Close to 200 of the nation's top cops, along with DOJ and officials from the Obama administration, gathered in Washington, D.C. on Friday to discuss dramatic reforms to police tactics.
The police chiefs who attended the the forum titled "Taking Policing to a Higher Standard" at the Newseum that was organized by the Police Executive Research Forum were urged to implement new training and policies some believe could lead to a decrease in the number of officer-involved shootings, according to The Washington Post.
Read: Use of Force: 30 Guiding Principles for Taking Policing to a Higher Standard
"This is a defining moment for us in policing," Recently-retired Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who has served as the president of PERF, told those in attendance.
Ramsey said that police departments must act proactively to change their use-of-force policies instead of waiting until one of their officers is involved in a controversial shooting.
Chuck Wexler, executive director of PERF, said that the bar needs to be raised for all police departments and that last year alone there were hundreds of preventable fatal shootings by police.
Organizers called the shootings by officers "lawful but awful" and stressed that while they do not amount to a crime, they often spark community outrage.
Among reforms discussed at length were retraining all officers in deescalation tactics.
Several of the chiefs in attendance said that they have already seen significant resistance from their officers and local police unions to an attempt to change policies or to hold officers more accountable.
Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed David contended that drastic changes in tactics could potentially set the bar too high.
"When we get to this point where we start to say that we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, it's great rhetoric but . . . it's difficult for an agency to say 'even though the Supreme Court said this, we're gonna say that.' "