Is there a better way to train officers to use force?
Community members question shoot-to-kill tactic
LAGRANGE, Ga. — Officer David Horseman was on the dark, early morning drive for his first shift back from paternity leave when he heard the police dispatcher report a suspicious man carrying a machete in the town square.
Other Lagrange police officers calmly attempted to persuade the man to lay down the weapon, but he ran away and a chase ensued.
Horseman decided to help out the guys working the night shift and stopped his cruiser in the suspect’s path.
The officer of five years jumped out of his cruiser and repeatedly ordered the suspect to drop the machete. He warned the man, who was wanted on multiple felony warrants, that he could be shot.
“I don’t give a (expletive),” the man yelled before raising the machete and charging at the officer.
Horseman fired his Taser, but the man kept coming.
Then, with the suspect about 10 feet away, Horseman pointed his pistol at the lower part of the man’s body and fired.
The bullets struck the man in the abdomen, pelvic area and leg. The threat was stopped, and the suspect survived.
“My training just took over,” said Horseman, 30, who originally trained to be an officer at the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy and is from Cuyahoga Falls, near Akron. “I can remember my gun going off, but I don’t remember pulling the trigger. I used the muscle memory from the training. It, without a doubt, saved a life.”
“As a profession, we have evolved in a lot of ways in the past 50 years. But what hasn’t changed is our targeting when it comes to deadly force. The intent of this training is to save lives. There are opportunities to stop a threat without stopping a life. And we saw that with David Horseman, who stopped the threat without shooting center mass.”
Lagrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar
There are about 200 fatal police shootings nationwide each year involving people who have knives, machetes, clubs, hammers or other weapons other than guns, according to a Washington Post national database that tracks police shootings. In the past year, there have been 912 shot and killed by police as of Dec. 15, according to the Post database.
Most law enforcement officers are trained to shoot for “center mass,” because it is the biggest part of the body and it is mostly like to stop the threat.
But as community members question the need to fatally shoot suspects, and raise concerns about the fact that those who are shot are disproportionately people of color, these shooting policies are being challenged.
This was the case in the shooting of Ma’khia Bryant, a 16-year-old girl who was shot on April 20 outside the foster home where she lived on the Far East Side of Columbus. Many, including her family, questioned whether it was necessary to use lethal force or whether there might have been another way.
Columbus Police say they are constantly reevaluating their training and policies, but they stand by their protocol established by the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy.
In Lagrange, a town of about 31,000 about 65 miles southwest of Atlanta, the “shoot-to-incapacitate” training was implemented in February and is believed to be the first of its kind for lineof-duty officers in the U.S.
It offers Horseman and about 90 other Lagrange officers the option of aiming at the abdomen, pelvis or legs to stop a potential deadly threat in situations where the suspect has a weapon other than a firearm.
Lagrange Police Chief Lou Dekmar said there are two consistent questions following many fatal police shootings: Did the officer need to fire his or her gun? And, if so, was it necessary to shoot to kill?
For Dekmar, the answer to that second question is sometimes no.
“As a profession, we have evolved in a lot of ways in the past 50 years. But what hasn’t changed is our targeting when it comes to deadly force,” said Dekmar. “The intent of this training is to save lives. There are opportunities to stop a threat without stopping a life. And we saw that with David Horseman, who stopped the threat without shooting center mass.”
More than 125 people working in law enforcement around Georgia and other places around the country have come to Lagrange to observe the training program. Some are intrigued, some have their doubts, and some think Dekmar is out of his mind.
The biggest criticism is that the training potentially endangers officers or members of the public in a deadly threat situation.
“If there is a 911 call to your house and there is a man standing over the top of your wife with a hammer raised, which target would you like that police officer to use in order to stop his actions?” said Columbus Police Sgt. Chris Cheatham, who helps train recruits and officers at the Columbus Police Academy. “We train to shoot center mass because it’s the largest target on the body. By being the largest target on the body, that helps increase the chance of the officers stopping that threat that they’re facing, whether it be firearm, knife, or whatever is going to hurt that person.”
The human-shaped, silhouetted shooting targets are nestled under the Georgia pines when Lagrange detective Adam Blane takes aim.
The head and chest areas he is trying to avoid are colored in red. The abdomen, pelvic area and upper legs he is trying to hit are colored in green.
Blane fires several rounds at the target. His results are then inspected by Sgt. Joshua Clower, who leads the training program for the police department.
Only one shot landed outside the green area.
In a real-life situation, officers have an accuracy rate of anywhere between 20 and 40 percent when they discharge their weapon, according to various studies.
Chief Dekmar first became intrigued with the idea after seeing a police exchange in Israel in 2004 in which officers were trained to shoot beyond center mass. He then spent years traveling to other countries and studying policies that permitted officers to shoot at something other than the chest in certain circumstances.
There have only been 14 officer-involved shootings in Lagrange in the past 26 years and only two of those resulted in fatalities, but Dekmar still wanted to pursue another use of force option for his officers.
When Chief Dekmar first introduced the idea to Clower in 2018, he thought it was “stupid.”
The idea was tabled for a while, and Clower hoped it would go away all together.
But after the growing fury over highprofile police shootings across the country continued, Dekmar convinced Clower that they had to consider a different approach to use of deadly force.
Clower’s early research included a call to a local doctor, who encouraged the idea. Clower studied what seemed like endless police-shooting videos that showed chest shots didn’t always immediately stop the threat. In some cases, people continued to advance, and in some others, they couldn’t continue after being shot in the lower body.
Clower and Dekmar spent about a year researching data on police shootings in the U.S. There are typically between 900 and 1,000 police shootings around the country each year. They found that in about 25% of those shootings, the suspects have weapons other than guns.
Clower created a training program in which each officer receives classroom instruction. As part of it, they watch numerous videos of police shootings in which it might have been possible to shoot at the lower body instead of the chest.
The training also includes simulating live scenarios and shooting tests in which officers have to place 16 of 20 shots to different body parts on the color-coded targets.
Clower repeats the word “option” over and over. This is not a mandate for the officers, he says. He wants people to understand that the “shoot to incapacitate” program is just one part of a much larger training program — one that teaches officers how to deescalate threatening situations so they never have to draw their guns, let alone think about where they might be aiming it. And if a member of the public is subjected to a direct deadly threat officers are encouraged to aim wherever necessary to stop it.
The training has turned Clower from a skeptic to a believer. And he isn’t alone in the Lagrange department. In a survey that was circulated after the officers received the training, almost 80% gave it a “good” rating, and no one rated it as “bad,” according to the chief.
“I know there is a stigma out there about this, but I do support the training,” said Horseman. “I like that it allows us to use our discretion. And as I found out firsthand, it can make a difference in some cases.”
The video of Ma’khia Bryant being shot by a Columbus police officer went viral last April and sparked outrage across the country.
Body camera footage shows that as the police officer got out of his cruiser, Bryant was charging toward a woman who either fell backward or was pushed to the ground near the officer’s feet.
Bryant then lunged at a second woman with a knife in her hand and the officer fired.
According to an autopsy report, Bryant was shot four times. One of the bullets struck her in the leg, but the other three hit the right lower part of her torso, right shoulder and right portion of her back with the bullet ending up in her lung.
The shooting remains under investigation, however, it is assumed that officer Nicholas Reardon followed protocol by shooting center mass.
But what if some form of the Lagrange shoot-to-incapacitate training had been used in Bryant’s case? Would Bryant still be alive? Would the other girl have been stabbed by Bryant?
No one can answer those questions, but Bryant’s mother, Paula Bryant, thinks they are worth asking.
“The first thing all officers have to do in any situation is deescalate, deescalate, deescalate,” said Paula Bryant in an interview with The Dispatch. “But if it’s necessary to shoot, I think what they are doing down there in Georgia sounds like a lot better plan, instead of automatically shooting to kill someone. I’m at peace with God, and I know my baby girl is with him, but she should still be with us.”
Sgt. Cheatham and Sgt. Rich Brooks, who lead much of the use-of-force training at the Columbus Police Academy, can’t comment on the Bryant case. And they didn’t condemn the Lagrange deadly force training, but it’s not something they feel would be safe for either the public or their officers. And they point out that Columbus and other law enforcement agencies around Ohio follow the use-of-force standards set by the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy.
“We train to shoot center mass because it’s the largest target on the body,” Brooks said. “By being the largest target on the body, that helps increase the chance of officers stopping that threat they are facing. And remember, we are responsible for every round that comes out of that gun. My goal is to stop the threat, and not hit the kid on the tricycle on the playground behind you.”
Cheatham wants people to understand that the bulk of officer training goes into doing everything possible to deescalate any potential volatile situation and prevent the need for deadly force.
“Shooting someone is a police officer’s absolute worst nightmare,” said Cheatham. “We do everything we can to avoid having to use lethal force. I’ve never been involved in a police shooting, and I thank the Lord for that. It’s an awful, awful thing.”
Columbus Public Safety Director Robert Clark said he is aware of the Lagrange shoot-to-incapacitate program through media reports and some discussions about it with law enforcement. But he isn’t informed enough to make judgments about whether it would be something Columbus should consider as part of its training program.
He said he has full confidence in those who run the Columbus Police Academy and knows that they are constantly reviewing police shootings around the country and examining whether any possible changes should be made to its use-of-deadly-force training.
For now, Clark said the Police Division will comply with the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training academy protocols, and he is confident that shooting at the center mass is currently the best way to protect the public and its officers.
“As we begin to really understand what this shoot to incapacitate is, there does become some problems or some challenges with it, at least from my desk,” Clark said. “And that will include the research that is out there on perpetrators that have still continued to be aggressive towards officers and others even after they’ve been shot. I am familiar with far too many incidents where individuals have been shot, some through the heart, and continue to fight and continue to pose a threat to officers and to the community.”
Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said he is going to rely on the expertise of Clark and Columbus Police Chief Elaine Bryant to make the best decision on use of force practices for the city’s 1,900 officers.
“We are always looking for best practices and good ideas,” Ginther said. “We are open to anything that protects the public and our officers. The reason I hired Director Clark and Chief Bryant is to help us change the Division of Police and take us from being a 20th century law enforcement organization to a 21st century community policing organization.”
Some experts say that there should be more time and research into Dekmar’s training program before making firm judgments about whether it’s safe and effective for the public and officers to use.
Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at University of South Carolina, said the nation’s law-enforcement agencies should at least examine what Lagrange is doing with its use-of-force training and determine whether it or a version of it could be used in their community.
But Alpert says Dekmar should be credited for at least thinking differently when it comes to stopping some deadly threats.
“If we don’t have forward thinkers or people with new ideas, like Chief Dekmar, we are never going to move forward on how we approach use of force,” said Alpert, who has examined hundreds of fatal officer-involved shootings over the past several decades.
“He is trying to save lives with this and it’s very limiting in its approach. Of course I would want an officer to shoot for the chest if a man is trying to kill my wife or kids with a hammer. But there are other situations where shoot to incapacitate could be used. We give them discretion when they need to take a life, then why don’t they give them discretion to potentially save a life in certain situations?”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who has jurisdiction over the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy, said law-enforcement officials at the academy are constantly reviewing and evaluating tactics. And Yost is open to examining the training program in Lagrange,
but he has doubts about training officers to aim for a smaller target in any situation that has a potential deadly threat.
Yost said he does understand and agree with the Lagrange research that shooting in the pelvic area can take someone down effectively. He said he went through similar training when, as a young prosecutor, he was taught to defend himself.
But his concerns echo the Columbus academy officials in that aiming for the lower half of the body simply puts the public and officers at a higher risk.
“Let’s say you have got a guy with a knife who is threatening another person and they start to move toward the other person,” Yost said. “If you shoot toward the much smaller target (and miss), and they put that knife through the heart of the other person, do you want to be the guy explaining to the dead person’s family you were trying to aim for the leg
to stop them? I think it’s the officer’s job to stop the action with the highest percentage chance they have.”
More than training
Chief Dekmar and Lagrange Mayor Jim Thornton have worked for years to improve race relations in Lagrange, where more than half of the residents are Black. That includes making a public apology in 2017 for his department’s role in a 1940 lynching. They are aware that many in black communities around the nation do not trust police police and that a disproportionate number of victims in police shootings are Black.
Thornton said he trusts in Dekmar’s decisions, including the ”shoot-to-incapacitate” program, but he wants people to understand that it’s more than just training. It’s also a signal to the Black community that the police are willing to do everything in their power to save a
life, even in the rare instances they have to use deadly force.
“It’s important that your community knows you will do anything that can create stronger relationships and mutual respect,” Thornton said. “No officer ever wants to use deadly force, but in those instances, the ultimate goal is to save lives and prevent injuries. We place officers in very difficult situations, but if they have more options in their tool bag, we think that is a good thing.”
Dekmar knows that his training program will continue to draw criticism. But he said he doesn’t have time to worry about it or engage about it.
Instead, he will continue believing in the research behind it and trust his officers to make the right call on the streets.
“I pay officers for their judgment,” Dekmar said. “I can hire anyone to enforce the law.” mwagner@dispatch.com @Mikewagner48