Last month (January 29, 2016), the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). According to their web site, PERF, "is a police research and policy organization and a provider of
management services, technical assistance, and executive-level education
to support law enforcement agencies. PERF helps to improve the delivery
of police services through the exercise of strong national leadership;
public debate of police and criminal justice issues; and research and
policy development." This sounds good, however, in my experience it's dominated by larger metropolitan agencies. The current board of directors of PERF are made up of the Chiefs of Camden County (NJ) Police Dept. (401 officers according to Wikipedia), Montgomery County (MD) Police Dept. (over 1200 officers according to their web site), Denver Police Dept. (1459 according to Wikipedia), Miami Beach PD (384 officers according to their web site), Tuscon PD (over 1200 officers according to Wikipedia), and Minneapolis PD (800 officers according to Wikipedia).
The problem is that most local police officers cannot identify with these large agencies. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, (http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/lpd13ppp.pdf), 74.9% of the officers serve in departments of 24 officers or under. If you want to go up to 50 officers, add 13.4% to get a total of 88.3% of the nation's local police officers serve in an agency of 50 officers or less. My agency of 26 officers is the norm. Yet, PERF is supposed to speak completely for us. Let me get back to that....
The publication from PERF at hand is called Use of Force: Taking Policing to a Higher Standard. It is made up of what they call "30 Guiding Principles." These all sound quite good to the layman, but to the officer on the street, in particular to the police use of force trainer, they are quite different. Some are fine and dandy (adopt de-escalation policies & training, be transparent, issue regular reports to the public, review by specially trained personnel, use effective communications, comprehensive training on mental health issues, & training as teams). Many agencies, if not most, have some of these guidelines as either a formal policy or practice (sanctity of human life, rendering first aid, document use of force incidents, supervisory response to critical incidents, & duty to intervene). It is with several of the others where the problem starts.
In their second guideline, PERF would have agencies "adopt policies that hold themselves to a higher standard that the legal requirements of Graham v Connor." Exceeding standards are a great idea in manufacturing or education. Those disciplines have quantifiable numbers that can be accurately measured. The objective reasonableness standard cannot. It's as if the authors of PERF's report have not even read the Graham case. In it, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for the 6 justice majority that, "the test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment is not capable of precise definition or mechanical application" and thus "proper application requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case." One term I see bandied about is "lawful but awful" when it comes to certain police uses of force. It is conceded that a certain incident lawful as far as the actions of the officers, but the results were awful. Sadly, that is life. The world is not a fair place. The Bible says in Matthew 5:45 that the sun rises on the evil as well as the good, and the rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike.
I also suspect there were several different authors to this report and these authors didn't bother to read other sections of the report. The reason I suspect this, is their third policy: "Police use of force must meet the test of proportionality." Well, isn't that another way of explaining objective reasonableness? First you tell us we must exceed this standard of Graham v Connor, then you tell us we must be proportional with our force. As Robin Williams once said on stage, "In the dictionary under redundant, it says see redundant." I agree, it must be proportional. This, in effect, is the same as being objectively reasonable.
In the fifth guideline, PERF looks to British and their Critical Decision-Making Model. It is a cumbersome process of collecting information, assessing the situation, threats, & risks, considering police powers and agency policy, identifying options and determining the best course of action, and acting, reviewing, and re-assessing the situation. A MUCH simpler model is the Below 100 tenet of W.I.N. which stands for What's Important Now. As a trainer, I would hate to try and teach this British model.
The eighth principle says "Shooting at vehicles must be strictly prohibited." Not just prohibited, STRICTLY prohibited. I guess they mean extra prohibited. Did Dean Wormer from Animal House write this? He put the Delta House on "double secret probation" if you'll recall. PERF's explanation of this principle is "agencies should adopt a strict prohibition against shooting at or from a moving vehicle unless someone in the vehicle is using or threatening deadly force by means other than the vehicle itself." Wait, what? You said strictly prohibited. That means there shouldn't be any "unless." It's either prohibited or not, so which is it? Apparently it is not, but their "unless" doesn't go nearly far enough. What about the terrorist attack? In this day and age, police in this country need to think of a vehicle borne IED (see Oklahoma City). If a vehicle is reasonably suspected of containing one and it's headed for your local elementary school and the officers do NOTHING to try and stop it, that is one press conference I don't want to lead. Let's say we need to expand their "unless" to say something like an officer shouldn't shoot at or from a moving vehicle unless the danger of NOT shooting is greater than the danger of shooting.
Their 16th guideline I agree with to a point. They advocate replacing the so-called 21 foot rule and "drawing a line in the sand." They say it's outdated. It is not. It is woefully misunderstood by many as well as either incorrectly trained or incorrectly understood. I always understood it mean, 21 foot is the absolute minimum that an officer with a holstered firearm can accurately shoot a suspect armed with an edged weapon who is charging at them. I watched the original Street Survival video "Surviving Edged Weapons" when I was in the academy in 1989. This is a very specific threat. If the suspect is not charging at them, we are not supposed to fire. PERF advocates training officers to use distance and cover to create a "reaction gap" or barrier between themselves and such an armed subject. I completely agree with this training concept. We as trainers need to better explain this so officers don't misunderstand this. I personally think it is being properly trained more often than not.
Getting supervisory response to critical incidents (22nd principle) is a great idea. If you are in a large agency or one which covers a smaller area, this is probably already happening. They say supervisors should immediately respond to any scene where a weapon of any sort is reported, where a person with mental health problems are reported, or where a dispatcher or other member of the department believes there is potential for a use of force. Wow! I figure some days in large cities, just about every call will involve the report of a weapon. Does Chicago PD have that many Sergeants? What about the rural sheriff's department out in west Texas. It might take the responding officer 30 minutes or more to get there. You'll see the same situation in the big counties in my state, West Virginia. You can only go so fast on winding mountain roads. By the time a supervisor can get there, the incident has been over for an hour. I don't even want to try to ascertain how they expect us to determine what is a "potential" use of force situation. I guess we could develop some decision tree model, but PERF would just tell us it's wrong anyway. There is really always a potential for a use of force on every call.
Their 28th principle is the use of Personal Protection shields during critical incidents, including situations involving knives, bats, or other improvised weapons. Again these are great, but who is going to buy them? Note in the beginning I mentioned that 74.9% of our local police departments are 24 officers or less. Are we to carry them on every domestic violence call? I really don't think that will help build rapport with a domestic violence victim. What will their sudden appearance do to an already volatile situation where a crowd is already on edge? (see Ferguson)
Finally, their 30th principle, "educate the families of persons with mental health problems on communicating with call-takers," seems like a nice idea. I am skeptical because it is the families that mostly abandon their mentally ill relative. I agree, it's not all their fault. Our mental health system is horrendous and there is an aversion to forcibly committing people to mental health institutions, even those who need it. By the time the families are calling 911, they just want the police to handle the issue. This is in the faulty belief that we have special powers to get their mentally ill relative the help they need. We do not. In my opinion, we need to have a system that includes possible forced mental health treatment in this country. It would include ranges of options. Obviously, it would need funded and it's not really the subject of this posting.
The danger with PERF's publication is all of this will be thrown in our faces. Every department from NYPD to the single officer agency will be expected to comply with all 30 principles. Most officers understand no agency in the country will actually be able to comply with all 30. One would hope PERF would have had input of the top trainers in the world. There are many organizations that could have been asked to help. Organizations like the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, the Force Science Institute, and the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors are all entities which should have been asked to contribute. I fear they weren't asked because of what they would have actually pushed for.
Again, not all 30 principles are bad. There are good things in there. The danger I think, will be from the few I outlined.
