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Well, I think lesson number one is we’ve got to protect our
officers and we’ve got to provide them with the tools and the training to use
those tools so they can reduce any kind of injury as much as possible.
But that doesn’t mean giving them free rein to injure or abuse citizens and I
think they owe the citizens that type of response where they’re using the least
amount of force necessary.
So my advice to the police chief is to look at your management program, make
sure your policy is current, make sure your training is sufficient.
Not just what the manufacturer tells you to do, but what you want your officers
to do.
And I think with guidance from different associations and what we know about
these devices I think that can be done fairly easily.
I think you need to make sure that your supervisor is active and keeps up with
his or her officers.
And finally, is that accountability feature.
If an officer is using force more than other officers in that situation or
using higher levels of force than other officers in those situations, then
there has to be some accountability in terms of oversight, in terms of audit,
in terms of analysis of what is going on with that officer.
Is it a problem, or is it simply a function of where he’s working or where
she’s working and the type of people with whom he or she is coming into
contact?