And my comments after the color will reflect what is likely to occur.
When all is said and done....cops know how to survive in their environment and provide just enough services to remain employed. The fact that the public gets screwed becomes somebody else's problem,because the "public" is getting exactly what the people they empower want.Originally Posted by Hambo
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard. Snarky and easily butt hurt. Favorite animal is the Cape Buffalo....likely indicative of a personality disorder.
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o86euHlHWE
No one was in any hurry, less lethal was attempted as appropriate, attempts to de-escalate the situation were made, but in the end they had to shoot to protect themselves. The department not only backed the officers but praised the response. There's a lot more to this than in/out of a 21' range.
This was posted over on LF ...
PERF’s recent offering, titled 30 Guiding Principles, has generated significant discussion since it began circulating. While there are statements in it many working street cops and their supervisors would not argue against, there are others that have led to those same officers and supervisors scratching their heads and wondering what planet the contributors live on. In addition to IACP, CalibrePress and PoliceOne along with respected L/E attorney Missy O’Linn have all come out against a significant number of the proposed guidelines.
Think tanks such as PERF are understood by those in academia (I’m within days of being done with my masters and you all have no idea how much of this stuff I’ve read over the past few years). As a profession we need to understand the impact academia is going to have, regardless of their lack of experience, on what comes from political bodies and activists. We need to get our people through some of these hurdles and gates in order to let experience have a voice.
These are my thoughts on each of the guidelines from the perspective of a field training officer and use of force instructor.
#1 – I have yet to see an agency policy that does not direct officers to consider the value of human life. Value is a synonym for sanctity. We already discuss this just with different words. Unfortunately, some have had issues with that during depositions and the like.
I will say I am utterly stunned that the priority of life was included in the document. There needs to be a greater empohasis in the discussion on the lives and well-being of the victims / un-involved and the officers. Consider the Mario Woods shooting in San Fran, he has already tried to kill one victim, is refusing to comply with the officers even after less likely to be lethal tools have been tried. Now, he is trying to get past one officer and heading towards a bus stop and a bus full of un-involved people. Does the community want him to continue that act without stopping him? What happens when he boards the bus, in spite of de-escalation efforts, and he hurts or kills someone?
While PERF and others seem to forget this, were it not for the actions, decisions and non-compliance of those involved none of these events would have happened.
#2 – The US Supreme Court has been adamant that the standard from Graham v. Connor (1989) addressing the objective reasonable of the officer’s actions based on the totality of what was known about the tense and rapidly evolving circumstances of the event, at the time, is what is to be considered – not through a 20/20 hindsight review. Other cases have repeated that view and the Courts have been directed not to substitute their foundationless beliefs for the officers’ experiences.
In order to have consistency agencies have to look to the courts for guidance, this recommendation runs counter to that.
#3 – No, the use of force must be reasonable. Period. Proportional is like minimal, it is extremely difficult to describe in advance and that makes training to the standard impossible.
In regards to basing our tactics and techniques on what the public thinks would be appropriate, they are spectacularly unqualified to have an opinion. The use of physical force on another human being never looks good. Given two generations of zero tolerance in the schools we have far too many who have no concept of what a fight actually looks like never mind their inability to comprehend that the other guy always gets to vote.
A captain from Long Beach PD, through AELE, wrote a solid piece on this back in 2007.
#4 – Again, the suspect gets to vote in this. This recommendation makes no differentiation between a violent felon who is consciously choosing not to comply and a mentally ill subject who cannot comply.
Some non-compliance issues can allow time for this idea to be brought into play. However, when dealing with assaults on officers or others or flight by those who are violent, then there must be decisive action.
#5 – If one has time to pre-plan, to slow the event down something along the lines of this – after significant research involving simulations and scenario training along with limited testing across the spectrum of agencies – may be viable. Unfortunately, when one looks at even the Washington Post numbers, how does management even consider advocating for this given the number of individuals who assault officers? If seventy percent plus of the individuals killed by officers were attacking us, how is this a viable idea?
#6 – I cannot disagree with this. Good beat partners should know their co-workers triggers; we all have them, and step in before things go down hill.
#7 – Yes, as soon as the threat has ended we should be rendering aid. However, the recommendation must remember that Fire/EMS will not enter a scene until it is secure. We should EMS immediately but the suspect will have to be secured before they will enter and begin working on him.
#8 – There is no legal foundation for this. Training and education will be far more effective than policy – as position strongly espoused by Nyeti. Given concerns about terrorist attacks and previous domestic events, suspects have used the car as a weapon against citizens on foot and there are VBIED hazards as well. This policy would prevent L/E from stopping these threats. Also, how many officers need to be run down before they can stop a suspect’s deadly behavior?
#9 – Concur, right up to the point where suicidal behavior becomes homicidal action. Here is where the concepts of cover and distance make sense.
#10 – Document? Absolutely! Who is not doing that currently? B) These events need to be evaluated individually for their objective reasonableness. If one insists on interjecting race into this, then they need to review all other relevant UCR data, such as who is committing crime and assaulting officers.
#11 – Report Use of Force and all crime data. Again, race does not need to be part of this in a stand-alone fashion. However, if it is to be shown, then include all data with it.
#12 – Concur, strongly! Rather than inexperienced administrators with little street time or oversight/review bodies that have never had to confront a resistive or violent suspect, uses of force need to be evaluated by experienced street cops who are also use of force instructors. Training should include Force Encounters Analysis from California Training Institute, Force Science Analyst certification from FSI, or similar courses.
#13 – Concur, strongly! Must be done by the Chief, the Sheriff or in their absence the #2 and in uniform.
#14 – Not possible. At least 85% of departments could not even consider staffing their own academy. Regional academies will encounter significant divergence of opinion that would lead to nothing being accomplished.
Agencies with ten officers or less are 50% of America’s departments; 85% have less than 24 officers. Consider that when discussing full time CIT efforts and supervisor response to calls.
#15 – Politely, this is not viable and runs counter to reality. What is needed is far more training time involving both scenario and simulator time. As one military trainer noted on a pistol training centric board, training must be recent, relevant, and repeatable. We can look to airline pilot community for a minimum frequency of scenario and simulator work.
#16 – There needs to be better instructor development efforts. Tueller’s work was the effort to relationship between human reaction time and distance. What he started has been foundational for other L/E focused work. It was not, as has been claimed, permission to shoot anyone with a knife within that distance. It is my recollection, based on conversations and local efforts, that with current holsters the distance can actually be a lot farther. All of that lends weight to making better use of cover and distance – with the understanding that if we are going to interact with the public we have to get close to them at some point.
#17 – We are already de-escalating. This shows an indescribable misunderstanding of two key issues – a) as already mentioned, those we deal with have a significant impact on the eventually outcome of any event; b) by every data set I looked at when preparing my master’s thesis project (FBI/Virginia, LAPD, NIJ/Long Beach, Brian Willis, and my own agency) we are already very restrained in using any force, let alone lethal force, and we are restrained in doing so to a detriment to our own safety.
How many felonious, or just plain armed, assaults are there on officers every year? 50,000 or a bit higher? And yet, last year, there were not even one thousand deaths from the responses to those assaults on L/E officers.
The math on this should be understandable. For those who are do not or will not acknowledge it, the question becomes are you mistaken or is this an intentional misrepresentation, better known as lying, of the facts,?
#18 – I will not argue against more, better (!) training on inter-personnel communications, as long as it is competently prepared and presented. Just realize that all of this suggested training comes at a cost of manpower and money.
#19 – Good idea as I am a graduate of a 40-hour CIT course who has used it successfully in the field. The concepts in this guideline are impractical in many places given the size of most agencies (see #14). The training is valuable but my instructors noted some of this would not apply until there is compliance and the scene is secure.
How does a 12-officer agency staff a car with mental health 24 hours a day, seven days a week just for those issues?
The community as a whole has truly dumped the mental health problem and initial response to mental health crisis onto law enforcement. They did this with a terribly unrealistic expectation we could fix their failures. It is past time, long past, to return to mental health hospitals and hospitalization. There needs to be discussions about and decisions made on forcibly medicating patients, or consumers of mental health services, for their own well being. Too many are not taking Rx meds but are self-medicating daily with non-rx substances (i.e.: controlled substances) or alcohol to the detriment of all around them and themselves.
#20 – Concur with the premise. Again, we are addressing outcomes driven by the suspects, patients, or consumers.
More competent discussion of case law issues relating to the mentally ill would be beneficial. There are two SFPD cases that are very much on point. Sheehan v. CCSF (2015) is the most recent but there is also an older one involving a tactical team entry and shooting.
#21 – Concur. In my experience, during the limited hours they work in my area they are beneficial.
#22 – Concur; however, agency staffing and the jurisdiction’s actual size will be an issue. Not every one works in a six square mile city. At night we have one supervisor to cover 1600+ sq. mi and up to 23 deputies.
#23 – Concur;
#24 – Strongly concur. See #15.
#25 – Officers are overloaded and under trained with less likely to be lethal options. I have three on my belt – ECW, impact weapon, & OC. We have lost beanbag shotguns but supervisors, tactical team, and SWAT have 40mm in their cars … when they are available, see #22.
#26 – If there are better products on the market that actually work on those under the influence, recreationally or through self-medication, those with mental health concerns, or those with mind set and drive … bring them to us NOW!
All of L/E would be well served with a concepts & capabilities integration program. It should be akin to what AWG has and be a patrol specific version of TSWG.
#27 – This depends on the suspect’s actions and behaviors. As court rulings continue to insist on a higher level of resistance when employing an ECW, these will be used only in higher risk situations. That alone may lead to escalation when they fail.
The court rulings are mandating a return to hands-on and ruthlessly efficient impact weapon employment.
#28 – IF an agency chooses shields then they need significant training. I will ask what shield tactics have been developed and vetted that will defeat the described weapons and threats?
#29 – Strongly concur.
#30 – Again, I concur.
This is just my thoughts on the document from a perspective of being a practitioner, a student, and a trainer. It took me a few days to put them together. We all need to understand we will see more of this. We need articulate our opposition - to the failures of these proposals as well as the ignorance of those who present them - in coherent, rational ways.
This ^^^^^ is chapter and verse, people.
A couple big issues...
#6....I agree in principle; however, I have had rookies who miss things veteran officers pick up and the last thing you want is an officer fitting a crook, and another officer. Equally, depending on where folks are, time of arrival, and a host of other reasons one officers perceptions can be very different from another. There is a massive difference between a perceived "unnecessary" (perception, and very subjective), excessive (not always clear) and criminal (usual pretty clear cut) uses of force. I am against criminal use of force. I have a major issue with someone thinking something is unnecessary and intervening in an arrest that may be totally out of line. Also....what do we do with the other major issue this will spawn.....not using enough force when necessary? How do we address this....especially when I have seen far more injuries of both criminals and officers from not using enough force when it should have been than too much.
#8 is pretty simple.....any firing on or from a vehicle should be a simple question of justified use of lethal force. This should always consider and weigh the risk to the community when that decision is made. To outright ban the use of lethal force in a vehicle oriented society because either LE or the felon is vehicle bound is insanely stupid and unrealistic. Apparently these executives have not seen what happens when vehicles hit things at high speed. Sometimes....you need to shoot a felon in a vehicle to prevent them from killing or maiming officers or the public. Improper use of lethal force involving vehicles is a pure training issue.....period.
There are other stand outs as well, but what chaps my hide...is the reporting issues and documentation. Simply......fuck these people. LE documents the crap out of force stuff. Want to know what isn't happening....crooks held accountable for assaults on officers. Want to know what is commonly hidden, swept under the carpet, disguised, dismissed, and covered up regularly....assaults on LE. FAR more deception and lack of accountability has occurred with both Law Enforcement executives and Judicial prosecutors and attorney's is in the area of how assaults on LE is handled. How about FACTUAL documentation of assaults on officers. Unedited and clean reporting of crimes, race and gender, age, prior records, etc of those who assault police. Full documentation of injuries, both short and long term of officers. Also how about discrimination in how officers are treated as victims?
Just a Hairy Special Snowflake supply clerk with no field experience, shooting an Asymetric carbine as a Try Hard
"If I had a grandpa, he would look like Delbert Belton".
Need I say more?
http://www.cbs46.com/story/30910058/...#ixzz3waLRPQYB
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
Shhhh you arent supposed to talk about what really happens.
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No, you don't
We had a Deputy get into a fight with a very large woman. The fight wound up in the floorboard of a minivan. Deputy on the bottom and offender on top. Offender says "I've got you now bitch" after she gets the Deputy's gun from her holster. One shot fired in the struggle without anyone being hit. A third party/citizen came to the Deputy's aid and managed to get the offender off the Deputy and ended the fight.
When it went to trial there was a last minute settlement reached. Offender got 7 years..........probation.
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