Officers taught to ‘assess, plan, act’ in crisis: expert
Training, tactics and quick police response discussed at inquest into violent death
Victoria police officers’ training and use of crisis intervention and de-escalation skills were explored Wednesday at a coroner’s inquest into the 2014 death of Rhett Mutch.
“I have never attended the call I was dispatched to,” Sgt. Michael Massine, an expert in use of force and crisis intervention and de-escalation, told the court. “Officers may not walk into a situation with most current information. That’s the reality.”
That’s why officers are taught to “assess, plan, act,” he said. Police work requires a quick response and the ability to think on your feet in unpredictable situations, he said.
Massine, a VicPD officer who has been seconded to the Justice Institute of B.C., gave an overview of police training and principles, but did not comment extensively on the Mutch case.
Mutch, 20, was shot and killed by police on the morning of Nov. 1, 2014. His mother called 911 for help after he broke into her Dallas Road home. He was distraught and holding a knife against himself.
When police arrived, she was escorted out of the house and several officers went in armed.
Within minutes, Mutch had been shot.
Officers said he ran toward them with a knife. He was shot when a beanbag gun round failed to stop him.
All active Victoria police officers and supervisors took crisis intervention and de-escalation training in 2012 as part of a provincially mandated program. The course was created with input from mental-health advocates and is taught alongside use-of-force models.
The training requirement came out of the recommendations from the Braidwood Inquiry, which looked into the 2007 death of Robert Dziekanski, a Polish man shot by RCMP with a stun gun at Vancouver International Airport.
While the province paid for the curriculum development, police departments foot the bill for the training and staff time, Massine said.
The officers involved in the Mutch shooting previously testified that they had received the training.
Massine also noted a 2013 study on police restraint that included data from Victoria. Of the department’s 145,368 police interactions in 2010 to 2012, there were 922 use-of-force incidents, which can include things like hands-on physical control or use of a weapon.
“That means less than one per cent of police interactions include use of force,” he said.
The same study indicates nearly 20 per cent of interactions included people with mentalhealth issues (as determined by the officers) and 6.9 per cent included to people with weapons, Massine said. Of the 194 weapons calls, 27 involved sharp-edged items such as knives.
“Knives and firearms can both kill you,” he said, regarding the danger to police.
Inquest counsel John M. Orr asked Massine if there was any data on incidents in which police were seriously injured or killed by a person with a knife.
Massine said he did not have that information or know if it was collected.
Orr also questioned Lynne McInally, executive director of the Ministry of Public Safety’s Police Services Division, about the effectiveness of the crisis intervention and de-escalation training.
“Is there any way to measure the success of the training?” he asked.
McInally said: “We can measure the compliance … but there’s no way to know when an officer uses the training,” adding that it involves integrating decisionmaking techniques.
The forensic pathologist who examined Mutch after his death also testified Wednesday, explaining Mutch died from a gunshot wound to his neck, above his left collarbone.
Dr. Craig Litwin said the bullet travelled toward Mutch’s feet and ended up in his liver. This could indicate Mutch’s position at the time he was shot was horizontal, he said. The officers at the scene said Mutch was running toward them when he was shot.
Marney Mutch, who has been granted participant status at the inquest and can question witnesses, asked if it was possible her son was falling forward after being hit in the right thigh with a bean bag gun.
The officers said they did not think so.
Litwin also said Rhett Mutch had a large bruise on his right thigh, likely from the bean bag shot, a cut to his lip and scrapes on his left hand.
The coroner’s inquest, often called for police involved deaths, makes public the cause and circumstances around the death. A presiding coroner and seven-person jury will weigh the evidence and provide recommendations that could prevent similar deaths.
The Independent Investigations Office of B.C., which investigates police-involved deaths and major injuries, has cleared Victoria police of criminal wrongdoing in Mutch’s death.