Faults of police training highlighted

Deficiencies show up in handling of protests

BURIEN, Wash. — Seattle officers hold down a protester, and one repeatedly punches him in the face. In another run-in, officers handcuff a looting suspect on the ground, one pressing a knee into his neck, the same tactic used on George Floyd.

The officers were captured on videos appearing to violate policies on how to use force just days after Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police, setting off nationwide protests.

With calls for police reforms across the U.S., instructors and researchers say officers lack sufficient training on how and when to use force, leaving them unprepared to handle tense situations.

“The skills are not taught well enough to be retained, and now the officer is scrambling to find something that works,” said William Lewinski, executive director at the Minnesota-based Force Science Institute, which provides research, training and consulting to law enforcement agencies.

Its two-year study of three large U.S. police academies found that skills like using a baton or taking down an aggressive offender deteriorate dramatically within two weeks.

“Police officers across the country are woefully undertrained,” said

Sean Hendrickson, an instructor at Washington state’s police academy in suburban Seattle.

The AP was invited to the facility to see use-of-force training, a component of a 2012 federal agreement to reform the Seattle Police Department after officers were found to routinely use excessive force.

There’s classroom work, and cadets learn to combine skills by play-acting scenarios.

They also learn to arrest someone who’s fighting back. An instructor plays the suspect, with one officer bear-hugging his legs and another wrapping his arms around him to take him to the ground. That officer presses against him chest to chest until he “wears himself out,” instructor Rich Lee said.

Then they flip him over, still holding his legs, with an officer’s knee in the center of his back as they handcuff him.

Police in the Seattle videos didn’t use those techniques.

In Washington state, cadets must complete 720 hours of training, “but those skills start to degrade immediately,” Hendrickson said.

“There’s no profession that trains so little but expects so much,” Lewinski said.

Ted S. Warren The Associated Press Brandon Wilson an instructor at the Washington state Criminal Justice Training Commission facility in Burien, Wash., restrains fellow instructor Ben Jia.