A group of 11 national police organizations issued a new model policy Tuesday for police departments nationwide that for the first time incorporates the concept of “de-escalation” when an officer is facing the choice of using deadly force. The new policy also recommends that police departments declare that “It is the policy of this law enforcement agency to value and preserve human life.”
In a backlash toward PERF and their 30 Guiding Principles Report, the new policy does allow for the firing at moving vehicles under certain circumstances.
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The International Association of Chiefs of Police brought together more than a dozen national police groups starting last spring to develop a “National Consensus Policy On Use Of Force” after a number of high-profile police-involved shootings, said former IACP President Terry Cunningham, who convened the group before stepping down from the IACP last fall.
Fraternal Order of Police executive director Jim Pasco called the new policy “historic,” because of “the span of perspectives which have signed on, the unanimity of groups,” from both labor and executive groups. “It may well portend a positive working relationship going forward” between officers and police executives.
Nearly all of the existing use of force policies, as well as the new consensus policy, lift wording from the Supreme Court case of Graham v. Connor, which said police shootings should be assessed from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, and whether their actions are “objectively reasonable” in light of the circumstances seen by the officer.
But the new policy adds a section on de-escalation, which states that “An officer shall use de-escalation techniques and other alternatives to higher levels of force consistent with his training whenever possible and appropriate before resorting to force and to reduce the need for force.”
The new policy also allows for shooting at a moving vehicle when a person in the vehicle is threatening the officer or others with a weapon or using the vehicle to deliberately hit someone.
Cunningham agreed with us here at Law Officer and mentioned the recent terrorist attacks with trucks in Nice and Berlin that shows what officers may encounter when someone uses a vehicle as a deadly weapon. He also said if a police department has a policy which flatly prohibits shooting at a vehicle “it can be used against the officer in a criminal or civil trial.”
