JSO Rookie Firing Could Have Been Prevented

Today in the news a video showed a rookie officer from Jacksonville punching a handcuffed woman. Let’s get this out of the way early: I do not believe that officers should never punch a handcuffed prisoner, regardless of gender. I’ve punched handcuffed prisoners a couple times in my career. It depends upon the situation. My trainers always cautioned us that the most dangerous moment is when the handcuffs come out. When that person realizes they are about to lose their freedom, the fight or flight instinct is at its most powerful. So, yes, I’ve had situations where I’ve been attempting to handcuff a suspect who then begins to struggle and fight. Procedures and state law allow me to use “the necessary force to affect the arrest”. I looked at the video from Jacksonville with this experience in mind. What I saw was a vastly different scenario playing out.

The video does not show what happened at the beginning of the call. I know many of my law enforcement peers will point to that as a suspicious and important point. No, my friends, that is irrelevant. A statement released by the JSO says, according to the officer, the woman “refused to be handcuffed and was kicking and trying to bite the officer, even in the back of the police car”. She may very well have been struggling or fighting when the officer was applying handcuffs, but if so, then why is she standing on the sidewalk with handcuffs already applied? Four officers stand a few feet away, with their hands in their pockets, not exactly appearing concerned for their safety. Also, of note, another handcuffed person, a male, stands to the left of the officers. He’s also apparently of no safety concern.

Back to the woman. We don’t see the application of handcuffs. The video opens with her walking toward the officer already in handcuffs. She’s saying something, probably upset by the situation. No newsflash, nobody likes to get arrested. In response, the young officer takes the woman by the arms, pushing her back toward the exterior wall of the business and appears to push her against the wall with some force. The woman responds with a kick. The officer then delivers several full swing punches to her midsection.

The debate will rage. The first response from a former officer I spoke to was, “She kicked him!” Her kick is not in dispute. Nor is any possibility of her bad behavior or resisting at the time of handcuffing, which we don’t see. So, I want to be clear on what we’re seeing and saying about the events. Are we saying that her resistance during handcuffing justified escalating force? If so, why is she standing on the sidewalk with no one near her, ensuring she doesn’t do anything else? The three other officers are clearly not concerned. Nobody makes any move to secure either individual who is presumably under arrest. If she was combative, why isn’t she in their patrol car? Why isn’t anybody at least hanging onto her?

Next, the woman walks toward the officer, probably verbally challenging whatever he’s doing. He moves her back to the wall. No problem. The shove against the wall? Probably not necessary and ill advised. That was the first anger response. The woman’s anger response is a kick in return. She’s wrong. No doubt. However, police officers are charged with using force for defense, and that force should be balanced by the threat. Her kick, although factually criminal and wrong, was not an action justifying the flurry of roundhouse punches that he threw. He got mad and lashed out. While I agree, he’s human, and humans react badly sometimes, that does not make him right.

The overall problem I have seen many times in cases like this (some even worse) is unfortunate because it is so preventable and the prevention is the responsibility of the officer(s). We too often jump right to the defense of “that person shouldn’t have done whatever”. I get it. That’s true. What is more important is that we really have to change our thinking from action/reaction, force/escalation to controlling our space in the first place. It’s a form of de-escalation that aims to prevent the escalation before it starts. Again, she struggled against cuffing? Okay, put her in the back of the police car. That’s what it’s for. The officer chose not to do that. Everything else that occurred developed from that poor decision. I think the term for that is officer induced danger or threat. Secure her and she won’t keep fighting you. Period.

What makes matters worse is the other three officers on scene. Shame on them. They stand there, hands in their pockets, proving no real threat is perceived, and showing no reaction whatsoever to the punches thrown by the rookie. One older officer does finally stroll over after the punches and speak to the woman or officer, we can’t tell. The rookie then walks away and the woman collapses to the sidewalk. Still, no one makes any move to place her into a patrol car. I can’t stress this enough—if a suspect like her is so violent, why not? Folks, whether we like it or not, once we arrest someone, they are now our responsibility. Too often, mistakes such as this—not securing a suspect—result in unnecessary escalation and sometimes tragedy. Not just suspects dying, but cops injured and killed. It’s true.

This case is a classic example of ways that police have to get back to basics and do their job properly. Officer safety and prisoner handling training are very specific on how we should handle arrestees and it’s not the way they did it on this video. One last point is about the three other officers. Your responsibility was to intervene. If the rookie was getting pissed off, step in and tell him to relax. What would that hurt? Or what about one of you saying, hey let’s put her in the car? Is that so hard?

The video is a sad reminder that following our training and being responsible for each other at a call is important. Policing by nature is defined by dealing with people at their worst. We’ve all been there. The yelling, screaming. We should already be prepared to hear tirades and endure the inevitable verbal onslaught. It will happen and officers have the tools to deal with it before it gets out of hand. These JSO officers had many opportunities to control this situation. Sadly, they didn’t. Their inaction allowed a woman to be punched, caused the JSO and all cops embarrassment, and cost a rookie cop his badge.

National, military-like standards would help policing

We see the videos popping up more and more, capturing the worst of the police profession. It makes good cops angry and more disturbingly, casts a shadow over the profession, making even the average person wonder about all cops. It’s frustrating, I know. But, instead of getting angry at the person who posted the video, we should be angry at the individual tarnishing our badge, and the system that allows those unworthy personnel to stay too long, by resigning and moving to another jurisdiction. They should not keep their certification. We need higher standards and a commitment to uphold those standards nationwide.

I’m going to say something completely challenging the popular narrative in our culture today. We don’t need less militarization of policing, we need more. Yes, I said more.

Dear, citizen, I hear you yelling, “WTH?” But, before you fly off the handle and your head explodes, please listen. Not bigger, badder guns or armored vehicles. We need more military-like training and streamlined standards. I’ll explain. When you join the Marines, you go to basic training at Parris Island, SC or San Diego, CA. Everybody goes there for training. The same training. There is a standard curriculum and standard requirements in order for you to EARN the right to call yourself a marine. That’s right. EARN the title. In the process you learn what character it takes to be a marine. What’s best about this is that once a marine is forged into the proper mold, now any duty assignment he goes to, his superiors know that he has at least met the minimum criteria for becoming a marine. More importantly, his fellow marines can rest assured of his training in the event they have to cover each others asses in a firefight.

That’s what we need in law enforcement. Standards and continuity. We say we have them, and their are various criminal justice standards organizations, but the truth is they are a patchwork of differing requirements state to state. Training for law enforcement should be standardized nationally. A cop in a small town in Iowa should get the same training as a cop in LA, and held to the same standard of achievement. That way, a cop in a small town in Virginia, who moves to Tampa is truly making a lateral move and can be readily assimilated. As a nation and profession, we have to come to the realization that too often we have been derelict in our duty to ensure only the best wear a badge. An officer’s standing and responsibility in the society requires a higher level of character and physical fitness. Once selected, it is then our duty to ensure rigorous, continued, training, even though that costs money. It’s imperative that we make this change.

Police recruits should EARN the right to hold the title of Police Officer. Exhibit the character required to wear a badge. Too often, we have relinquished law enforcement training to our community colleges and accepted less stringent standards on a daily basis. I’ve heard way too many stories from new officers that half the time instructors didn’t show up or their FTO didn’t do anything but dog a certain intersection for traffic tickets, and consequently they are on the street and don’t know how to handle some basic call. More disturbing is the tendency today in law enforcement to hire experienced officers, without really vetting them. We need look no further than a few current cases in the news. The Tamir Rice shooting and the Floyd Dent excessive force case both feature examples of officers who left their agencies under questionable circumstances and are now in the news again. Raising the standards of law enforcement and making a commitment to one another that those standards will be universal could prevent these and many more cases like them. I mean, how is it that the Tulsa Sheriff can openly say that he has the power to “waive criteria”? And in the past month, NYPD and Philadelphia have openly acknowledged they haven’t been requiring their officers to undergo continuing training in critical areas like defensive tactics. If the first and fourth largest agencies in this country are neglecting training, what does logic say is happening elsewhere? That’s a big problem.

Folks, we have to take a hard look at our professional standards. Raising the bar will benefit every good cop on the streets today. This, in turn, will benefit our communities, and make our cities safer. Most importantly, national standards will begin to restore the public’s faith in law enforcement. If you’re a cop today, you don’t have to be perfect. We know you are human. But as a profession, policing must start striving for a national level of excellence. The time is now.

~Be safe.