7 ms·

Police Start to Reconsider Longstanding Rules on Using Force

79 points by joshrotenberg 11y ago

Zikes 11y ago
As far as I can tell, the rules that are on the books for handling dangerous situations is not at issue, it's the complete disregard for those and any other rules. It's the rampant abuse of power that's the real problem. There is no longer any accountability or consequence for a police officer committing the most heinous of crimes in the United States. At worst they'll get fired, then hired back onto the force in the next town over.
- gluecode 11y ago
  Nowadays, the police looks fearsome and threatening with their high tech automatic gear and offensive stance. They are not approachable. Why does policing require these military style weapons?
  - Zikes 11y ago
    I do find it hard to believe they can have access to all of that military tech and not have some incentive to use it as often as possible. Maybe it's "toys", maybe it's "budget" (the more expensive the equipment the higher their overall budget), but whatever it is, it's costly for taxpayers and dangerous for anyone the police interact with.
  - chokolad 11y ago
    What's the difference between military style weapons and police style weapons? which specific weapons do you refer to?
    - ameister14 11y ago
      it's mostly down to apcs and a change in uniform, coupled with a rise in swat team usage and flashbang/fully automatic weaponry.
    - mod 11y ago
      Flashbangs, fully automatic rifles, armored vehicles, tanks--those are some military weapons that have no place in a police force, IMO. I think they should be more-or-less limited to a standard patrol officer's gear, plus specific proven tactical setups, for specific situations, like sniper rifles when hostages are taken.
    - chokolad 11y ago
      > Flashbangs, fully automatic rifles, armored vehicles, tanks--those are some military weapons that have no place in a police force, IMO. Not sure what the etiquette of HN in replying to deep message threads is so I'll try it here. We'll see if it sticks As far as I understand police officers on the streets do not routinely carry flashbangs nor drive armored vehicles. They do have an AR-15 style rifles in the patrol cars, but those are not fully-automatic though they do look like military M4/M16. Flashbangs and APCs are SWAT team toys.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - tomschlick 11y ago
        Serious question. We have guns in the US. Lots of them. Leaving the politics of that aside. What do you expect police to use when they need to approach a barricaded person or extract someone in the line of fire? A Bearcat/MRAP is the perfect tool. Its big (hides officers visually), armored, and relatively cheap to buy & maintain vs outfitting patrol cars with armor. It has zero offensive capability unless you count sitting someone on top of it with a rife. I can understand (and I agree) with not wanting them to use armored vehicles in certain situations (non-violent protests, non violent drug raids, etc) but do you really not want them to have the capability at all?
        marssaxman 11y ago
        There are all kinds of extreme and extremely implausible situations which could be used to justify extreme firepower, but it is not a good idea to use a military force as a police service. Ergo, we must accept that the right call will sometimes be "back away and negotiate".
        tomschlick 11y ago
        Is an active shooter a "back away and negotiate" situation? What about when rioters are throwing 5lb chunks of concrete at firefighters/police like they did in baltimore this past week? I can't be in the minority here thinking that armored vehicles have a use case and that we should dictate those use cases by policy. Removing them all removes the ability to stop those shit hits the fan scenarios in a timely manner.
    - vacri 11y ago
      Military weapons are designed for maximum lethality, police weapons are designed for minimum lethality. Military weapons are about killing opponents, police weapons are about controlling citizens. There's not much call for a soldier to be sent into battle with a taser, or for a police officer to be on duty with a SAW.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > Military weapons are designed for maximum lethality, police weapons are designed for minimum lethality. That's actually not true in either case. Military weapons are designed (or at least, selected) for cost-effective lethality -- even the heavy-spending US weighs logistical concerns heavily. And police weapons are, for the most part, not designed for minimal lethality (TASERs are designed intentionally as less-lethal weapons, but they aren't cops main weapons.)
        vacri 11y ago
        cost-effective Everything is designed for cost-effectiveness in this age of economic rationalism. Military weapons, police weapons, this keyboard I'm typing on... being cost-effective is not a hallmark of being military. TASERS ... aren't cops main weapons In some parts of the US. Which is the problem being discussed here: that police in the US reach first for the lethal solution. Police in the UK don't often carry firearms at all. Police here in Australia carry firearms, but they're a weapon of last resort, not their 'main weapon'.
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Because the median cop is a washed up loser with an authoritarian complex pissed he can't shoot people for any reason or no reason at all? Asking why monitoring eg Ferguson demonstrations require the same military gear as rolling through Fallujah makes you a dirty hippie, and probably a communist. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/14/ferguson-and-the-shocking-nature-of-us-police-militarization http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/14/ferguson-and-...
Someone1234 11y ago
One of the problems with US police in general seems to be that levels and quality of training vary so wildly. You have some "world class" police training programs, while others seem to be almost akin to slapping a badge and a gun on the first person who walks in the door. I have no idea if what I am about to suggest is even legal, but I'd like to see congress pass a reform bill which contains: - A minimum level of training and minimum continuing education requirement for all levels of police (state, county, federal, etc). Similar to No Child Left Behind (but for cops). - Civilian oversight of police complaints (akin to what other countries have). Or failing that federal oversight. - Federal funding to develop better officer education programs (with goals including officer safety, de-escalation, alternatives to use of force, and ethics). - Reform asset forfeiture. All funds now also have to go to local education, homeless shelters, or similar. Nothing officer benefiting can be funded. Also someone has to have actually committed and been prosecuted for a crime(!).
- yincrash 11y ago
  I think the main problem with your suggestion is that different jurisdictions have different police needs. Should a single officer department in a rural county enact the same programs that NYC has?
  - mak4athp 11y ago
    Which of the above suggestions wouldn't apply to both? I understand what you're saying in general, but there are a lot of universals that would apply across all kinds of jurisdictions.
    - mod 11y ago
      I think mainly the training regimen could vary wildly based on local needs.
      - Swizec 11y ago
        I imagine someone in a tiny town in Alaska would need more training on dealing with wildlife than somebody in NYC would. Their training on handling humans should be pretty much the same. With the exception that rural people probably have more and bigger guns than NYC people.
jobu 11y ago
"Like the 21-foot rule, many current police practices were adopted when officers faced violent street gangs. Crime rates soared, as did the number of officers killed. Today, crime is at historic lows and most cities are safer than they have been in generations, for residents and officers alike. This should be a moment of high confidence in the police, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy group. Instead, he said, policing is in crisis." Seeing cops with tanks in Ferguson, Missouri has been a wake-up call for many Americans. Fortunately many on the left and the right (http://truthinmedia.com/billionaire-koch-brothers-fund-campaign-against-police-militarization/ http://truthinmedia.com/billionaire-koch-brothers-fund-campa...) agree that it isn't appropriate, so hopefully we will start to see some change.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  The vast majority of police should not be armed. They are simply not well enough trained.
  - ant512 11y ago
    /s/police/people
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    If the population is armed the police should be armed. Simple as that. Good luck getting the population disarmed in less than a century, and thats if you get them to pass the constitutional amendment first.
    - Zigurd 11y ago
      > If the population is armed the police should be armed. Interesting assertion. But there is no basis in fact. Legal gun owners, think of them and their choices what you will, also tend to be law-abiding.
      - tomschlick 11y ago
mrb 11y ago
I am very surprised the article doesn't mention the american "shoot-to-kill" policy, despite the fact it gives the perfect example of how this policy is overkill (pun intended). If a knife-yielding attacker runs toward you, police in other countries (say western Europe) will shoot at the legs to NOT kill the attacker but sufficiently harm him so that he is not a threat anymore. But in America the shoot-to-kill policy is so deeply ingrained in every officer's training that they only see 2 choices --when should I kill or not kill-- as depicted by that officer's simple question at the beginning of the article ("How close can somebody get to me before I’m justified in using deadly force?"). I have done research in the past on why the shoot-to-kill policy became prevalent in the US but not in other countries, and I have never found an answer. This puzzles me more than it should. Edit: to the replies saying "if you don't intend to kill, don't shoot", you are wrong. This is precisely why tasers and non-lethal weapons were invented: there are many situations were harming or incapacitating an assailant is needed without necessarily killing him. On this note I agree a taser would be a safer weapon than trying to cause harm with a firearm. But my general comment is meant to apply to scenarios where a police officer cannot make the choice of firing with a taser[1]: in this case shooting to harm is better than shooting to kill. [1] For whatever reason: he has no taser, or a firearm is the weapon he has in his hands during the split second where he has to decide to shoot, etc.
- mod 11y ago
  (I'm American) Despite having some major complaints with police, I do not have any problem with police using deadly force against an assailant running at them with an exposed knife. Additionally, I think aiming for the legs in that situation is largely a mistake. Perhaps the article skipped that point because it would be lost on us, given that I think my opinion is widely-held in this country.
- BWStearns 11y ago
  The intent, as I have been explained about this policy, is to bias the officer towards the "not shooting at all" side of the equation. If I can shoot to maim when killing would be inappropriate I might shoot more often and gunshot wounds can be lethal in a surprising amount of places (shoot the leg, get the femoral artery, still get a dead guy). Ultimately it looks like this logic might have failed, but without knowing more we can't know that we don't just have a trigger happy culture and lessening the threshold for gunplay wouldn't have an even more negative effect. If someone has data beyond European stats (there seem to be too many disparities for even comparison; gun ownership, police armament, societal attitudes towards police, etc.) I'd be very interested.
grecy 11y ago
Police in the US have killed 398 so far in 2015 [1] German Police used only 85 bullets against people in all of 2011. [2] Germany Population: 81 million USA population: 323 million (3.99x bigger) So, if the USA were like Germany, Police would only use 340 bullets against people PER YEAR. Not 398 deaths in 6 months, but 340 bullets used for an entire year! Something is very different about the way the Police in the US approach situations. [1] http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ [2] http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-against-people-2011/52162/ http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/german-police-used-onl...
- mod 11y ago
  And police in the UK went two years without fatally shooting anyone. [1] Something is very different about the way the Police in Germany approach situations... You're not wrong, certainly--US police do approach things differently. Perhaps US citizens respond differently. I think there's more to think about than the very surface of the data. [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/police-in-england-and-wales-went-two-years-without-fatally-shooting-someone/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/police-in-england-and-wal...
- dmishe 11y ago
  Let's include gun ownership stats in this, some state or a city maybe.
  - rbcgerard 11y ago
    agreed - comparing the UK's relatively unarmed populace is not a good comparison. The problem is that the U.S. is very heterogeneous when it comes to crime and gun laws: Hawaii (strict gun laws, and safe) Illinois (strict gun laws, unsafe) Vermont (loose gun laws, safe) Louisiana (loose gun laws, unsafe)
- rhino369 11y ago
  You can't just go by population. America is just a vastly more violent nation. America has a 6X higher murder rate. America has higher handgun ownership, which is a cause of many of the police shootings.
ufmace 11y ago
I hope they - both the article authors and the trainers being described - know what the 21-foot rule is supposed to mean. A person with a drawn knife 21 feet from you does not mean that it's time to shoot them, even if they haven't made a move towards you. It means that the time for a healthy person to run up to you is close enough to the time to draw and fire a holstered weapon that you're at risk, so you should address either the closing distance or draw time by backing off or behind obstacles or drawing the weapon before any attack starts.
frandroid 11y ago
This article is missing a critical criteria: racism. It's quite obvious that police officers (worldwide, but particularly in the United States) are more likely to shoot black suspects than white ones. This is not a training problem.
jqm 11y ago
Good manners, a soft tone and respect for other people is what most police officers are sorely missing. A hostile attitude often escalates situations which could have been completely prevented or resolved differently. Unsurprisingly, treating people with complete disrespect often elicits a fight response. What police departments really need more than anything else are strong "don't be a dick" policies that are rigorously enforced. Along with more "how not to be a dick" training seminars. One can be firm and even shoot someone when needed all without being one. Let the dicks go be mall cops. The guys with real guns should have above average patience and compassion. We should demand this and we should be willing to pay for it.

79 points by joshrotenberg 11y ago

Zikes 11y ago

As far as I can tell, the rules that are on the books for handling dangerous situations is not at issue, it's the complete disregard for those and any other rules. It's the rampant abuse of power that's the real problem. There is no longer any accountability or consequence for a police officer committing the most heinous of crimes in the United States. At worst they'll get fired, then hired back onto the force in the next town over.

gluecode 11y ago
Nowadays, the police looks fearsome and threatening with their high tech automatic gear and offensive stance. They are not approachable. Why does policing require these military style weapons?
- Zikes 11y ago
  I do find it hard to believe they can have access to all of that military tech and not have some incentive to use it as often as possible. Maybe it's "toys", maybe it's "budget" (the more expensive the equipment the higher their overall budget), but whatever it is, it's costly for taxpayers and dangerous for anyone the police interact with.
- chokolad 11y ago
  What's the difference between military style weapons and police style weapons? which specific weapons do you refer to?
  - ameister14 11y ago
    it's mostly down to apcs and a change in uniform, coupled with a rise in swat team usage and flashbang/fully automatic weaponry.
  - mod 11y ago
    Flashbangs, fully automatic rifles, armored vehicles, tanks--those are some military weapons that have no place in a police force, IMO. I think they should be more-or-less limited to a standard patrol officer's gear, plus specific proven tactical setups, for specific situations, like sniper rifles when hostages are taken.
  - chokolad 11y ago
    > Flashbangs, fully automatic rifles, armored vehicles, tanks--those are some military weapons that have no place in a police force, IMO. Not sure what the etiquette of HN in replying to deep message threads is so I'll try it here. We'll see if it sticks As far as I understand police officers on the streets do not routinely carry flashbangs nor drive armored vehicles. They do have an AR-15 style rifles in the patrol cars, but those are not fully-automatic though they do look like military M4/M16. Flashbangs and APCs are SWAT team toys.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - tomschlick 11y ago
      Serious question. We have guns in the US. Lots of them. Leaving the politics of that aside. What do you expect police to use when they need to approach a barricaded person or extract someone in the line of fire? A Bearcat/MRAP is the perfect tool. Its big (hides officers visually), armored, and relatively cheap to buy & maintain vs outfitting patrol cars with armor. It has zero offensive capability unless you count sitting someone on top of it with a rife. I can understand (and I agree) with not wanting them to use armored vehicles in certain situations (non-violent protests, non violent drug raids, etc) but do you really not want them to have the capability at all?
      - marssaxman 11y ago
        There are all kinds of extreme and extremely implausible situations which could be used to justify extreme firepower, but it is not a good idea to use a military force as a police service. Ergo, we must accept that the right call will sometimes be "back away and negotiate".
        tomschlick 11y ago
        Is an active shooter a "back away and negotiate" situation? What about when rioters are throwing 5lb chunks of concrete at firefighters/police like they did in baltimore this past week? I can't be in the minority here thinking that armored vehicles have a use case and that we should dictate those use cases by policy. Removing them all removes the ability to stop those shit hits the fan scenarios in a timely manner.
  - vacri 11y ago
    Military weapons are designed for maximum lethality, police weapons are designed for minimum lethality. Military weapons are about killing opponents, police weapons are about controlling citizens. There's not much call for a soldier to be sent into battle with a taser, or for a police officer to be on duty with a SAW.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Military weapons are designed for maximum lethality, police weapons are designed for minimum lethality. That's actually not true in either case. Military weapons are designed (or at least, selected) for cost-effective lethality -- even the heavy-spending US weighs logistical concerns heavily. And police weapons are, for the most part, not designed for minimal lethality (TASERs are designed intentionally as less-lethal weapons, but they aren't cops main weapons.)
      - vacri 11y ago
        cost-effective Everything is designed for cost-effectiveness in this age of economic rationalism. Military weapons, police weapons, this keyboard I'm typing on... being cost-effective is not a hallmark of being military. TASERS ... aren't cops main weapons In some parts of the US. Which is the problem being discussed here: that police in the US reach first for the lethal solution. Police in the UK don't often carry firearms at all. Police here in Australia carry firearms, but they're a weapon of last resort, not their 'main weapon'.
- x0x0 11y ago
  Because the median cop is a washed up loser with an authoritarian complex pissed he can't shoot people for any reason or no reason at all? Asking why monitoring eg Ferguson demonstrations require the same military gear as rolling through Fallujah makes you a dirty hippie, and probably a communist. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/14/ferguson-and-the-shocking-nature-of-us-police-militarization http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/08/14/ferguson-and-...

Someone1234 11y ago

One of the problems with US police in general seems to be that levels and quality of training vary so wildly. You have some "world class" police training programs, while others seem to be almost akin to slapping a badge and a gun on the first person who walks in the door. I have no idea if what I am about to suggest is even legal, but I'd like to see congress pass a reform bill which contains: - A minimum level of training and minimum continuing education requirement for all levels of police (state, county, federal, etc). Similar to No Child Left Behind (but for cops). - Civilian oversight of police complaints (akin to what other countries have). Or failing that federal oversight. - Federal funding to develop better officer education programs (with goals including officer safety, de-escalation, alternatives to use of force, and ethics). - Reform asset forfeiture. All funds now also have to go to local education, homeless shelters, or similar. Nothing officer benefiting can be funded. Also someone has to have actually committed and been prosecuted for a crime(!).

yincrash 11y ago
I think the main problem with your suggestion is that different jurisdictions have different police needs. Should a single officer department in a rural county enact the same programs that NYC has?
- mak4athp 11y ago
  Which of the above suggestions wouldn't apply to both? I understand what you're saying in general, but there are a lot of universals that would apply across all kinds of jurisdictions.
  - mod 11y ago
    I think mainly the training regimen could vary wildly based on local needs.
    - Swizec 11y ago
      I imagine someone in a tiny town in Alaska would need more training on dealing with wildlife than somebody in NYC would. Their training on handling humans should be pretty much the same. With the exception that rural people probably have more and bigger guns than NYC people.

jobu 11y ago

"Like the 21-foot rule, many current police practices were adopted when officers faced violent street gangs. Crime rates soared, as did the number of officers killed. Today, crime is at historic lows and most cities are safer than they have been in generations, for residents and officers alike. This should be a moment of high confidence in the police, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy group. Instead, he said, policing is in crisis." Seeing cops with tanks in Ferguson, Missouri has been a wake-up call for many Americans. Fortunately many on the left and the right (http://truthinmedia.com/billionaire-koch-brothers-fund-campaign-against-police-militarization/ http://truthinmedia.com/billionaire-koch-brothers-fund-campa...) agree that it isn't appropriate, so hopefully we will start to see some change.

Zigurd 11y ago
The vast majority of police should not be armed. They are simply not well enough trained.
- ant512 11y ago
  /s/police/people
- tomschlick 11y ago
  If the population is armed the police should be armed. Simple as that. Good luck getting the population disarmed in less than a century, and thats if you get them to pass the constitutional amendment first.
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    > If the population is armed the police should be armed. Interesting assertion. But there is no basis in fact. Legal gun owners, think of them and their choices what you will, also tend to be law-abiding.
    - tomschlick 11y ago

mrb 11y ago

I am very surprised the article doesn't mention the american "shoot-to-kill" policy, despite the fact it gives the perfect example of how this policy is overkill (pun intended). If a knife-yielding attacker runs toward you, police in other countries (say western Europe) will shoot at the legs to NOT kill the attacker but sufficiently harm him so that he is not a threat anymore. But in America the shoot-to-kill policy is so deeply ingrained in every officer's training that they only see 2 choices --when should I kill or not kill-- as depicted by that officer's simple question at the beginning of the article ("How close can somebody get to me before I’m justified in using deadly force?"). I have done research in the past on why the shoot-to-kill policy became prevalent in the US but not in other countries, and I have never found an answer. This puzzles me more than it should. Edit: to the replies saying "if you don't intend to kill, don't shoot", you are wrong. This is precisely why tasers and non-lethal weapons were invented: there are many situations were harming or incapacitating an assailant is needed without necessarily killing him. On this note I agree a taser would be a safer weapon than trying to cause harm with a firearm. But my general comment is meant to apply to scenarios where a police officer cannot make the choice of firing with a taser[1]: in this case shooting to harm is better than shooting to kill. [1] For whatever reason: he has no taser, or a firearm is the weapon he has in his hands during the split second where he has to decide to shoot, etc.

mod 11y ago
(I'm American) Despite having some major complaints with police, I do not have any problem with police using deadly force against an assailant running at them with an exposed knife. Additionally, I think aiming for the legs in that situation is largely a mistake. Perhaps the article skipped that point because it would be lost on us, given that I think my opinion is widely-held in this country.
BWStearns 11y ago
The intent, as I have been explained about this policy, is to bias the officer towards the "not shooting at all" side of the equation. If I can shoot to maim when killing would be inappropriate I might shoot more often and gunshot wounds can be lethal in a surprising amount of places (shoot the leg, get the femoral artery, still get a dead guy). Ultimately it looks like this logic might have failed, but without knowing more we can't know that we don't just have a trigger happy culture and lessening the threshold for gunplay wouldn't have an even more negative effect. If someone has data beyond European stats (there seem to be too many disparities for even comparison; gun ownership, police armament, societal attitudes towards police, etc.) I'd be very interested.

grecy 11y ago

Police in the US have killed 398 so far in 2015 [1] German Police used only 85 bullets against people in all of 2011. [2] Germany Population: 81 million USA population: 323 million (3.99x bigger) So, if the USA were like Germany, Police would only use 340 bullets against people PER YEAR. Not 398 deaths in 6 months, but 340 bullets used for an entire year! Something is very different about the way the Police in the US approach situations. [1] http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/ [2] http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/german-police-used-only-85-bullets-against-people-2011/52162/ http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/german-police-used-onl...

mod 11y ago
And police in the UK went two years without fatally shooting anyone. [1] Something is very different about the way the Police in Germany approach situations... You're not wrong, certainly--US police do approach things differently. Perhaps US citizens respond differently. I think there's more to think about than the very surface of the data. [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/police-in-england-and-wales-went-two-years-without-fatally-shooting-someone/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/police-in-england-and-wal...
dmishe 11y ago
Let's include gun ownership stats in this, some state or a city maybe.
- rbcgerard 11y ago
  agreed - comparing the UK's relatively unarmed populace is not a good comparison. The problem is that the U.S. is very heterogeneous when it comes to crime and gun laws: Hawaii (strict gun laws, and safe) Illinois (strict gun laws, unsafe) Vermont (loose gun laws, safe) Louisiana (loose gun laws, unsafe)
rhino369 11y ago
You can't just go by population. America is just a vastly more violent nation. America has a 6X higher murder rate. America has higher handgun ownership, which is a cause of many of the police shootings.

ufmace 11y ago

I hope they - both the article authors and the trainers being described - know what the 21-foot rule is supposed to mean. A person with a drawn knife 21 feet from you does not mean that it's time to shoot them, even if they haven't made a move towards you. It means that the time for a healthy person to run up to you is close enough to the time to draw and fire a holstered weapon that you're at risk, so you should address either the closing distance or draw time by backing off or behind obstacles or drawing the weapon before any attack starts.

frandroid 11y ago

This article is missing a critical criteria: racism. It's quite obvious that police officers (worldwide, but particularly in the United States) are more likely to shoot black suspects than white ones. This is not a training problem.

jqm 11y ago

Good manners, a soft tone and respect for other people is what most police officers are sorely missing. A hostile attitude often escalates situations which could have been completely prevented or resolved differently. Unsurprisingly, treating people with complete disrespect often elicits a fight response. What police departments really need more than anything else are strong "don't be a dick" policies that are rigorously enforced. Along with more "how not to be a dick" training seminars. One can be firm and even shoot someone when needed all without being one. Let the dicks go be mall cops. The guys with real guns should have above average patience and compassion. We should demand this and we should be willing to pay for it.