[Baltimore Citizens Academy] — Use of Force Training and Deescalation

This discussion was lead by Lieutenant Brown and Sergent Corso. Lt Brown is part of the training division, and has been responsible for training every officer in the BPD on appropriate use of force techniques, starting at the beginning of 2017.

The police have been taking their licks lately for their use of force. Its easy to find examples of it, as you only have to keep track of the settlements against the city for use of force claims, such as officers tasing individuals that were passively resisting, a man who was cavity searched on the side of the road, or a man who was run over by police after a foot chase. These are serious incidents and cost the city millions of dollars.

A great example is this 2012 incident when a woman recorded the police beating a young man. She started recording from her car, and the officers surrounded her car, grabbed her phone, smashed it, pulled her out by her hair and arrested her. She ended up being awarded $220,000 in 2017.

These issues are not limited to Baltimore. Another example from outside of Baltimore is this Stockton, California youth that was arrested, and beaten for jaywalking.

A few things that were done wrong in both of these videos:

• Officers were emotionally compromised because they were mad at the subject about something
• Officer stepped into the subject’s space, unnecessarily
• This was not de-escalation, but was blatant escalation
• They did not keep space between themselves and the subject.

The Justice Department’s 2016 report devoted 40 pages (starting on page 76) to talking about BPD’s unreasonable uses of force. Some of the things covered are:

• Aggressive tactics that unnecessarily escalate encounter that result in excessive force
• Unreasonable force against mentally ill or persons in crisis
• Unreasonable fore and not using widely accepted strategies for police interactions with youths
• Unreasonable force against people who are not a threat to the public or officers
• Lack of training and policies for dealing with individuals with disabilities
• Elevated risk of harm due to BPD’s transport practices

What was the process that went wrong?

So the Justice Department said that the result of police interactions were improper, but what was the policy that got them to that place?

Similar to a diagram our presentation, but taken from https://cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/use-of-force.pdf

By BPD policy, they are using best practices, as they have five levels of resistance, that are shown in the diagram to the left. In general:

• Compliant and passive resistance would be situations where someone needs to be taken in just because they don’t have ID, or something similar. Someone who is compliant is cooperating with the officer, while passive resistance would be someone that is ignoring commands, not moving when asked, falling limply, or becoming dead weight. The person of interest is not physically resisting in any way, and handcuffs or a baton as an escort tool should be the most force that is used.
• Active resistance would be if the person is taking actions to stop the arrest, such as walking/running away, or breaking the officer’s grip.
• Aggressive resistance moves from resisting arrest, to harming the officer. This level of resistance are things like punching, kicking, or attacking with a weapon that would not cause officer death
• Aggravated aggressive resistance are actions that are likely to result in the death of the officer, such as using a firearm, knife, or extreme physical force.

The diagram above shows the reasonable force that goes along with each of these levels of force, and are a standard that are accepted in the policing community.

The issue that has faced the Baltimore Police Department, and departments across the county is when the officer’s response does not match the suspect’s actions. The videos at the top were perfect examples of individuals that were passively resisting, and were faced with officers that were unwarranted.

Theoretically, there is some oversight when there is a use of force. BPD’s use of force policy says if a weapon is drawn, or a taser is used, the first line supervisor needs to investigate the situation. The investigation happens even if the weapon is pulled but not used. If a weapon is used or there is an injury, the Special Investigations Response Team should respond to the scene and investigate. Officers are put in administrative status while the investigation completes.

Lt Brown and Sergent Coroso said that while they have drawn their firearm countless times, they have never had to use their weapons in their 10+ year careers, which is common. They agreed that there are officers who resort to their guns much too quickly, and that those officers need to be identified and dealt with.

Theoretically, the BPD Use of Force police would root out the issues and problem officers, but as the Baltimore Sun investigation from 2014 showed, there are many officers that are repeat offenders who are not being caught by the existing processes.

Why don’t they shoot to wound?

If an officer needs to use force, and they feel that they need to use their handgun, why do they shoot to kill instead of shooting to wound? Can’t they shoot a shoulder, leg or foot?

Lt Brown said that they do not shoot to kill, but that they shoot for the center of mass because they are looking to land the shot. If the situation has escalated to the point of using a handgun, then its beyond the point of disarming. Officers are not sharp shooters, and urban situations can have innocent bystanders. Shooting for an extremity risks missing and hitting someone else. These are split second decisions with elevated emotions.

What are they changing?

Lieutenant Brown made no excuses for the way the department has used force. As the officer that has been responsible for training every single BPD officer in 2017, from top to bottom, it is good to know that they are taking this very seriously. This involves every officer taking a two day, six module course covering tactics, strategies, verbal and non verbal communication, and sound tactics. The main things they focus on are:

• Effective communications — verbal persuasion tactics
• Using distance, cover and time when appropriate
• Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training
• Assessing the threat level of a situation
• Effective decision making
• Officer and public safety — focus on the sanctity of life of both the officer and the public they work with

That’s not to say that de-escalation is the silver bullet that will make it so police never need to use their guns. But there are cases, such as the one caught on Officer Angel Villaronga’s body worn camera, where de-escalation can reduce a situation from a potential shooting incident to a calm encounter.

Lt Brown talked about how Officer Villaronga handled a suicidal person well, and did many of the things well that were covered in the training, such as avoiding critiquing the person, condemning their actions, or complaining. The take home point is that suicidal thoughts are fleeting, so just keep talking to them. Mental health training is new to the police, so many of these things are legitimately new things to them.

The end goal is to resolve the scene safely. That means that there are times when de-escalation is not appropriate. However, it should be the first tools that are used, such as this incident with a mentally ill former Marine, which illustrates how de-escalation can be used with persons in crisis.

So why are there so many videos of police basically escalating situations? Up until the last few years, police were trained to go fast, yell louder, and not give up ground. The thinking was “If you don’t act quickly, you are dead”. Its the idea where a situation can turn deadly in a split second, and you don’t want to be the second to act.

BPD says they are undoing that culture as of this year. This is a great example of the consent decree making very marked changes to how the department works.

Some of the changes are also about how they approach situations. While there are ‘code 1’ situations, like a buglary in progress, where they need to move fast to get there, there are other situations, like a person in crisis where there is some value to moving slower. That possibly means driving to the call slower, approaching the situation from a block away (instead of pulling up to the door), or casing out the situation with some of the people around it. But it all depends on the call.

You might be thinking, “we are already short on police; why are we training them to go slower?”. Think of it this way: if you are running late to a meeting, are you able to come in relaxed and ready to go, or are you frazzled, with your mind elsewhere? If a police officer is responding to a situation of a mentally ill person that is looking to commit suicide by cop, would you rather the cop show up frazzled, or relaxed? One tends to have better outcomes.

An example of moving slower was a situation in Seattle Washington where a homeless individual with a sword had a standoff with the police. They could have approached him, and shot him. But instead, they blocked off the road, and tried to talk him down for 11 hours. They bribed him with money or food. Eventually, they used a water cannon on him to end the situation, but he was unharmed. He had just gotten out of a psychiatric hospital the year before, and was an alcoholic, Vietnam veteran, living on the street, who later reported that he thought the police were demons. This situation could have easily gone a different way.

Other elements to de-escalation are to train officers to not put themselves in jeopardy. For example, if a car is racing down the road, don’t stand in front of it and start shooting. That situation puts the officer in unnecessary jeopardy. In that situation, its probably better to call in the Foxtrot helicopter for a safe pursuit. If a person has a knife, then don’t get so close to them that you would be forced to use force if they lunge.

However, there are times when de-escalation is not warranted. Even with all of the communication techniques, and space, and methods that we have talked about, its time to worry about the safety of the officer and use lethal force. Officer Kyle Dinkheller pulled over a Vietnam veteran who was suffering from PTSD, which is a classic category of a person in crisis. Officer Kinkheller told the individual to get back 20 times. He told him to drop the gun seven times. There was 35 seconds between when the gun was pulled out until shots were fired. The Officer did everything in his power to de-escalate the situation, but force was required in this situation.

Example Situation

As of 2017, new recruits have to go through 50 training situations where they need to practice their de-escalation techniques. We got to do one of the more basic ones, which was a suicidal individual in a bar. We were paired up, and sent in to deal with the person without any advance knowledge, other than the fact that it was a person with a knife in a bar.

My partner and I walked in, and I took a secondary role. When two officers are dealing with a situation, one is the primary one that is dealing with the subject, and the other officer is the backup that is keeping a bit more situational awareness about the room, and any threats that might be coming from behind.

We walked in and it was clear that this was a suicide situation because the person was in a very bad financial situation, and had just lost money playing Keno. My partner quickly started talking to the individual, and, as we had learned, he avoiding critiquing the person, condemning their actions, or complaining. And most importantly, he just kept talking.

It was hard. “I have no money. What am I going to do?” “There are options, you don’t need to kill yourself.” “Are you going to help me?”

Additionally, we were in a very confined space, where things could have gone poorly if he had lunged at us with the knife. We had our hands ready to draw our handgun, but we were told afterwards that we should have had it out. Ideally, he would have had his taser drawn, and I (the cover officer) would have had my handgun drawn, as they do take some time to get out and aimed, in case the situation escalates.

The real takeaway is that you should not have to think twice about calling the police for help for your family members, because you are worried about them using lethal force.

Basically, the officer needs to think if possible. Then use force if necessary. In 2018, the BPD will start collecting data on interactions that are medical issues versus interactions that are criminal issues, which they hope will allow them to measure some of the changes that are being implemented.

Simulator

They also put us in a simulator, where we stood in front of a screen with a fake gun in our hand, and were allowed to walk through a situation that an officer might deal with. There was an officer that was behind us that was controlling the simulation depending on how we acted in the situation.

The first was a domestic dispute where the husband was beating a female. We peaked in the window and told him to stop. As the female ran out of the room, he turned and showed that he had a gun. The simulation was setup where you were supposed to shoot the individual, although there was ample levels of cover around, and the female was out of the room. It seemed like the perfect situation where de-escalation techniques like time, distance and cover would be appropriate. Call in the SWAT team and treat it as a barricaded suspect, and let tempers cool. But the simulator was not setup to allow that.

The other situation was a guy that had broken into a warehouse, and had his other hand hidden behind a box. He was refusing to raise his other hand. This was a situation where I had the gun pointed at him and was yelling commands at him. Put your other hand up, but it was also a situation where I was slowly moving around the individual to be able to see his other hand. If he had moved quickly, things likely would have ended poorly, as I was developing an itchy trigger finger with this person because he was being uncooperative, but it ended up that he only had his wallet.

Its easy to look back on situation and second guess officers, and Lt Brown agrees that many of the situations have been pretty bad. Its up to the department to give officers the training to better deal with those situations so that they are able to avoid putting themselves in bad positions, and to have the tools to bring down the tension, as opposed to ramping it up.