Maria Haberfeld
By Maria Haberfeld
When the Eric Garner video went viral, the public responded with two, unambivalent conclusions. The first was that the police officer used excessive force, and the second that excessive force is used too frequently.
Police forces and the grand juries, however, do not see things that way.
So how can we account for this stark difference in views?
From a legal perspective, the question of whether excessive force was used is a complicated one. The public may say it is self-evident, but it is not the case for the courts.
Legal standards for use of force are judged on a case by case basis. Excessive force is determined, according to the United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor in 1989, by the objective reasonableness of the police officer’s use of force.
A reasonable officer’s actions, the ruling states, would take into account the severity of the crime, whether the suspect was actively resisting and whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the officer or others. If the officer does the above, and still chooses to use force, it will not be deemed excessive, even if it results in grave injury or death. The rules of escalation are built into police training as the Use-of-Force Continuum.
In addition to this, the Supreme Court ruled that courts must take into account that officers are forced to make split-second decisions under tense, dangerous, and rapidly evolving situations. Police encounters with citizens involve a dynamic interplay between both parties. Situations evolve based upon both of their decisions to act, as well as on other situational factors.
Critics say that the above may apply well to various dangerous situations, but what about the circumstances that appear to be non-threatening? The answer to this question needs to take a number of variables into consideration: the officer, departmental policies, characteristics of the people they police and other situational influences.
Within the context of the Garner case, police officers moved swiftly through the first four steps and things went horribly wrong at the pain compliance stage but, one thing needs to be emphasised here, training is explicit that the intention must never be to harm. Officers must use the minimal amount of force possible in order to achieve compliance. The goal, according to police training, is to contain the situation and to minimise resistance and safety threats.
And what about protesters’ claim that there is too much police violence? Again, large swathes of the public have expressed concern about this, but do police departments see things the same way?
Part of the reason the two groups don’t see eye to eye on this is due to lack of evidence.
Researchers on use of force by the police found that even though the office of the United States Attorney General was mandated by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to collect data on the use of force by police, criminal justice professionals still do not have accurate counts of injuries and deaths related to the use of force. This is because of both poor record-keeping and under-reporting.
Police departments are reluctant to gather and provide to the public this information, the study showed. As a result, it is unknown how, or if, the police are trying to minimise their use of force.
All of the above accounts, in part, for the growing gulf between how these cases are viewed by the police and courts on the one side and the public on the other.
In the ideal world, when a confrontation of any kind occurs between a police officer and a member of the public, the police would always use other forms of persuasion than force to achieve compliance.
Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.
The notion of police officers being skilled enough and trained enough to encounter each and every situation with the appropriate level of verbal skills is unrealistic and harmful, both to public’s expectations and the officers who do their best to deliver what we ask them to do: solve problems for us that we ourselves do not want to or cannot solve.
Use of force is always going to be contentious, but it needs to be better defined and documented, to make its use as transparent as possible.
REUTERS
By Maria Haberfeld
When the Eric Garner video went viral, the public responded with two, unambivalent conclusions. The first was that the police officer used excessive force, and the second that excessive force is used too frequently.
Police forces and the grand juries, however, do not see things that way.
So how can we account for this stark difference in views?
From a legal perspective, the question of whether excessive force was used is a complicated one. The public may say it is self-evident, but it is not the case for the courts.
Legal standards for use of force are judged on a case by case basis. Excessive force is determined, according to the United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor in 1989, by the objective reasonableness of the police officer’s use of force.
A reasonable officer’s actions, the ruling states, would take into account the severity of the crime, whether the suspect was actively resisting and whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the officer or others. If the officer does the above, and still chooses to use force, it will not be deemed excessive, even if it results in grave injury or death. The rules of escalation are built into police training as the Use-of-Force Continuum.
In addition to this, the Supreme Court ruled that courts must take into account that officers are forced to make split-second decisions under tense, dangerous, and rapidly evolving situations. Police encounters with citizens involve a dynamic interplay between both parties. Situations evolve based upon both of their decisions to act, as well as on other situational factors.
Critics say that the above may apply well to various dangerous situations, but what about the circumstances that appear to be non-threatening? The answer to this question needs to take a number of variables into consideration: the officer, departmental policies, characteristics of the people they police and other situational influences.
Within the context of the Garner case, police officers moved swiftly through the first four steps and things went horribly wrong at the pain compliance stage but, one thing needs to be emphasised here, training is explicit that the intention must never be to harm. Officers must use the minimal amount of force possible in order to achieve compliance. The goal, according to police training, is to contain the situation and to minimise resistance and safety threats.
And what about protesters’ claim that there is too much police violence? Again, large swathes of the public have expressed concern about this, but do police departments see things the same way?
Part of the reason the two groups don’t see eye to eye on this is due to lack of evidence.
Researchers on use of force by the police found that even though the office of the United States Attorney General was mandated by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to collect data on the use of force by police, criminal justice professionals still do not have accurate counts of injuries and deaths related to the use of force. This is because of both poor record-keeping and under-reporting.
Police departments are reluctant to gather and provide to the public this information, the study showed. As a result, it is unknown how, or if, the police are trying to minimise their use of force.
All of the above accounts, in part, for the growing gulf between how these cases are viewed by the police and courts on the one side and the public on the other.
In the ideal world, when a confrontation of any kind occurs between a police officer and a member of the public, the police would always use other forms of persuasion than force to achieve compliance.
Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.
The notion of police officers being skilled enough and trained enough to encounter each and every situation with the appropriate level of verbal skills is unrealistic and harmful, both to public’s expectations and the officers who do their best to deliver what we ask them to do: solve problems for us that we ourselves do not want to or cannot solve.
Use of force is always going to be contentious, but it needs to be better defined and documented, to make its use as transparent as possible.
REUTERS
