Heres an example: If an officer steps in front of a car and then shoots the driver because the car starts moving toward them, under this new law, the jury, the judge, the prosecutor will analyze the propriety, the appropriateness of the officer’s actions not just at the moment that the shots were fired but also the officer’s actions leading up to the moment that the shots were fired. And one of the questions there is whether the officer put themselves into an unnecessarily dangerous situation and then used force to address the danger that they should’ve avoided in the first place.

1. Do you think Californias new standard is appropriate?  Can you think of any recent cases that might have been impacted by this more restrictive policy had it been implemented nationwide?

2. Which of the following strategies do you think would be most effective in reducing excessive use of force? Why?

a. Track the problem – There is no comprehensive government clearinghouse for data on police killings or police use of force. It’s unreliable and often inaccurate, and this has really precluded a lot of study and understanding and also accountability in real-time of local, state and federal police.

b. Demilitarize – police departments with more military equipment from the 1033 program, which provides free surplus military gear to departments for the cost of shipping, kill more people.  Departments with a militaristic, us-versus-them mindset seek out more military equipment. 

c. Change police culture – Training is often cited as a way to reduce racial biases among police officers and encourage de-escalation.  Training in procedural justice, which focuses on fairness, was shown in one randomized experiment to reduce police officers’ likelihood of ending encounters with arrests or using force.    Here are some examples of policies that seek to change the current police culture and reduce the overall use of force:                                             Requiring officers to de-escalate before using force, using guidelines defining the types of force that can be used to respond to specific situations, restricting or banning chokeholds and strangleholds, requiring a verbal warning before using deadly force, prohibiting officers from shooting at moving vehicles except in extreme circumstances, requiring officers to exhaust other options before resorting to deadly force, establishing a duty by officers to intervene if one of their colleagues is using excessive force, requiring officers to report all uses of force or attempted use of force.

d. Invest in alternatives – Research shows that more comprehensive investments in communities pay dividends. Police are often the first to respond when someone with mental health issues is in crisis, and some evidence suggests that as many as 1 in 4 of those killed by police are mentally ill. , So some police departments have launched Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs), which consist of specially trained officers who work to get mentally ill individuals into treatment rather than escalating into a potentially violent encounter. Some places have gone even further, taking police out of the mental-health response equation. In Eugene, Oregon, a 911 diversion program called CAHOOTS redirects calls about mental health-related issues to a team of mental health professionals and medics, rather than to police. Program staff also reach out to the city’s homeless, giving out supplies and referring people to medical care. 

e. Instill oversight – Independent and civilian oversight of police departments can go a long way toward reducing bad behavior. A 2015 study in the journal Police Quarterly found that departments that had citizen complaint investigations reviewed by an outside citizen agency were more likely to find that the complaints had merit, rather than dismissing them without consequence. Federal investigations of police shootings can also reduce police killings, according to a 2017 investigation by VICE News. The news agency reviewed data on police shootings and found that Department of Justice intervention reduced police shootings by an average of 27% in the first year and up to 35% in subsequent years.

3. Several of the speakers in the Hollywood vs. Reality video stated that the police cannot be expected to shoot to disable, meaning that they cannot accurately disarm potentially violent criminals by shooting them in their hands/arms/legs.

How does this align with your perspectives on the use of firearms by police?

4. In England, more than 90 percent of police officers carry out their daily duties without a gun. Most rely on other tools to keep their country safe: canisters of mace, handcuffs, batons and occasionally stun-guns. The Metropolitan Police, which covers most of London, was founded in 1829 on the principle of “policing by consent” rather than by force. Giving everyday police officers guns sends the wrong message to communities, so this thinking goes, and can actually cause more problems than it solves.  

While the U.S. criminal justice system is largely modeled after that of England, we obviously did not adopt this same perspective Do you think we should?  For those of you interested in a law enforcement career, would you still consider becoming a police officer where you currently live if you were unarmed?