A Return to Violent Times?

Dec. 24, 2014
Not since the 1970’s have law enforcement officers been the target of vitriol and hatred by a portion of our populace.

Not since the 1970’s have I seen such vitriol directed at police officers.  Recently I saw a photograph of a female college student in the face of one of one of California’s finest during a “peaceful protest” which coincidentally turned to violence including smashing windows at Berkeley (after all, nothing says peaceful change like assaulting police officers, smashing glass, burning cars and committing acts of vandalism…even better when you wear a mask to avoid detection, that’s really brave).  The photo fully captured the hatred she apparently felt in her pampered, isolated but “socially aware” little heart (with friends and other protestors recording her civil disobedience for posterity with their $500 smart phones…), it so trendy to verbally attack “the pigs” especially when you know they won’t react unless you assault them.

Facts? They don’t need nor care about the Facts

“Hands Up Don’t Shoot!”  It simply didn’t happen in the Michael Brown / Ferguson case as evidenced by witness testimony and the evidence presented to the Grand Jury (available on-line for those interested in the facts of the case).  But that makes no difference to some; it has now become “a metaphor” to connote excessive force.  I wonder what catchy saying they would have used if Michael Brown had robbed and attacked them, “Hands Up Give Him Your Loot!”

I watched a news report on the media.  The host, Howard Kurtz, was very hard on a reporter for Rolling Stone and how she didn’t attempt to get both sides of the story on a rape case.  Kurtz then went on to say he watched the Garner resisting in Staten Island 20 times and the NYPD choked Mr. Garner to death.  Of course, Kurtz didn’t attempt to get both sides of that story.  Nor attempt, in any way, to understand police use of force.  Facts are that the NYPD didn’t even render Eric Garner unconscious due to a neck restraint and that Mr. Garner was complaining he couldn’t breathe after the officer removed his arm from around Garner’s neck area.  But that doesn’t make any difference because, “I can’t breathe,” is another metaphor used by protestors to further their agenda.

Facts, you know those pesky things like the Garner video, the physical and forensic evidence as well as witness statements, have a way of interfering with preformed agendas and opinions.  The only problem is that most of the media is unwilling to listen or find the facts of Ferguson or the Garner death in custody or police use of force in general.  In all the coverage I’ve seen of both incidents, only one pundit, Laura Ingraham, a former attorney, mentioned Graham v. Connor and the Objective Reasonableness test of the Fourth Amendment, only one.

Former Police Officers Offer Uneducated Opinions

Worse than some talking head on TV is a former officer such as Seth Stoughton, a college professor and self-proclaimed scholar who offered his opinion for The Atlantic (12 December – “How Police Training Contributes to Avoidable Deaths”):

“Having served as an officer at a large municipal police department, and now as a scholar who researches policing, I am intimately familiar with police training. I’m not just relying on my own experience, though. I’ve had long conversations with officers and former officers, including firearms trainers and use-of-force instructors, at law enforcement agencies across the country, and they’ve all led to one conclusion: American police officers are among the best-trained in the world, but what they’re trained to do is part of the problem.

“In most police shootings, officers don’t shoot out of anger or frustration or hatred. They shoot because they are afraid. And they are afraid because they are constantly barraged with the message that that they should be afraid, that their survival depends on it. Not only do officers hear it in formal training, they also hear it informally from supervisors and older officers.”

Mr. Stoughton then uses officers killed and assaulted statistics to say things aren’t really that dangerous, “In percentage terms, officers were assaulted in about 0.09 percent of all interactions, were injured in some way in 0.02 percent of interactions, and were feloniously killed in 0.00008 percent of interactions.”  “… put those risks in perspective. Officers should be trained to keep that perspective in mind as they go about their jobs.”

Despite the fact that according the Bureau of Justice reports (National Crime Victimization Survey, Workplace Violence 1993-2009):

  • “From 2005 through 2009, of the occupational groups

examined, law enforcement occupations had the highest

average annual rate of workplace violence (48 violent crimes

per 1,000)…”

Professor Stoughton goes on, “Use-of-force training should also emphasize de-escalation and flexible tactics in a way that minimizes the need to rely on force, particularly lethal force.”

Wow professor, law enforcement officers didn’t know that.  It’s amazing that in the 63 million police / citizen interactions you cite each year, force is only used or threatened by police in 1.4% of the incidents, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2008; October, 2011).  That was down actually from 1.6% in 2008, imagine that…  What tactics do you think working police officers use in the vast amount, over 98% of those citizen contacts?  How about communication techniques and the “de-escalation” methods you state they don’t use!

Stoughton states, “Officers must also be trained to think beyond the gun-belt. The pepper spray, baton, Taser, and gun that are so easily accessible to officers are meant to be tools of last resort, to be used when non-violent tactics fail or aren’t an option.”  Actually no professor, an officer’s use of force must only be objectively reasonable, at the moment it is used, based on the totality of the circumstances (check out Graham v. Connor for more).  The force does not have to be minimal, necessary, or the least intrusive option available, and is not to be judged in 20/20 hindsight from the quiet sanctuary of a judge’s chambers (or a professor’s office on Monday morning).

For a self-admitted “scholar” the dear professor fails the test.  Let’s examine:

Pinizzotto, Davis, Bohrer and Infanti reported on the use of restraint in deadly force by law enforcement in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin:

“…70 percent responded that they had been involved in at least one situation where they could have discharged their firearm in the performance of their duties but chose not to fire.

“Only 20 percent of the sample had been involved in critical incidents where they fired their weapon during the incident.

“…80 percent responded that they had been assaulted at least once during their career.  27% responded that they had received an injury due to an assault that required time off from duty. 

“…officers in the sample used restraint 93 percent of the time when not legally mandated to do so.

“If officers risk their personal safety by using restraint in deadly force, why has this phenomenon largely gone unnoticed in the media and research?

“In regard to the media, cases involving deadly force overshadow the actuality that police officers overwhelmingly employ restraint in their use of deadly force.  Perhaps, this media focus on the use of deadly force helps create the misconception that police officers use deadly force more often than they actually do.”

                        Restraint in the Use of Deadly Force: A Preliminary Study (June, 2012)

 Conclusion

The 1970’s were a very dangerous time in law enforcement, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF).  In 1974 alone (280) LEO’s were killed compared to the (100) in 2013.  This downward trend of officers being killed follows the development and widespread issuance of soft body armor for cops (according to DuPont there are over 3,000 members of the Kevlar Survivor’s Club) as well as the increase in street survival or officer survival training.  Professor Stoughton condemns the very same training which has led to the decrease of officers killed and assaulted.  Further, advancement in medical trauma care over the years has saved many police officers who would have died in the 1970’s.

The hatred and vitriol of the 1970’s led unprecedented attack on police officers.  Is this what our anti-police politicians, college professors and community activists want?

We have a media disinterested in the facts, law professors ignoring the law and history of law enforcement while self-professing to be an expert on policing, and a group of anti-police activists who are spurning on anti-police thugs and anarchists.  *This is not to say that peaceful protestors don’t have the right to demonstrate for change.  As a strong supporter of the rights afforded us by the 1st Amendment, I encourage citizens to speak out.  I would just ask that they educate themselves as to the facts and not the lies, hyperbole and inflammatory rhetoric espoused purposely to deceive and inflame.

I have a long memory from 1982 when I entered law enforcement.  A year when (195) officers lost their lives in the line of duty and a time I don’t want to repeat.

*This column is dedicated to NYPD Officer’s Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos – RIP!

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