LAKE COUNTY >> Despite the circumstances of Michael Brown”s death, despite the arson and despite the teargas, a conversation is brewing throughout the nation. From New York City to Oakland, the public is questioning its peace officers” actions and headlines of officers” excessive use of force are increasingly getting bumped to the front page of news outlets.
In light of the growing frustrations across the county, it may be worth understanding how Lake County”s officers are trained to deal with escalated situations, how training philosophy has changed over the years and how officers are working to develop trust in the county while protecting both themselves and the public.
Unlike some states, California has laid the foundation for all law enforcement officials by establishing the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) more than 50 years ago. Almost all peace officers go through courses of minimum training standards in POST programs and its curriculum is periodically reviewed by subject experts to update the basic training requirements and best practices.
Specifically, the subject of the abuse of force has received much attention from the commission, according to Dean of the Napa Valley Criminal Justice Training Center Greg Miraglia.
“I”ve been teaching here for 28 years and I”ve seen continuous evolution in the curriculum, particularly in the area of abuse of force where students are instructed and tested in escalating and deescalating situations in not just a written format, but also in two practical formats,” Miraglia said.
Scenario testing provides a battery of simulated law enforcement situations where students are asked to make various decisions on how to approach a situation and then carry them out. Sustained resistance testing gives students the opportunity to demonstrate how they would deliver physical force to a padded instructor, who in turn simulates escalating and deescalating the situation.
The tests are carefully scripted and the stakes are high, according to Miraglia. A student has one extra chance to pass either physical or written tests but grades under a B for both tries will force the student to take the entire POST course again.
Perhaps police officers” decisions in escalated situations are more influenced by the philosophy under which they are trained than the standardized courses and testing that the state provides, though.
Quite a bit of leeway is allowed for chiefs of police in a region to define the type and style of academy they want, Miraglia said.
The Napa Valley Criminal Justice Training Center, for instance, relies heavily on input from the sheriffs of Napa and Solano counties and Miraglia defines his program as highly disciplined with moderate stress.
“We do nearly 50 hours in community and human relations,” he said. “Our belief is policing is a people business and public service job so officers have to be culturally competent and those human relations classes discussions are infused throughout the entire academy”s classes.
“It”s not like we don”t have a paramilitary structure either,” he added. “You can have both styles of teaching and both are necessary.”
For Napa”s POST program, fear-based training is not the answer though; instead it hopes to eliminate fear-based reactions by developing a trainee”s self-discipline, self-confidence and self-control, Miraglia said.
Another training method is being tested at a Washington police academy where empathy is stressed, rather than a military mentality that may be expected of more traditional academies. The courses seeks to mold trainees into guardians rather than warriors, impressing upon students the importance of treating citizens with dignity and respect.
Incoming sheriff Brian Martin is aware of the array of training environments offered at the different academies throughout the state and said he believes bringing a mixture of training experience to a department can be beneficial. Briefing and debriefing of situations are helpful in connecting and sharing those different philosophies between deputies, he said, and he plans on encouraging such discussions after he assumes office.
As for the criticism of law enforcement currently being expressed by protestors, Martin boils the issues down to the public”s misunderstanding of the situations officers face.
“”Shoot to kill” is a misnomer; you”d have a difficult time finding an agency that trains students to shoot to kill,” Martin said. “In firearms training, officers are taught to shoot until the threat against you or somebody else stops ? Shooting to wound is never provided in training because it”s nearly impossible and we don”t want to risk somebody”s life to aim for a small extremity. It”s not a realistic expectation.”
Instead, Martin said an officer”s ability to stop a suspect with deadly force but without killing them is almost always attributable to the actions of the suspect. Similarly, taking a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach is dependent on the situation an officer faces, Martin said.
He also notes, for every situation that comes under the public”s scrutiny, there”s plenty more that were handled “just perfectly.”
Asked if he felt a national database of the people killed in law enforcement encounters, (as recently demanded by protestors), would be a beneficial tool for the public, Martin said oversight of police departments already existed and pointed to the use of grand juries to investigate police officers” conduct, such as the one used in the shooting of Michael Brown, he said.
“We answer to the public,” Martin said. “There isn”t an agency around that wants heavy-handed abusive officers on its force.”
A big change Martin has seen in policing over the years is the increased level of scrutiny that officers are subject to.
“Everybody with a cell phone has a camera to video tape and every cop knows they”re going to be scrutinized if they use force,” Martin said.
Lakeport Police Department Chief Brad Rasmussen stresses the importance of continually training that prepares officers to respond to escalated situations in the safest ways possible.
He details the POST training that has to be renewed every two years for each officer, the internal training at his department, including firearms training every three months, and the practice of going over reports from other areas of the state or country to help officers think about what they would have done differently in a similar situation.
“Continuing to train and keeping our policies and procedures updated are the two things that are a big part of improving any area of work that we do,” Rasmussen said.
Concerning the protests that are currently rocking the county, Rasmussen is supportive of citizen”s first amendment rights as long as they are doing it peacefully.
Martin addressed the sentiment in the protests that the cops are “a bunch of heavy-handed thugs.”
“That”s not true,” he said. “People shouldn”t be afraid of the cops. We”re the first people you should run toward if you”re in trouble.”
Miraglia felt the issue was ultimately one of trust.
“I don”t know that what”s going on now is necessarily anything new; you look back in history and there”s always been disagreements about how police have used force,” he said. “I think it boils down to the struggle for the community and law enforcement to establish a trusting relationship. That relationship has to be worked on constantly.”
