In face of criticism, police officials preach tactics of de-escalation
After recent conflicts between authorities and citizens, law enforcement officers undergo retraining to take cooler approach to incendiary situations
The well-tended rows of brick and clapboard homes in the historic district are far removed from the fraught streets of Ferguson, Baltimore or Cleveland.
It’s been about six years, in fact, since a Leesburg cop discharged a firearm during an encounter with a suspect. Yet this year, every officer in the department was required to view troubling footage drawn from a series of violent clashes involving police around the nation that have fueled a re-examination of American law enforcement tactics.
“Disturbing and disgusting,” Leesburg officer Kristine Rzewnicki said, recalling one episode of the unusual film study, part of a retraining effort sweeping much of the nation. The instruction, aimed at tempering police responses to potentially flammable encounters, seeks to restore balance to a public safety job that has been increasingly defined as more warrior than guardian.
As readily as police departments once snapped up surplus military gear, which bolstered a combat-ready presence on the street, law enforcement agencies are embracing a collective strategy of de-escalation.
In Los Angeles, cops are immersed in “preservation of life” training. In Kansas City, it’s called “tactical disengagement.” San Diego police are developing a curriculum to emphasize a strategy known as “emotional intelligence.”
The rush of training is geared to slow encounters between officers and the public they police. In the past year, disputes have prompted spasms of civil unrest and contributed to an erosion of public trust in law enforcement across the country.
“Throughout the history of law enforcement, we’ve had the idea of ‘never back down, never retreat,’ ” Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forté announced this year. “We are encouraging and training our officers to use critical thinking and problem solving to avoid a situation in which they have to shoot someone to protect themselves.”
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the law enforcement think tank Police Executive Research Forum, said the growing de-escalation movement represents “the biggest change” in use of force policy by police agencies in recent history.
“What is happening now is right at the front end of a movement,” Wexler said. “There is a sense that whatever (police) had been doing out there was not good enough.” ‘THE LAST STRAW’ The tipping point for Leesburg Police Chief Joseph Price had nothing to do with the conduct of his officers. Rather, he could no longer ignore a stream of troubling images featuring police in violent clashes with suspects, from Washington state to South Carolina.
“The North Charleston (S.C.) shooting, clearly, was the last straw,” said Price, referring to the fatal shooting in April of Walter Scott, 50, after an encounter with officer Michael Slager. A video of the incident, recorded by a witness, appears to show Scott running from Slager when he was shot in the back. The officer was charged with Scott’s murder.
“There was no weapon anywhere near Mr. Scott,” said Price, who responded by launching a re-training program for the nearly 100-officer force partially based on the very videos that have continued to fuel a national debate over police tactics.
Parts of the five-hour sessions included study of the North Charleston video, along with similar encounters drawn from Seattle and Albuquerque.
The videos, the chief said, were dissected and critiqued — in some cases several times in the same way sports teams prepare for their next opponents.
“Some folks were very upset after seeing them,” Price said.
Though Rzewnicki is generally uncomfortable judging the actions of other officers “after the fact,” she said the egregious conduct of some “puts everyone in uniform in potential danger.”
The 47-year-old patrol officer said one incident not shown in the videos examined by the department stands out for her. It involved the beating this year of a suspect who had attempted to flee California authorities on horseback. “They were just walloping him,” Rzewnicki said, referring to the videotaped arrest of Francis Pusok, 30, a suspect in an identity theft investigation.
“It was disgusting, unnecessary,” she said. “It bothers me. Of course, I want to change that image.”
Price made basic language changes in how the department refers to force incidents. “We changed the terminology to ‘response to threats or resistance,’ ” Price said. “Use of force sounded like officers were initiating the action. Sure, it’s largely symbolic. But we wanted to stress at all levels that the change in title shows that action is only taken when an officer is forced to use it.” STRIKING A BALANCE Although there is wide support for such change, there are concerns that a dramatic swing in police response could have implications for basic officer safety and that real cultural change will require more than a series of retraining sessions.
Richard Beary, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said more recent attacks on police — including last month’s fatal shooting of a Houston sheriff’s deputy while he was pumping gas — suggest “the threats to officers are very real.”
“I hear this national call for de-escala-
tion,” Beary said. “It doesn’t work when people are threatening your life.”
Price said the Leesburg training sessions were met with initial resistance among some officers, including combat veterans. That was largely overcome, the chief said, during animated discussions centering on law enforcement’s core mission: protection.
“We live with the sheep, but we never turn against the sheep,” he said. “When the wolf comes, we protect the sheep to the death. ... The warrior mentality has a place, but it should not dominate. In today’s world, you need the skill set of a warrior and the mind-set of a guardian.”
Last month in a speech outlining efforts to develop trust between law enforcement and communities, Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said de-escalation training is “changing use of force norms” in police agencies across the country.
“Training, of course, is key,” Gupta told delegates to a policing conference in New Jersey.
“Sometimes, people just need to be heard,” Rzewnicki said. “A lot of officers think of it as ‘hug a thug,’ but it couldn’t be further from the truth.”