD) is just an example of one, I believe the risk adverse administrator has gained traction. Your tactics leading up to the use of force will be scrutinized to find fault in your decision making that led up to the use of force and then any faults will be used to discredit your decision to use force. If you could have avoided it, then there's a substantial risk your force would not be justified under department policy. The question an administrator is going to ask is not going to be from the prospective of a reasonable officer seeing 5,000+ lbs accelerate and steer directly towards you, but what was the decision making the led the officer to be in that position.

"The application of force is consistent with Department policy." This should be the end of discussion unless you have some loose cannon running around and has no business being in the profession.

"The Department should consider whether the use of that level of force might have been avoidable" This analytical approach to dynamic situations where the suspect is forcing you to do your best given your individual skill sets and amount of training in a compressed amount of time just doesn't fly.

http://www2.oaklandnet.com/oakca1/groups/police/documents/webcontent/oak054473.pdf

Pg 7
"The Department should consider whether the use of that level of force might have been avoidable – even when the application of that force is consistent with Departmental policy."
Pg 8
Review process, to include a review of whether the use of deadly force may have been avoided; and to identify tactics, strategies, and opportunities as events unfolded that may have supported such an outcome.

[gunrunner505]

I agree. The Justice Department is going crazy with the "civil rights" investigations on cops

There is no justice from our current justice department. The rule of law means nothing anymore. It's all political and how can my friends and I get rich, I mean stay in office....


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