Steps taken toward local policing reforms
Department’s new, unredacted use-of-force policy released
Portions of the Houston Police Department’s use-of-force policy on how and when they can use batons and shoot at moving vehicles was recently unredacted, officials said.
The now-public policies were among a large swath of changes that Chief Art Acevedo approved for the policing document, which was reissued June 19 and renamed to “Response to Resistance,” Jeff Monk, HPD’s open records manager, said Wednesday in an email. The changes come as police reform advocates call for more transparency in the wake of longtime Houstonian George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, as well as a string of six recent HPD fatal shootings.
Meanwhile, a newly tapped task force of 45 community leaders — whom Mayor Sylvester Turner also announced Wednesday — is slated to review the latest use-of-force policy to identify potential law enforcement reforms.
Acevedo said he wanted the policies to reflect Turner’s requests from an executive order earlier this month that enacted restrictions on how Houston police officers can use force. Among the requests was requiring officers to de-escalate, give a verbal warning and exhaust all other options before using deadly force. Requiring officers to intervene when they witness misconduct, as well as prohibiting choke-holds and firing at moving vehicles were already HPD policies prior to the executive order.
A comparison of the revamped document to a previous version from 2015 — approved by Acevedo’s predecessor Charles McClelland Jr. — shows changes throughout, but with some policies effectively remaining the same in different words. Acevedo said the department made the language more clear.
The new document expands on de-escalation techniques to “reduce or minimize the use of physical force.”
Portions of HPD’s use-of-force policy have been redacted since at least 2003.
“We wanted to make our policy as transparent as possible,” Acevedo said. “And make sure they can see what the rules of engagement are. Hard to question something that you don’t have access to.”
A redacted version is what had been on HPD’s website and what was given to council member Letitia Plummer when she asked for a copy to draft proposed police reform amendments. She held up her blacked-out copy during a June 10 city council meeting and admonished the department.
“If we’re doing everything right, then there’s no reason to hide,” Plummer then said. The Houston Police Officers Union later gave her an unredacted copy, she said Wednesday.
“Now HPD recently unredacted all those documents in the last 48 hours,” Plummer said Wednesday. “The pressure is working. It’s working. We just have to keep our foot on the gas.”
The latest version unveils what was behind the redactions in the 2015 policy about batons, that officers are allowed to carry them to disturbance calls and events “where there are a large number of persons.” The language in both versions is identical and states that flashlights can be used like a baton, in some circumstances. Another previously unavailable section on pepper spray has similar wording to the prior document. Officers are not supplied with the spray but they can carry canisters on their duty belts as long as they are certified to use it from the police academy.
The policy on moving or fleeing vehicles, which was also previously redacted, has been rewritten but reflects the prior policy. It states officers are still prohibited from firing a gun at a suspect’s vehicle — unless someone in the car is threatening another person with something other than the car, such as if the driver is shooting at the officer.
If the motorist is “deliberately” intending to hit the officer or a pedestrian — the officer can only open fire if “all other reasonable means of defense have been exhausted,” like getting out of the way. The earlier order warns officers that they “must be mindful that it is very unlikely that a firearm will disable or stop a vehicle.”
The change in disclosure also follows a Houston Chronicle request for information Monday for the redacted policies — only to be told Tuesday that the department was advised by the Texas Attorney General’s Office in 2015 that they could withhold the information because the policies could compromise “the security or operations of a law enforcement agency.”
The department on Wednesday reversed its decision, Monk said in an email.
Another order, titled “Response to Resistance Reporting,” was created and elaborates on how use of force is reported, although much of the policies were already detailed in the 2015 useof-force document.