Tag: Police Use of Force

State Violence, Legitimacy, and the Path to True Public Safety – Niskanen Center

Let’s be clear about what’s been happening in the country these last few weeks. Policing is an arm of the state. Police departments and police officers operate under the color of law and as agents of the state, with authority granted by their nation’s citizens. That gives their actions special meaning. George Floyd was—literally—killed by his government. Over and over again in America, Black people have been killed, beaten, and otherwise abused by their government through its agents: the police. In the modern era, Rodney King was beaten by his government. Michael Brown was shot and killed by his government. Walter Scott was shot in the back and killed by his government; his government then falsified the shooting scene and lied about what had happened.
— Read on www.niskanencenter.org/state-violence-legitimacy-and-the-path-to-true-public-safety/

In study of police, female officers perceived more danger, were more suspicious of civilians than male colleagues

How do female police officers, who are often excluded from the traditional masculine occupational culture of policing, feel about their working environment and how the public perceives them? A new study has used survey data from officers in a large, urban police department to test for gender differences in two aspects of the external environment that are core to police cultural attitudes: perceptions of danger and suspiciousness toward civilians.
— Read on phys.org/news/2024-07-police-female-officers-danger-suspicious.html

De-escalation Training: What Works, Implementation Lessons, and Taking It to Scale; Plenary at the 2023 NIJ Research Conference

There is a video of the panel discussion at the website below.

Police use of force, while infrequently used, is a tremendous concern to public safety in the United States when officers employ it excessively or inappropriately, causing injury or death and eroding public trust in law enforcement. This plenary from the 2023 NIJ Research Conference describes the Integrating, Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) de-escalation training program developed by the Police Executive Research Forum to guide officers in defusing critical incidents. A rigorous evaluation of ICAT found it reduced overall use of force as well as injuries to both officers and members of the public. Panelists will describe how research evidence was used to develop the training curriculum; discuss strategies to ensure training implementation fidelity and secure the buy-in of all ranks; describe preliminary findings from complementary NIJ-sponsored replication evaluations; and explore strategies to take ICAT to scale. Led by Karhlton Moore, director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the plenary was a discussion among Robin Engel, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, National Policing Institute Maris Herold, Chief, Boulder Police Department, Colorado Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) Justin Witt, Sergeant, Louisville Metro Police Department, Kentucky
— Read on nij.ojp.gov/multimedia/de-escalation-training

The Cost of Police Violence and Mayhem – A Report on Police Misconduct During the George Floyd Protests

Four years ago, on May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. We already had a too-long list of black men and women killed by police, and the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s throat for nine minutes, assisted by 3 other cops, spurred a mass protest movement into action.

The movement against the long and brutal history of police murdering Black men crystallized under the banner of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in 2013 after the acquittal of the man who killed 17-year old Trayvon Martin.1 The movement grew, forcing us to pay attention as police killed Black men and women with impunity. On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner uttered his last words, “I can’t breathe,” over and over 17 times to an NYPD cop who continued to choke him. Less than a month later, Ferguson cop Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. And police kept killing Black people in other towns and cities all across America. We said their names and held them in our hearts: Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Breonna Taylor. And so many more, their glaring absence felt by their communities.
— Read on drive.google.com/file/d/12OOPD54mQSsCBanMomfHIN_tkumtm4IR/view